The Best AAPI-Owned Shops in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is home to one of the largest and most diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the United States. The San Gabriel Valley alone boasts a significant concentration of Asian American residents, businesses, and cultural institutions. Koreatown stands as one of the densest urban neighborhoods in California, while Sawtelle Japantown on the Westside has served as a Japanese American cultural corridor for over a century.
Yet, if you attempt to find a genuinely comprehensive, neighborhood-organized, and thoughtfully written guide to the best AAPI-owned shops across the city, you often come up empty. What exists is typically a listicle of restaurants with a few boutiques tacked on or a thin roundup timed to Heritage Month that vanishes from the internet by June.
This is not that. This guide treats AAPI-owned retail in Los Angeles with the seriousness it deserves, organized by neighborhood and crafted for those eager to support these shops. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in 2024, there were over 3 million AAPI-owned businesses in the United States. Los Angeles holds a significant share of those businesses, many of which are currently doing some of the most exciting retail work in the city.
Start with this Saturday if you can.
Start Here This Weekend: MAUM Market Returns to ROW DTLA
Before diving into the permanent shops, the most time-sensitive AAPI retail event in Los Angeles deserves its own spotlight.
MAUM Market is returning to ROW DTLA on March 21. This market champions AAPI artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs, resulting in a mindfully curated shopping experience. Discover accessories, art, kids' toys, beauty and wellness goodies, ceramics, stationery, clothing, jewelry, home wares, and treats at this family-friendly and pet-friendly fair. Entry is free.
The name MAUM comes from the Korean word for heart and mind. Co-founded by community builder Arnold Byun and tea expert Kioh Park, the market was built around the idea that AAPI businesses do not need to compete with one another. "A lot of people think that business has to be a competition, but we provide this opportunity for all vendors to be friends and become family as well," Park shared.
MAUM Market at ROW DTLA features over 70 LA-based small, Asian-owned businesses across art, home, fashion, jewelry, snacks, and drinks at 777 S. Alameda Street in Downtown Los Angeles.
Vendors who have participated say the market has been transformative for their businesses. "MAUM Market not only helped boost my business, but also my confidence by providing a safe space to meet customers and hear feedback in real life," one participant noted. "MAUM has been a market we always return to because of the team's commitment to prioritizing vendors and their success."
Saturday, March 21. Free entry. ROW DTLA. If you can only do one thing this weekend, make it this.
Sawtelle Japantown: A Century of AAPI Retail
Sawtelle Boulevard between Olympic and Missouri is one of the most historically significant commercial corridors in AAPI Los Angeles, and it has never been more worth a dedicated visit than it is right now.
Giant Robot Gallery and Store
2015 Sawtelle Boulevard. Open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.
Since its opening in 2001, Giant Robot has been recognized for promoting Asian American art and pop culture in Los Angeles. Owner Eric Nakamura has dedicated himself to creating a space where Asian American and Pacific Islander voices are celebrated for their vast diversity and unique perspectives through thoughtfully curated pop culture. Giant Robot also helps preserve the important stories of Japanese Americans across generations.
The store is stocked with art books, toys, prints, apparel, and objects that you genuinely cannot find anywhere else in Los Angeles. The sister space, G2G Gallery, just a couple of doors down, runs touring art shows from AAPI artists that would feel at home in any gallery across the city. The fuzzy, grinning Totoro and buzzing neon signs beckon you in, and the before-it-was-a-trend curation ensures that what you find inside feels like a discovery rather than a trend summary.
Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery
Founded in 1949 by George Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery is now run by his daughter, Marianne Yamaguchi, who continues her father's legacy by celebrating the unique history of Sawtelle Japantown through Japanese horticulture. The nursery has created a beautiful environment for sharing culture and history, earning its place as a cornerstone in West LA's Sawtelle Japantown.
