LYNNWOOD—The popular Bellevue-based dim sum restaurant chain, Dough Zone, opened their first Snohomish County location in Lynnwood on February 12, offering delicious, quick, and affordable bites to north end guests for the first time ever.
Dough Zone offers a variety of small-portioned Chinese comfort foods dishes at affordable prices (every menu item is under $10). The concept is inspired by Chinese dim sum, which is an assortment of small-portioned dishes meant to be shared and typically served with tea. These include Siu Mai (pork and shrimp dumplings), Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings), noodles, veggies, and an assortment of house specials.
“The concept is that we want to bring to the community that you can come over, sit, one person can go, and they can eat multiple things,” said Nancy Yun, Marketing Director for Dough Zone.
Yun has been working as Marketing Manager for Dough Zone for about six months. She was attracted to the company for its hard work ethic and, of course, the food.
The first Dough Zone opened in Bellevue in 2014, founded by husband-and-wife duo Nancy and Jason Zhai. What started as a mom-and-pop operation, with Zhai working in the kitchen and his family and friends working the front of house, has now grown to 27 locations across Washington, Oregon, California, and Texas.
Just last year the dim sum restaurant opened a total of 8 new locations including Kent, Tukwila, and Harbor Steps in downtown Seattle. A new location is also scheduled to open later this year in Lacey.
The new Lynnwood location’s is a second-generation building has the capacity to seat up to 120 people. The process to open the restaurant took approximately seven months.
The decision to bring Dough Zone to Lynnwood has been in the works for quite some time, Yun informed the Lynnwood Times, based on its diverse Asian community and multiple requests from Snohomish County fans who would travel down to King County to dine.
“We had a lot of interest. Lynnwood was very excited for the Dough Zone location,” said Yun.
Inspired by dim sum restaurants in China, Dough Zone utilizes a paper menu where patrons check the boxes of what they want to order (and the quantity) and can expect their food delivered within 15 minutes or less. The paper menu is left taped to the side of the table in case customers decide they would like to order more.
“It’s more of a quicker service. Our philosophy is we want you to come in and it’s going to be a quick, easy, meal that you can fairly fast and hopefully there’s not much of a line,” said Yun. “We want you to order multiple dishes. They are small portioned for a reason and they are cheaper for a reason.”
When the Lynnwood location opened last month there was, in fact, quite a line, Yun added, but the restaurant has been working on streamlining the process from allowing guests to join an online waitlist and even offering delivery and takeout. The restaurant is also considering offering reservations soon.
The newly opened Lynnwood location, located at Lynnwood Crossroads at 19702 Highway 99, is one of Dough Zone’s largest locations at 5,100 square feet (interior of 4,265 sq ft and 848 sq ft).
Though Dough Zone does offer traditional dim sum dishes it hesitates to call itself solely a dim sum restaurant as it offers a variety of other dishes, ranging from several different areas of Chinese cuisine.
In China, wheat-based dishes (such as bao and noodles) were traditionally served in Northern China – where more wheat was grown – while rice-based dishes were more typically seen in Southern China – where more rice was grown.
While Dough Zone’s namesake is influenced primarily by Northern Chinese food the restaurant chain plans to implement more Southern Chinese, rice-based, dishes in the near future.
Staple dishes include the pork Xiao Long Bao, the panfried Q-bao, sweet and sour cucumber, and the Dan Dan noodles.
“We have very delicious, high-quality, food for an affordable price,” said Yun. “We’re cheaper than some of our competitors and we do work hard to keep the prices as they are, which is really important in this economy.
Lynnwood Dough Zone plans to engage more in its community in the coming years, partnering with local school districts to offer food at a discount and donating to auctions, and getting involved in local Lunar New Year celebrations.
Aside from opening a new location in Lacey later this year, and further plans to open another location in the Bay Area at a yet-to-be-determined date, Dough Zone is currently gearing up to launch a brand of Consumer Package Goods (CPG) which will be available at most retailers. These will include frozen dumplings, sauces, and scallion pancakes.
The Lynnwood Dough Zone is currently fully staffed but is always welcoming applications. To keep up to date on job openings, or apply, visit www.doughzonedumplinghouse.com/lynnwood
You can follow Dough Zone on most social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok at DoughZoneUSA.
Lynnwood Dough Zone is open every day from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m., and open until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
