Vivian Kong Doctora ’96 was selling bao at a farmers market when a loyal customer came up to her and told her she’d missed a few weeks because her mother had died. Kong Doctora talked to her for 15 minutes, a woman whose name she didn’t know but someone she had a connection to.

Food connects us. It’s universal, transcends borders and languages, and can get conversations started. Since leaving the corporate world, Kong Doctora has been looking for ways to connect people and build community through food.

“There’s a lot of culture in the food you create,” she said. “Sometimes people want to label you, and food is a way for people to start asking questions versus making assumptions. When they share something, they invariably share their story.”

Kong Doctora’s bao recipe is a version of the one her mother made when they lived in Hong Kong. In 2021, she started making the steam buns in a shared kitchen, rolling, pleating, and pinching hundreds of buns every week. Bao Destination was born, and a 21-year career at State Farm ended. It was a leap for her, but she is comfortable with leaps.

Seven years ago, she was working on developing a food hall in Uptown Normal. Not to be confused with a mall food court with beige tables and plastic trays, it would be a destination where local chefs and startups would showcase their culinary creations in an upscale environment, and the community would gather.

The plan was moving along, and then the pandemic hit. Financing fell through, the developer moved on, and Kong Doctora had to do some soul-searching. While others were practicing their sourdough bread baking, she was perfecting her bao. Her husband, Redney Doctora, and their twins, Riley and Haley, were the taste testers, and it was a hit.
She started making bao in a ghost kitchen at the Parke Regency Hotel for pickup and delivery. The pork dumpling was her bestseller, but she added other varieties, including Mongolian chicken, pepperoni pizza, and a vegan option. She could make about 150 buns in four hours and started selling frozen packs to local groceries.

Some wondered how she broke into that market. “I just walked in and asked to talk to the grocery store managers,” she said. “They will say no, or they will say yes.”

As a new entrepreneur, Kong Doctora had a lot to learn. She networked, watched YouTube videos, and earned her realtor’s license so she could learn more about property investment, feeding that food hall dream. She thought she needed to learn how to run a restaurant, so she became a partner in Kobe Revolving Sushi Bar in Bloomington, which opened in November 2024.

“I enjoy the process of creating something and getting it to the finish line,” she said, sitting in the test kitchen of Bloomington’s Green Top Grocery, one of the sites where she offers immersion cooking classes called Beyond Social, which she started in 2022.

But it’s not just food she wants to share with the community. It’s what she’s learned.

Three years ago realtor Jennifer Johnson met Kong Doctora at a McLean County Chamber of Commerce event. By the end of their conversation, Kong Doctora asked for her phone and punched in her number. The two began networking. Johnson nominated Kong Doctora for the McLean County Chamber of Commerce 2024 Athena Leadership Award for being a powerful advocate for women and minority business owners.

“She’s all about creating and helping others in the community,” Johnson said. “She wants to build people up and take them with her. She serves as an example, mentor, and ambassador, helping others believe in themselves and their dreams.”

Kong Doctora also encourages young entrepreneurs. In 2023, she partnered with CO+LAB event consultants to create the Young Entrepreneur Market, which has become an annual local event for kids ages 5 to 17.

Being an entrepreneur can be lonely, Kong Doctora said. She works alone and makes decisions alone. There was a time she almost shut Bao Destination down because she wasn’t making a profit. There are still days she wonders if she should be doing something else, but she doesn’t stay in that place very long.

“I know where I want to go,” she said, bringing up the food hall again. “It just didn’t work this time. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to work. Maybe it didn’t happen because I was not ready. I know if I keep going, something is going to lead me where I want to go.”

At 19, Kong Doctora, her parents and three siblings came to the U.S. from Hong Kong when British rule was ending, and the territory was returned to China. All four children attended Illinois State University. She and her late sister, Eleanor Kong ’97, were looking for community and found it among the Asian students on campus. They were among the founders of the Asian Pacific American Coalition, a registered student organization that thrives today.

Reaching out to others in the community who need support, advocacy, and encouragement is part of Kong Doctora’s mission.

“I can learn everything about running a business, opening a business, and then I can help someone do that,” she said. “I’ve already done the hard part, so why have someone else go through that? Someone passed that knowledge on to me, so I should pay it forward.”

It’s hard for her to define success, she said, but she knows what matters.

“I don’t know what success really is to me,” she said. “If I can inspire or motivate others to want to take a little more risk or forge their own path and follow their dreams instead of worrying about failure, that would be success to me.”

A taste from the kitchen

Vivian Kong Doctora’s shrimp dumpling recipe

Vivian Kong Doctora ’96 shares her signature shrimp dumpling recipe.