After surviving war, hunger and death, COVID-19 threatened to close this food court chef’s dream restaurant. Then the neighbors she spent a decade warming with big bowls of pho rallied around her — just in the moment she needed them most. CourtneyCare
Tran usually gets to the mall around 8 a.m., three hours before opening. A small, slight woman who radiates energy like a larger-than-life Las Vegas neon sign, Tran heaves pots nearly half her size onto the stove. As she starts rolling spring rolls and warming woks, she returns to the range, making tiny adjustments to the heat underneath this pot or that one without having to glance at what’s in them.
“I was one of those kids, like: ‘Let me do it. Let me try it,’” Tran says. “If I see someone in the water, it’s my reaction always to jump in the water to help.” With a life of school, work, repeat, the only time she could slow down, could take those deep long breaths of relaxation, was during family meals. Her father would make his delicious egg noodles, or her sisters would goad her into whipping up her famous spicy soup, and they’d talk – remembering where they came from and imagining where they were going.
She built the business “day by day and mouth by mouth,” she said. Regular mall walkers were intimidated by her menu at first. Slowly she tempted them to try one special, then another. LEFT: Brenda Tran chops scallions in the colorfully decorated Vietnam Cafe. RIGHT: She displays her “angels” — photos and funeral programs of departed friends and customers with a big photo of her father in the center.But the mall struggled. An anchor store closed. Storefronts stood empty. So Tran decided to embrace her personality – people who ate at Vietnam Cafe weren’t going to get just great food; they would have the experience of eating at Tran’s home.
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