Skye Chang noticed something was missing from the food offerings in downtown State College. He saw an opportunity for sharing the sweet and savory baked goods he enjoyed at bakeries in Taiwan and from his mother’s kitchen.
He’s now filling that gap—one bun at a time—with Chew Chew Bun, an Asian bakery that offers Taiwanese-inspired baked goods.
“This is how we grew up in Taiwan,” Chang explains. “If you walk down the street, almost every couple of blocks, there’s an Asian bakery.”
Chang, the bakery’s owner, studied mathematics at Penn State before moving to California for work. When he returned home to State College, he wanted to combine business-related opportunities with food.
Chang says he had “zero culinary experience,” so he turned to his mother, Jenny, for help. He says she has a culinary background from her time in Asia and always had a “magic hand” in the kitchen. Chang recalls visits home where he’d talk about missing a certain food and she’d be able to make it by the next morning with the perfect taste he remembered.
However, Chang says his mother’s training did not specialize in baking. But when she began sharing baked goods with friends, he saw a business opportunity to share his mother’s baked goods with a larger community.
“When I look at business, I always look at numbers—what makes sense, what doesn’t make sense. I love to make business operations much better and more efficient,” Chang says. “And it just happened. My mom can make the products and we combined together, and it works pretty well.”
Chew Chew Bun began as a state-registered home bakery in April 2019, selling preordered baked goods. The business is named after the bunny who hopped into Chang’s life in California, “Chewy.” The black and white logo and color scheme are a nod to the fur of Chewy and Chang’s other bunny, “Bubble.”
Chew Chew Bun opened its first physical location at the Nittany Mall in November 2021, selling a variety of sweet and savory buns like melon, red bean, pineapple cake, garlic, and more. The buns are commonly eaten at breakfast but can also be eaten as snacks throughout the day.
The signature garlic bun relies on herbs to create a savory, melt-in-your mouth roll, while the classic red bean is a regular bun with a sweet paste filling in the center. The classic melon bun features a slightly sweet crumb topping like a shortbread cookie with a soft, fluffy center that has butter baked into it.
Asian baked goods vary in different regions, where bakers have different twists on traditional staples. Chang says in Hong Kong, the melon bun has cookie dough on top and a piece of butter inside the dough that melts and seeps into every bite of the bun, while in Taiwan bakers often omit the butter.
Chang says the State College community embraced the business at the mall and he knew that he had to search for a larger location with a retail storefront.
“I knew that when we got the space, I already had been thinking that it wasn’t going to be long-term,” Chang says.
When a café closed in downtown State College, Chang saw the storefront along Beaver Avenue as the perfect footprint for his growing business. Chew Chew Bun closed at the mall and opened its downtown location in late August.
Chang says Chew Chew Bun is retaining returning customers and gaining traction downtown. He is getting to know by name the regular customers who stop by each morning and is looking forward to meeting more of the community.
“We are pretty happy that we found a balance at this location,” Chang says.
He hopes Chew Chew Bun continues to grow and is hiring additional employees to help so he can focus on continuing to build the business.
His No. 1 seller continues to be Portuguese egg tarts, a crispy pastry filled with baked custard, followed by the sweet melon and red bean buns. He hopes those who walk by the bakery will stop in and give the baked goods a try.
“Our baked goods are sweet, but not that sweet. I think it’s the perfect level of sweetness,” Chang says. “It will be easy to have our baked goods every day and not feel like it’s too much.”
Chew Chew Bun is located downtown at 115 E. Beaver Ave. The bakery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday 8:30-3, and is closed Mondays. T&G
Hannah Pollock is a freelance writer in State College. This story appears in the November 2022 issue of Town&Gown.
