A former Dunkin’ storefront on Pasadena Avenue South is about to get a new sign, a new menu, and a baker who says he came out of retirement simply because he was bored. Serey Siev and his wife, Phiny Long, plan to open a Fray’s Donut House at 1200 Pasadena Avenue South in South Pasadena in January 2027, bringing more than 30 kinds of doughnuts to a building that spent years serving coffee and breakfast sandwiches under a national chain name.
According to St Pete Rising, Siev and Long purchased the building for $925,000 last month, and the site will receive mostly cosmetic updates, including a white Fray’s sign with red and black lettering, before it reopens. The 2,480-square-foot building sits on a 0.61-acre parcel and was originally built as a standalone restaurant space with a drive-thru, according to LoopNet property records. The site formerly operated as a Dunkin’ franchise that took part in local Tampa Bay charitable programs as recently as December 2022, according to 102.5 The Bone.
A Family Trade Spanning Two Generations
Siev’s connection to doughnuts goes back decades. His parents immigrated to the United States from Cambodia in 1979 and later opened doughnut shops in San Diego and Lake Tahoe, per the station’s report. Siev began learning the trade from his uncle at 15 or 16 and worked in his parents’ shops as a young adult, and he has said he has been making doughnuts for 40-something years.
His late mother, Marlene Kim, carried that trade into Pinellas County herself, previously owning and operating the Lighthouse Doughnut Shop in Indian Rocks Beach before her death in 2012, according to a Dignity Memorial obituary. The family’s path mirrors a much larger national pattern: up to 80 to 90 percent of independent doughnut shops in California and across the country are owned by Cambodian refugees and Cambodian-Americans, a trend traced back to refugee Ted Ngoy in the late 1970s, as reported by Business Insider.
Stepping Away, Then Coming Back
Siev purchased the Fray’s location at 4900 Park Boulevard in Pinellas Park from founder Bill Fray in late 2009 and ran it for roughly 15 years. He sold the Park Boulevard business in 2024 after health problems forced him to step away from work, per the same account. Public corporate filings show Siev and Long had formally incorporated SPL Donuts Inc. in Florida back in 2010 to operate that shop, with Siev listed as president and Long as vice president, according to Florida Division of Corporations records…