As one of the older continuously AAPI-owned retail businesses in Los Angeles, visiting this bonsai nursery offers a unique experience rooted in craft, patience, and deep cultural knowledge. Whether or not you leave with a bonsai, it’s an experience worth having.
Echo Park and Silver Lake: Community-Minded AAPI Retail
Merci Milo
6017 Echo Street, Echo Park. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a lunch closure around 1 to 1:30 p.m.
Merci Milo is a gift shop that automatically donates a portion of sales to different charities each month, including nonprofits that advance justice in the wake of increased AAPI-related hate crimes. The shop carries carefully selected gifts, home goods, and accessories with an emphasis on AAPI makers. This automatic donation model is one of the more principled business structures operating in LA retail right now, making it worth a visit, as your money goes further than a typical retail purchase.
Poketo
Located at the Arts District flagship and available widely online.
Poketo is a design-conscious goods shop founded by an AAPI-owned creative team, cultivating a lifestyle through colorful and modern items that sit at the intersection of art and everyday objects. Their collaborations with artists of color produce some of the most distinctive stationery, bags, accessories, and home goods available in Los Angeles retail. The Arts District flagship is a genuinely pleasant space to spend an hour. If you seek a gift that is both beautiful and made with genuine intentionality, Poketo has the strongest consistent track record in the city.
Koreatown: The Retail Heartbeat of Korean Los Angeles
Koreatown may not be primarily a destination for boutique shopping like Abbot Kinney or Melrose, but it contains several retail experiences that are specific to the neighborhood and worth exploring on their own terms.
Korea Town Galleria and Plaza
The two major Korean retail complexes on Western Avenue and Olympic Boulevard anchor the neighborhood's commercial identity. The Koreatown Galleria and Koreatown Plaza are home to dozens of Korean-owned businesses, including SM Korea Beauty, specialty food vendors, and clothing stores that carry Korean fashion labels unavailable anywhere else in Los Angeles. The beauty section at Koreatown Galleria, in particular, is one of the most comprehensive Korean skincare destinations in the country, featuring brands that predate their availability on Amazon by years.
A Good Used Book
A Good Used Book is an Asian-owned bookstore offering new and used collections along with a constantly updating database. The bookstore provides free U.S. mail shipping and local pickups on weekends in Koreatown. This independent Asian-owned bookstore champions diverse voices and operates on a genuinely accessible pricing model, making it a neighborhood institution that deserves sustained local support. Visit on a weekend for the pickup option and the experience of browsing the physical collection.
The San Gabriel Valley: AAPI Retail Scene Uncovered
The San Gabriel Valley has the largest and most commercially diverse concentration of Asian American-owned businesses in Southern California, and its retail landscape is as varied as its restaurant scene. Most LA retail guides overlook it almost entirely, which is a significant oversight.
The dining culture in cities like Alhambra, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Rosemead, and Temple City has produced a generation of AAPI entrepreneurs who are now extending into retail, beauty, and lifestyle categories. The markets along Valley Boulevard, Las Tunas Drive, and Garvey Avenue offer specialty Asian grocery items, traditional medicinal products, clothing from Asian fashion labels, and beauty products that reflect the daily lives of a community that has been building its commercial infrastructure in this part of Los Angeles for over five decades.
Independent boutiques in the SGV, many run by second and third-generation Asian Americans, are doing some of the most interesting retail work in the region without receiving a fraction of the press attention that similar businesses on Melrose or Abbot Kinney receive. The newly opened Monolith Coffee at 43 E. Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, run by founders Nikki Jin and Eli Wang, is part of this broader creative wave of AAPI-owned businesses bringing elevated concepts to the SGV corridor.
For shoppers eager to engage with the SGV's retail landscape, the recommendation is simple: drive down Valley Boulevard from Alhambra to San Gabriel on a weekend morning and let the neighborhood reveal its treasures. You will discover ceramics studios, specialty tea shops, vintage clothing stores with Asian fashion curation, and beauty boutiques carrying Korean and Japanese brands that have yet to make it to mainstream LA retail.
