Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 543 - What If Charging $41 For Pho Is The Key To Respecting Vietnamese Heritage? - Mr. Gao Viet

Transcript

543 - What If Charging $41 For Pho Is The Key To Respecting Vietnamese Heritage? - Mr. Gao Viet · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to B&B's podcast.
0:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Today is a very special day.
0:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always a special day when I have yes, but it's extremely cool to be able to be here at Gallo with Prichind as I'm Cisco.
0:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I am honored that you are not in me here today, and I know that we're both a little nervous, so that's why we're going to drink I man cheers.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You you know you really put me on spot.
0:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know I don't do interview Yeah, so I do everything I do I I want to do I'll be able to edit my video and that's why I do a lot of things myself because I can just Put on what I want people to see.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I didn't realize that you don't do editing So you kind of put me on a spot so
0:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just found out just doesn't know just now, and I think that's who makes it special is because we always get the edited version of that.
0:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, social media, right?
0:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously that.
0:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do so lucky that you have agreed to do it without any editing because now you can really be you.
1:04
[SPEAKER_03]: No, if I knew it earlier, I wouldn't do it.
1:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm about to spot, you know, it's too late out, it's too late out.
1:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I take, I got to take a shot to open up and if you need to drink throughout the episode, we're good on that.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I got, I got to take a little shot to, uh, to, uh, to chew out.
1:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you want to grow more, you can't do it.
1:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Seriously, because I'm a, I think, I think, I think maybe I stick with one drink, let's see how it goes.
1:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, welcome to the Greenpeace podcast.
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's again, today I have a bit who is a huge on social media with this restaurant here.
1:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And I am going to ask a lot of questions about the other side here that I've always chased about the Greenpeace food not being at the right price and you have it here.
2:00
[SPEAKER_03]: But in order to get to that, we need to get to your early days and your story.
2:05
[SPEAKER_03]: How did you get to the United States and how old were you, what was the story of you getting here?
2:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I before we get started, why did you come up with the same outfit?
2:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Look at that, look at the suit, Jean, look at the coat, and there's a lot of things that you've not been done in plan.
2:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be in the car for our surprise.
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to work.
2:29
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, oh, shall I sew it up this guy?
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like wearing the same thing.
2:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So we both have brown boots on and I don't want to call this a cool uniform.
2:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a uniform of the people who work at restaurant.
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a black is the thing for a restaurant.
2:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
2:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason I like wearing black because it make me look skinny.
2:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I can high.
2:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I guess I get a little bit more fit now, but I wear black because I can high a lot of my
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
3:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
3:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're not just lost life for 40 pounds.
3:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll get to that.
3:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.
3:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that.
3:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So how old were you and what brought you to the United States?
3:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, both people.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's our, that's my story.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my story, both people's story is similar to a lot of other, both people's story.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I think I'm a little, uh, we call it lucky.
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So we love, I love Vietnam in 1990.
3:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, 1990, people stopped doing it.
3:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So we all the last group of people that left Vietnam.
3:44
[SPEAKER_01]: at that time with my family.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And believe it or not, we try 10 times, it didn't fucking work.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So that in 11 times, I mean, I was young.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you, remember, I'm kind of not remember, most of it, but we did like 10 times, we didn't work out.
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And in 11 times, that, uh,
4:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we made it.
4:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're on a boat, a tiny little boat.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember there's 57 odd of people.
4:11
[SPEAKER_01]: An up space, we just sitting, there's no laying down.
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And the crazy thing and the people who did the, you know, we got to pay them, right?
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just, my family, every dollar we had, you know, we didn't have money.
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So every dollar we had, we just pay,
4:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were so poor in Vietnam.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It would not be my decision.
4:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We were so poor in Vietnam.
4:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I just know we really poor.
4:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom's like, you know, my mom is single mom.
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So she thought, you know, the only way that we can change our life, just take the risk and just take us, try to bring us to America.
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why she choose,
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: to keep doing it all over the time.
5:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I was shit, how old I was, so I'm 19.
5:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a 78, so we left 1990.
5:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Was that 12 years old?
5:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Four years old.
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So you remember a lot of it, right?
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember a lot of it, I mean, half of it, right?
5:23
[SPEAKER_03]: So you know, I have a theory.
5:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I have this theory for a long time.
5:28
[SPEAKER_03]: But people who come to America the way you did, when they were like nine years old, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
5:35
[SPEAKER_03]: They remember how difficult, especially outside 10 times.
5:39
[SPEAKER_03]: They remember how difficult it was.
5:41
[SPEAKER_03]: They remember why they left Vietnam and the circumstances.
5:46
[SPEAKER_03]: So then when they get here, there's no such thing as hard work.
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it was not my choice, yeah.
5:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know what?
