Meet the Entrepreneur Behind Sum Bar Dim Sum Restaurant in Greenville, SC
Meet Khailing Neoh, owner of popular Greenville dim sum restaurant Sum Bar, which opened in 2022. Neoh transitioned from a successful engineering career to open the restaurant after starting with pop-ups. Ahead, find out why she decided to switch careers and where she is on her entrepreneurial journey.
In This Article
You had a successful career in engineering before opening Sum Bar. What made you want to pivot to the restaurant industry?
Entrepreneurship is in my blood, and my grandparents and parents who immigrated here, they had their own restaurants.
When I was doing my full-time job and COVID hit, I did a bit of soul searching. I personally didn’t hate my job or my team or anything, but there was a yearning for small businesses and restaurants. The itch was so strong. For a lot of entrepreneurs, once you get that itch, you can’t really get rid of it. So, the restaurant that we built was something I wanted to see here when I moved here, with diversity in cuisine type and ownership and how this business operates. We wanted to be different.
Why did you choose to start a business in Greenville? How has that proven to be the right choice?
It felt so important and timely for me to do this in Greenville, because we have so many great people moving here with a lot of new ideas and tastes. And from my pop-ups, I could tell that people were really craving this type of concept. It’s just a different version of comfort food.
Dumplings and dim sum, for a lot of people, are comfort food, but for a lot of people in Greenville, it’s completely new. With so many people coming to Greenville, they are looking for the tried and true and new and novel, and people moving here from bigger cities are looking for the same amount of diversity as the places they came from. It felt like Greenville was not only a diverse space in the South, but it was going to be one of the meccas for business, tech, food and quality of life.
What local resources did you utilize to start your business?
Other than networking and getting coffee with people, I looked at the Greenville Chamber’s programs to see what they had to offer. I applied to the Pacesetters, a group mentoring program through the chamber, half to make friends because I was new in the city and half to see what kind of mentorship/ advice I could get for the business.
Although the mentors weren’t specifically aligned with restaurants, they had general business and life advice that was super helpful. It was a cohort of people who immediately supported me. We were all supporting one another’s goals, which was really cool.
How supportive has the community been?
Incredibly supportive. Our first year was absolutely insane. It was so busy that people couldn’t get in the door. At one point, there were 150 people on a waitlist just to get in. That first year really boosted my self-confidence, but as a business, it made us feel like people wanted us here and that we belonged here. The Greenville community shows up for new businesses.
How has your business grown since opening?
It has grown in a lot of ways. We still see that about 50% of our customer base is new every night, so that means we’re getting foot traffic from tourists and other locals who haven’t been here before. We’ve grown in our customer base. We’ve grown in our capacity to host events, keeping the space full and letting people use the space for private events.
What tips do you have for others looking to start a business in Greenville?
This might not be the most fun for some, but networking. I don’t know if it’s a combination of Southern hospitality and the love for small businesses and new ideas here, but I just found the most supportive community of people. Just telling individuals my idea, people would offer to give me other contacts or give me support or help or advice. That’s just the way this city works. You meet people who like what you’re doing, and they’re going to do whatever it takes to help you.
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