Downtown Los Angeles: AAPI Retail at Scale
The LA Fashion District contains a significant concentration of AAPI-owned wholesale and retail businesses that have shaped the city's garment industry for decades. AAPI-owned businesses in the LA Fashion District span multiple categories, including fabric suppliers, clothing manufacturers, and specialty retail. For anyone who sews, designs clothing, or wants to understand where Los Angeles fashion truly originates, a walk through the Fashion District offers a different kind of AAPI retail education than what you find in any boutique.
For a more curated experience in Downtown, ROW DTLA at 777 S. Alameda Street has become the most reliable address for AAPI-owned retail pop-ups in the city. MAUM Market runs here monthly, alongside other AAPI pop-up events, including seasonal markets tied to specific cultural moments. Following ROW DTLA's event calendar is the best way to stay current on what’s coming.
The Westside: AAPI-Owned Beauty and Lifestyle
Shop Dela Gold
Shop Dela Gold is a Filipina-owned Los Angeles shop that creates beautiful jewelry from 14k solid gold and natural gemstones. From custom sets and chains to pendants and bangles, this AAPI-owned small business has something for everyone in the gift-giving category. The jewelry is designed and produced with the craft standards of a fine jewelry brand at accessible price points, and the custom option is particularly valuable for anyone seeking to give something genuinely personal. The brand operates primarily online with Los Angeles roots, making it easy to support from anywhere in the city.
Tower 28 Beauty
Founded by Korean American entrepreneur Amy Liu, Tower 28 has emerged as one of the most successful AAPI-owned beauty brands from Los Angeles in the past decade. Tower 28 has grown significantly in the LA market and beyond, with its products available in major retailers like Sephora and Ulta. The story behind the brand—a Korean American founder who built a clean beauty line out of frustration with existing options for sensitive skin—captures a distinctly LA AAPI entrepreneurship narrative. Shopping Tower 28 from any retailer supports an LA AAPI-owned business.
MAUM Market: Your Gateway to AAPI Shops
One of the most practical aspects of MAUM Market as a recurring event is that it serves as a discovery platform for the permanent shops and brands on this list. When you find a ceramicist, jeweler, or clothing designer at MAUM that you love, the best version of that relationship is visiting their studio or permanent retail space rather than waiting for the next market date.
Co-founders Byun and Park designed MAUM specifically to foster that kind of community ecosystem. "As Asian Americans, we want to support our fellow likeminded Asian creators," Byun said. "But in general, it's amazing as consumers to support minority-owned businesses and really vote with your dollar."
That phrase, voting with your dollar, encapsulates why this guide matters. Every purchase at Giant Robot, Merci Milo, or an SGV boutique is a small reinvestment in the communities that built those businesses. Los Angeles is an AAPI city in a way that its retail landscape does not always reflect. The shops on this list, along with the hundreds more waiting to be discovered across Koreatown, the SGV, Sawtelle, and beyond, are the best evidence that it should.
Where to Go First
If you can only make one visit this week, start with MAUM Market at ROW DTLA on Saturday, March 21. Free entry. Sixty-plus AAPI-owned businesses. 777 S. Alameda Street, Downtown Los Angeles.
After that, build your neighborhood circuit: Giant Robot and Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery on Sawtelle for the Westside, Merci Milo in Echo Park for design and community, Koreatown Galleria for beauty and Korean fashion, and Valley Boulevard in Alhambra for the SGV experience that most guides have overlooked.
The AAPI retail landscape in Los Angeles is large, layered, and genuinely exciting in 2026. It just requires knowing where to look. Now you do.
MAUM Market is at ROW DTLA, 777 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90021 on Saturday, March 21. Entry is free. Giant Robot is at 2015 Sawtelle Blvd., open Wednesday through Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Merci Milo is at 6017 Echo St., open Tuesday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Follow @maum.market on Instagram for future market dates.
