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Charmaine Yu

It is 9.30pm in Scarborough, in Canada’s Ontario province, and just as most people are thinking of getting ready for bed, 28-year-old Anna Peng is about to get back to work – after already having put in a 13-hour shift.
She has just closed Great Fountain Fast Food, her family’s beloved Hong Kong-style eatery, for the day, and now it is time for cleaning up.
“I first started doing two-hour shifts at Great Fountain while I was still in school, just to help out my mum,” she says. That was the beginning of her journey as the second-generation steward of a restaurant that her parents have owned for more than 10 years.
Today, she juggles both front and back of house, greeting customers while also cooking dishes like satay beef fried noodles and baked pork chop rice in the kitchen.

It is no secret that she originally hated working at her family’s business.
“My Chinese wasn’t that good, so being surrounded by all these Chinese-speaking clients made me feel out of place. Working with my mum back then was also difficult because she can be quite a perfectionist,” she admits.
The story of Great Fountain in Scarborough’s Dynasty Centre shopping mall is perhaps a classic diasporic tale, one that Peng is now sharing with a new generation through her Instagram account, @greatfountain. The account, which now has nearly 40,000 followers, documents the daily joys and challenges of running a food business.
Peng, who studied industrial design at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto, never intended to join the family business. Her 2020 graduation, however, came in tandem with Covid-19 lockdowns as jobs in her field were slashed, which prompted her to work full-time at the restaurant.












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A post shared by Great Fountain Fast Food 大泉 (@greatfountain)



With the world in an eerie, apocalyptic state, her perspective shifted.
“That was when I realised that my parents actually made a lot of sacrifices to immigrate here.” Her mother worked in Hong Kong customs, and her father worked at a bank.
Peng’s parents, who immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada between the late 1980s and early 1990s, initially worked in garment factories – the only jobs immigrants could easily secure at the time, Peng says. After being laid off in 2008, they transitioned to running their own businesses to secure income, starting with a shop selling fish and chips in Pickering, Ontario.
“They not only had their jobs taken away from them, but also started from scratch and learned a whole new industry,” Peng says.

Previously, her parents had no experience in the food and drink industry and had to rely on “keen observation, hard work and asking the right questions to the right people” to make it in the cutthroat business.
“But during that time, my mum missed being around our culture,” Peng says, explaining the “disconnect” her mother felt serving and conversing primarily with the white clientele of the suburban Pickering.
In 2015, hoping to help her mother reconnect with her roots, the family acquired Great Fountain in Scarborough – one of the country’s most ethnically diverse hubs – from owners who had run the business for more than a decade.
The transition from a fish-and-chip shop in Pickering to a Hong Kong-style fast-food restaurant in Scarborough was a huge culture shock for her parents. “Hong Kong people just move so fast, and they’re less patient with you,” Peng says.

Adding to the shock was the immense menu. The new business boasted more than 200 different variations of baked rice, stir-fries, soups and Hong Kong-style breakfasts – variations Peng is trying to reduce today for operational efficiency.
With traditional Cantonese ingredients easily accessible thanks to Scarborough’s large Chinese demographic, and as the restaurant’s clientele was largely immigrants, they did not feel pressure to change the flavours for Western tongues.
“We didn’t really have to change and make ‘orange chicken’ or anything,” Peng laughs.
Her dedication to long workdays at the restaurant certainly comes at a high personal cost. She often has to decline invitations for Saturday brunches, and she has missed some of her best friends’ weddings. She even missed her own graduation ceremony.












View this post on Instagram























A post shared by Great Fountain Fast Food 大泉 (@greatfountain)



Her “north star”, however, is giving back to her parents. She also explains that since joining Great Fountain full-time, her relationship with her parents has softened and harmonised as she has grown to understand her mother’s ways of working. Additionally, the daily interactions with Chinese-speaking staff and customers have polished up her Cantonese and Mandarin skills.
Now, as Peng takes a more prominent role, she is leveraging her design background to secure the business’s future, with plans of opening a second branch in the works.
She is also implementing standard operating procedures and advocating for other food businesses to incorporate new technology such as artificial intelligence and automation to ensure their longevity in an evolving market.
“My main goal for 2026 is to really try to get more ‘mom and pop’ shops to harness the power of social media,” she adds.
The momentum gained from social media also helped her forge a new passion: building a community to represent Asian-Canadians. Attention from small, local media outlets has transformed her into a sort of micro-celebrity in Scarborough.












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A post shared by Scarborough Spots 🍁 (@scarboroughspots)



“There’s a sense of pride because I grew up here and I want this neighbourhood to succeed. But at the end of the day, fame isn’t really what I wanted in the first place. So, it’s still a little strange,” she says.
For diasporic Hongkongers, Great Fountain remains a place to find authentic, nostalgic flavours from a faraway home. The most popular dish is the garlic fried chicken on fried rice, while Peng’s personal favourite to make is the milk tea, which she proudly calls the best in the city.
“But I might be biased,” she laughs.


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Food and Drinks

Anna Peng with her parents at their eatery Great Fountain Fast Food, a Hong Kong-style Chinese restaurant in Scarborough, in Canada’s Ontario province. Photo: Great Fountain Fast Food

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Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Family & Relationships

Anna Peng shares the daily joys and challenges of running Canada’s Great Fountain Fast Food to its nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram


Anna Peng shares the daily joys and challenges of running Canada’s Great Fountain Fast Food to its nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram.


She hated working at her parents’ Chinese restaurant. Now she’s made it viral

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Anna Peng shares the daily joys and challenges of running Canada’s Great Fountain Fast Food to its nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram

Anna Peng shares the daily joys and challenges of running Canada’s Great Fountain Fast Food to its nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram