Walk down State Street and you’ll come across a small, almost whimsical shop adorned with colorful flower beds and a cheerful orange overhang.
Step inside, and you’ll hear the faint sound of peaceful background music and see myriad shapes and colors – glassware, jewelry, figurines, Chinese antiques and more line the shelves and fill the room.
Walk in farther, and you’ll meet Belinda Chung, likely reorganizing the store, wrapping a present or even designing handmade macrame-and-jade jewelry.
Chung opened BK Collections 45 years ago, making her gift boutique one of the oldest retail stores in downtown Los Altos. The secret of her success?
Community.
“Belinda is community,” said Judie Wolken, a Los Altos resident since 1975. “She adds sparkle to the town.”
BK Collections opened its doors mid-August in 1978 after her good friend Ruth Chu, wife of Lawrence Chu of Chef Chu’s, convinced Chung to move from Menlo Park to Los Altos. Chung, wanting flexibility while raising her child, thought it would be ideal to run her own business. So, Ruth and Chung walked around downtown Los Altos and looked for vacancies to establish Chung’s boutique.
“I said, ‘Oh, this is really a nice downtown, out of the main traffic. It’s great to see people walking very leisurely, and it just feels very comfortable,’” Chung said. “We didn’t do a lot of research. We just went, ‘OK, let’s do it!’”
In the 1970s and 1980s, BK Collections – named after Belinda and her husband, Kenneth, whom Chung jokingly calls her “silent partner” – mainly sold Asian artifacts, art, furniture and antiques. As the demand for Asian artifacts decreased and U.S.-China trade relations worsened, Chung expanded to focus more on curating a selection of unique and high-quality gifts from all over the world.
“Everything I sell are things that I like, so I can relate it to potential buyers and ensure they enjoy it for years to come – it has to be quality and lasting,” she said. “I look for things that are joyful and are unique. It makes me really happy when I see somebody who bought a pair of earrings, and then they come back saying, ‘I’m still wearing these earrings.’ That gives me the biggest satisfaction ever.”
One of Chung’s favorite memories with BK Collections is from its 40th anniversary. She recalled a customer had walked into the store wearing a trench coat.
“She walked in and went, ‘Ta-da!’ and revealed probably 20 necklaces all bought from us, a lot of them handmade by one of our designers,” Chung recalled. “Things like that make us feel really good, that we’re doing the right thing, that people really like us and support us.”
Personal touch
One supporter is Wolken, who estimates she’s been shopping at BK Collections for 44 years and said Chung has “become family.” Although Wolken doesn’t remember what initially drew her to walk into Chung’s store, she now visits “almost weekly.”
“Trust me, I’m a shopper,” Wolken said. “I shop at a lot of places, and BK Collections would be my No. 1 store. I travel the world, and Belinda’s store is still the best.”
In fact, while on vacation in Paris, Wolken actually decided to forgo buying souvenirs for her cousins and instead gifted them jewelry made in France from BK Collections.
“They thought that I had bought their necklaces in Paris,” Wolken said. “And I had bought it right at Belinda’s.”
But even more than for the selection of high-quality, unique items in the shop, Wolken goes to BK Collections for Chung herself.
“You can’t duplicate BK Collections, because there’s only one Belinda,” Wolken said. “She is the magic behind the store.”
Wolken said she continues to be amazed by the connection Chung has with her customers.
“A man will come in, and she’ll say, ‘It’s just about time for your wife’s birthday,’ and ‘Oh, no, you got her that last year. Well, she’ll love this,’” Wolken said. “So, it’s that personal connection that a department store or a mall store doesn’t have.”
Community building
In fact, community interaction is Chung’s favorite part of the job.
“What I like about this downtown is that we can talk to our neighbors, we can talk to a lot of people,” she said. “You get to know people, and you get to know and understand how things are related.”
For example, in 2016 when Chung’s neighbor, artist Hau Beiren, turned 100, she talked to the Los Altos History Museum to create the “Hau Beiren @ 100 Exhibition.”
“He’s world-famous, and all of his paintings are really well sought after in China, but yet in Los Altos, it seemed like nobody really knew him,” Chung said. “So, I talked to the curator of the museum and said, ‘You have this treasure in your backyard. You should do something to honor him.’”
In addition to personal community projects, Chung served on the Los Altos Village Asso-ciation executive board, helping with decisions such as street closures during the pandemic and switching farmers’ market management.
“I strongly advocate to have small businesses in downtown because it’s about human con-nection,” she said. “I like the idea that we’re still a small village, that we’re still talking to people.”
To celebrate 45 years in business, local band The Song Gardeners will be performing in front of BK Collections 1-4 p.m. Friday. BK Collections will be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will be offering 45% off all merchandise all day.
“For our 40th anniversary, we did a storewide 40% sale for the entire day,” Chung said. “This one guy came in and said, ‘I can’t wait ’til you turn 100.’”
BK Collections is located at 342 State St. For more information, visit bkcollectionslosaltos.com.
