Mei Mei Dumplings continues growth while aiming to help other restaurants succeed
BOSTON – Mei Mei Dumplings has a new home in South Boston and the factory is the focus.
"The dumplings come out of this machine and then get finished by hand," Irene Li, co-founder of Mei Mei Dumplings told WBZ-TV.
Mei Mei Dumplings started out on wheels in 2012. After the food truck's success, Li and her siblings opened a restaurant in the Fenway neighborhood where they served loyal customers until the pandemic hit.
"We closed the restaurant in March 2020. We thought it was going to be for a couple months. Then we decided to stay closed because we just didn't know what was going to happen," Li said.
Li took immediate action to feed front line workers and community members. She was later recognized for her efforts, becoming the youngest recipient of the James Beard Award for Leadership.
And it was during the uncertainty of the pandemic that her business took an unexpected turn when a customer invited her to come sell dumplings at a local farmers market.
"I have to be honest, I looked at that invitation and I said well that's for startups and small companies," said Li. "And my two partners were like, 'Irene, we're a startup now too.' Like, it's COVID, we're all startups, so we have to try everything."
It was a huge success and it led Li and her team to switch gears and focus on dumpling production.
"We knew we wanted to grow into a space that would allow us to scale dumplings and take them everywhere - as far as we could go," said Li.
In January of this year the woman-owned business moved into this 5,500-square foot space that was once used to manufacture electrical parts for planes and cars and now pumps out about 1,500 dumplings an hour. The window between the factory and cafe invites diners to watch the process unfold.
The cafe operates limited lunch hours so the space can also double as a classroom.
"Our cooking classes are modeled off of our home dumpling parties that my mom and dad would throw. They would invite everyone over and we would fold dumplings and laugh and tease and joke and have a great time," Li said.
The dumplings are filled with ingredients mostly from small, family farms in the northeast, giving them a New England flavor.
"These are not your grandma's dumplings. These are not our grandma's dumplings. We think of dumplings as an art form and you can apply any delicious ingredient to," Li said.
Li is not competitive. In fact she's the opposite. During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month she has run a "dumpling disloyalty" promotion, actually encouraging their customers to go try other dumpling restaurants.
"It's a time to celebrate our team members, our peers and colleagues and other businesses doing great work in the city," said Li. "For me, supporting other businesses and making sure all restaurants can succeed together is a new priority for me personally."
As for Mei Mei Dumplings - after all the twists and turns through the pandemic - the future looks bright and tasty.
"No one concept is pandemic proof. So, for us now to have our dumpling business grow into wholesale, to have our books as well as our classes which have been a huge hit, so grateful. Having all those revenue streams has felt like a safe bet for us," said Li.
The goal for Mei Mei is to get their dumplings into grocery stores across the country.
