At 8 a.m. on Labor Day, less than a week after Hurricane Harvey paralyzed Houston, a Spanish-speaking construction crew occupies all the tables and most of the counter space in the tiny dining area of Snowflake Donuts on Winkler, just off Interstate 45. More customers stand in line at the cash register. In the aftermath of the storm, the doughnut business is booming.

With many businesses shuttered, Houston's Cambodian-immigrant-owned doughnut shops offer first responders, flood victims and other hungry souls shelter from the rain, hot coffee and a multicultural menu of breakfast favorites. There are selections in six languages on Snowflake's short menu, including all kinds of doughnuts, sausage kolaches, bacon and egg croissants, boudin biscuits, cappuccino and breakfast tacos.

The Wendy's and the Dairy Queen across the street aren't open at this hour. Two taco trucks in the parking lot out front provide some breakfast-taco competition, but the trucks don't offer any indoor seating. When it's raining, customers line up in their vehicles at the Snowflake Donuts drive-through window.

On the high ground of a gritty commercial area alongside the highway near Hobby Airport, this Snowflake Donuts at 8361 Winkler (there are several other locations) didn't flood during the storm. But owner Mony Hang's house in the Beamer neighborhood did; he also lost his 2002 Toyota Tundra to the floodwaters.

"Not too bad. We got about 4 inches in the house, but the water went down by the next morning, and we cleaned up right away," says Hang, 41, who was born in the Takeo province of Cambodia. As the storm ended, he walked several miles through the flooded streets from his home to the highway where a friend met him and gave him a lift. He typically opens the shop at 4 a.m. every day.

Houston's Cambodian doughnut-shop owners are a tight-knit community. Earlier this week, Hang and a dozen other owners and their wives met at a North Houston Vietnamese restaurant to take stock after the storm over dinner and drinks. Hang stuck with Heineken, but the rest of the group polished off a large bottle of Johnny Walker Black, passing the bottle back and forth between two tables. A six-course feast, including fish maw soup, steak salad, shrimp rolls, fried rice and two styles of lobster, was piled on the lazy susans at the center of each table.

The gathering was hosted by Samoeun Phan, one of the leaders of Houston's Cambodian doughnut-shop community. Phan, 50, helped Mony open his first shop a decade ago. Phan explained that Cambodian immigrants arrive with no employment experience and limited prospects. Many of them escaped horrific conditions in Cambodia. Phan recounts his own story: After his father was executed, a 12-year-old Phan and his mother evaded Khmer Rouge patrols and made their way through the jungle to Thailand. They were relocated to Atlanta with the help of sponsors.

Thanks to years of schooling in Atlanta, Phan reads and writes English. He speaks English with an Asian cadence and a Southern accent. "They nicknamed me the 'Khmer redneck' in Atlanta," he jokes. He moved to Houston in 2000 and began working in Cambodian doughnut shops. Then he began building his own shops and selling them to new immigrants.

"I am a survivor," Phan says. "The doughnut-shop owners are survivors, too. They are doing a lot of business now because they get up at 3 in the morning and open the doughnut shop, no matter what."

Phan estimates that more than 90 percent of Houston's hundreds of doughnut shops are owned by Cambodian immigrants. A doughnut shop requires little investment, the ingredients and overhead are relatively cheap, and with labor supplied entirely by family members, a minimal profit supplies a modest living.

A few highway exits south of Mony Hang's Snowflake Donuts, Donald's Donuts at 435 El Dorado in Webster is also busy. "I opened on Monday, while it was still raining," owner Roth Ouch says. "This is the best business we've ever had. There were people waiting outside when I opened at 4 a.m. I've never seen so many people."

No one is faulting him for his increased post-storm business. The customers lining up are just happy to find a doughnut shop that's open.