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We went through so much to get to America and just we just have to make something out, right?
6:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot just, yeah, you just need to
6:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, went through so much, you could die, you know, any second, and what you get to America, you're gonna be something, you know?
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it was just a family.
6:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I gotta be somebody to take care of family.
6:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me, oh my life, it doesn't matter where Matt, you know, I know how to take care of myself.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I know how to make money, I know how to hustle.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's it, my blood.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's in my blood, but away.
6:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but for me, it's not about just taking care of me.
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We're taking care of people around me.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So, every time when I think about my spirit is and why it works so hard, it's not really for me.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, so people around me, you know?
6:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you got to United States, nor did you settle it.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's let's let's let's head back.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So we left 1990.
7:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I was on a boat for three days.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: No water.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: No food.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: No water.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It just happened.
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: The planner was, they just forget bring that shit because we just, you know, we would in hiding.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're on that for three days.
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We got picked up.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: My, some, I don't remember how we've got picked up, but we got picked up and we dropped us up in a refugee camp for Indonesia.
7:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it Gatlang.
7:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I usually told people, you know what?
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That three year in refugee camp, I literally live in a jungle.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, the crazy thing I'm not hopeful for me were, I never thought it was that difficult because I didn't know anything better.
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because you don't have anything, it's like, hey, just, you get there.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: They provide you food.
8:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have in food.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You can just, you never hungry.
8:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it was never, never that bad, right?
8:12
[SPEAKER_01]: To think about it, I live in John for three years, right?
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's bad, but it wasn't that bad.
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't refugee camp for too long.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned how to sell a button name.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: you're in a bucket, but made.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I sour for lunch.
8:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You made it.
8:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I could get it.
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, they made it a factory.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would fucking every day.
8:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Five o'clock in the morning.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I go pick up 50 but me and I just, it's a $20,000 Vietnamese refugee in the camp.
8:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would walk four or five hours and put the but me on my head, right in the basket.
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm too, I sold out.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So every day, I make good money.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also, that's like, shit.
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I told people, I didn't know any better.
8:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I make money.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter why.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I've figured out a way how to maneuver from a very young egg.
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, so after two years, um, my dad was already in American, but he never, um,
9:14
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd never really, we have no relationship.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But because he's in America, he's my real dad.
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I have personal certificate.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So we use that as a reason to get a subject to American.
9:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so that's how we end up getting accepted, because a lot of people all get sent back to the unknown.
9:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not everybody got to come to, they can send to different country and stuff.
9:40
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to take safety, right?
9:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So you did sponsor, yeah, it's sponsored.
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, how do I say it?
9:45
[SPEAKER_03]: It just, we accepted.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I said that on the kid and that's it.
9:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's it, right?
9:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So came to America and so we got here in 1993.
10:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're like 15 at that time.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So 1993, you know, it was nothing, you know?
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So we sento in the 10 alloy, you know, the TL.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: 10 alloy in here in San Francisco.
10:16
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a few blocks, few miles, and 10 alloy, which is a very scary neighborhood for a lot of people who don't come from that area.
10:27
[SPEAKER_03]: When you go to this, really, there's a lot of,
10:30
[SPEAKER_03]: people who don't live in the homes there.
10:32
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people get in streets and scaring it.
10:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a homeless area and at that time when I get there is a bit odd of Vietnamese gain.
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, you know, that's a more gain.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But at that time, it's a T.L.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: No for Vietnamese gain and homeless.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know what?
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know anything better.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, do I get scared?
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's like shit.
10:55
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, you know, I came from the refugee camp.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Get there.
10:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But I tell you a funny story that the first, the day I came to America, it's just this.
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the saddest day of my life.
11:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you believe that?
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: When I say that?
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a crazy story, but when I say that,
11:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody would be leaving.
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when I went through my family went through so much, just to get to America.
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we get to America, we got picked up, and we get into, and then you know, you had, you want?
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: People telling you a story on America, they saw you on TV, it's a land of opportunity, the school, you get like living the life, everything.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to vision in your head.
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is like you're unimaginable.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You're in like, you go to the place where you get everything, right?
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You just have to image in your head.
12:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why, you know, years was to get to America.
12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we step into this apartment, you know, in 10 a lot, there's a apartment, right?
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we, you know, they talk about a big house and stuff like that.
12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we get to the apartment, open the crew, open the gate, and say, oh, shit, I live in this big house.
12:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this staircase, go back, it's so nice, right?
12:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we walk out to the fifth floor,
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: and we keep going.
12:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we, by the time we opened the door to a tiny, tiny, loose room, it's not a bedroom, it's not a, it's not a one bedroom, it's a little, yeah, a little studio.
12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so how many of us want to three, four, five, it's a five of us,
13:00
[SPEAKER_01]: right?
