New York, NY (Lower East Side / Chinatown) · Est. 2016 · Founded by Ruoyi Jiang
Ruoyi Jiang grew up in Beijing, moved to New York at 19 to study photography at NYU, and in 2016 found herself with an unexpected Chinatown lease and a clear vision: a store dedicated to contemporary Chinese and Asian design that didn't yet exist in America. Chop Suey Club is that store -- part boutique, part cultural archive, part community space -- carrying home goods, objects, and art from designers across the Asian diaspora.
Ruoyi Jiang was looking for something she couldn't find. Living in New York after years working across fashion, architecture, art, and film, she kept searching for home goods and objects by contemporary Chinese designers -- and kept coming up empty. The work existed. The visibility didn't.
In 2016, through a close relationship with a Chinatown landlord, she inherited a commercial lease in the Lower East Side and decided to build the store herself. She had no retail background. She gave herself five months to make it work. It worked.
Chop Suey Club takes its name from the iconic American Chinese dish -- a medley, a meeting point, something invented at a cultural crossroads -- and the store operates the same way. Seasonal rotations of home goods, ceramics, clothing, jewelry, art, and collectibles from designers across China and the broader Asian diaspora, each piece chosen with deep attention to its cultural history and context. The store hosts mahjong nights that routinely draw 300 RSVPs. It has become a cultural institution in lower Manhattan and a platform for some of the most exciting design emerging from Asia today. On a registry, a piece from Chop Suey Club carries a story worth telling at the table.
