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Roger H. Chen, a Taiwanese expatriate, opened the chain's first location in 1984 in the Vietnamese American community of Little Saigon in Westminster, California. The chain is headquarted in Buena Park, California.
Although most of its customers are ethnic Chinese Americans, especially serving middle to upper class Taiwanese American immigrants, the chain sells a wide range of imported food products and merchandise from Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, and Southeast Asia. It also carries some domestic products made by Chinese American companies (e.g., moon cakes, fortune and almond cookies) and mainstream American brands.
Most 99 Ranch Market locations have a full-service take-out deli serving a combination of Taiwanese, Cantonese, and Sichuan fare. The stores also have a bakery with cakes and fresh Chinese pastries. Most of the bread products and pastries sold in the markets are made inside the store.
The chain often operates chiefly in the newer suburban Chinatowns, including Milpitas (where the supermarket is strategically located near the Taiwanese-dominated technology industries of the Silicon Valley) and Irvine (where numerous Taiwanese and other Asian American students attend the University of California, Irvine) in California. In many cases, it has been the anchor tenant for other stores and restaurants in these developing suburban shopping areas. It has found less success operating in the older Chinatown of Los Angeles due to obscure location, lack of parking space and perhaps competition from local small grocers which are generally popular among lower-income elderly Chinese.
In design, it is similar to mainstream American supermarkets, with aisles wider, cleaner, and less cluttered than most Chinese markets. Also, a handful of 99 Ranch Market locations have an in-store branch of East West Bank, a major Chinese American bank. Although the chain remains successful and popular, prices are on average generally more expensive when compared to some smaller Chinese grocers. However, setting up in suburbia, 99 Ranch Market may be the only Asian American supermarket for miles around. This is especially the case in San Diego, California and Kent, Washington.
Because 99 Ranch Market serves a predominantly Taiwanese American base, Mandarin Chinese serves as the lingua franca of the supermarket and its adjacent businesses.
In Southern California, its main competitors are the ever-expanding chains of Hong Kong Supermarket (established in 1981) and Shun Fat Supermarket - the latter has some hypermarket locations. These two supermarket chains tend to be located within proximity of some 99 Ranch Market locations, especially in the Asian American-dominant region of the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California.