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we end this little studio and then we get in there say, this is your house.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like it's like your word, you know, you step in an apartment.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You taught us a fucking this beautiful apartment is.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not beautiful, but you just came from the
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: the juggle for the year, and then you from Vietnam, you're not only any better, right?
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You walk into this beautiful building.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And you, I mean, it's not for me now, if I look at this, it's not beautiful, but at that and for you.
13:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you end up with one of the little studio.
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and I like,
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And this could be my life in my family life.
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not just me, it's my family.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can imagine my family went through so much just how we end up with it.
13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And just for that, Minnes was the saddest of my life.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just the,
13:59
[SPEAKER_01]: what you build up in your head and you expect it, right?
14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the Saturdays of my life and I learned how to live with it.
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not bad, right?
14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to, you got government assistant.
14:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, all that stuff, right?
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But it would just destroy everything that you have in your head.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I call the Saturdays of my life.
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was, um, so.
14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and fire was living that studio.
14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So I grow up on a couch.
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: My brother, my sister, in the closet.
14:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom was in a little bit.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how we grow up.
14:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And how many years have you been in that room?
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We're there for almost, I think, almost like seven years.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven years in that, I'm also in the room.
14:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And now, actually, I'll do it all the way to college.
14:57
[SPEAKER_03]: That's like you were in your 20s when you loved that.
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's actually, I remember that one even when I went to college, I still in that apartment in that studio.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is a great word to story.
15:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I want to tell you that because that's how I think about when I do business,
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: if you crash and burn.
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I do anything, that's one thing that actually built what I am today because of that.
15:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Because all the expectations, it's like you have all this expectation.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you're gonna crash and burn you, it's not bad.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm safe, you know, I, we have, we have to, to me, a slip on our cat was comfortable.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I didn't know anything better, right?
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I came from the refugee camp.
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a jungle for three years.
15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Vietnam, we poor, we were so poor that when the rain come, we just sleep almost like water to spill into the hell on my bed anyway, right?
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So I never know anything better.
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But the expectation was so much that it crashed and burned me to see my family to go through that.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So after that, it's like everything I do ever knew
16:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think about it.
16:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really inspiring to hear somebody who really shows just one side of themselves on social media.
16:47
[SPEAKER_03]: But when you get to the real story, there's always like a real thing that happens.
16:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I think with people.
16:53
[SPEAKER_03]: who are successful.
16:54
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a real backstory to it.
16:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And I appreciate you opening up.
16:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And I hope that I'm not the only one you're going to open up to from now on.
17:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope that you've opened up to a lot more people who ask you to do these interviews.
17:08
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to have this.
17:09
[SPEAKER_03]: As you tell your story more often and more frequently, it will become an inspiration to many people, not just in the Vietnamese community, that listen to this podcast, but like other people around the city, around the country, around the world, who can hear your story.
17:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So I appreciate you opening that up.
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I...
17:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Here are the reasons for me I did not want to talk about my story just because I get very emotional.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, and you know what, yeah, with the gal is not a emotional person zone.
18:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't want people to see that side of me.
18:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, come on, why do you not want to show that side?
18:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you feel vulnerable when you show it?
18:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's too personal.
18:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, let me ask you a question.
18:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It just, you know, I, I, I, I, I used to don't like to tell my, my story because it's so personal to me and I got emotional.
19:42
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
20:12
[SPEAKER_03]: on a financial level, on an ambitious level, on all of those levels as the guys that I hang out with that are your age, my age, that came when they were 12, 13, 14.
20:22
[SPEAKER_03]: These guys are all like doing really well in life, and they have that ability to keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, no matter how difficult things get.
20:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And guys like me who are born here in 1975,
20:34
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have the tea, we don't have the fangs, the claws, to really fight our way through and I want to make that a real pressing issue in the future generations because our children will not have it as hard as you or as me.
20:53
[SPEAKER_03]: They'll never have it as hard and I don't know if their lives are going to be as good as really as our lives When we think about how difficult our parents or how in your life really your life was very difficult to get You know, we're living in San Francisco at at this beautiful restaurant as a back trial And that is a huge huge accomplishments that not everybody can do I appreciate for
21:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And I appreciate you being able to open up and continue.
21:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we can move on to a member of a lighter thing.
21:30
[SPEAKER_03]: When were you thinking about the food business after you got here?
21:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it something that you would thought about as soon as you got here or after college?
21:44
[SPEAKER_03]: When did they become a reality that you wanted to get in the food business?
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: to get there, it's a story by itself, you know, like, photo web, but there's, so, you know, when I came to, I wasn't a 10-a-law, I just know that, you know, I've seen, I'm not right, I've just known that I just cannot,
22:15
[SPEAKER_01]: fail.
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we went too so much.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I just know that one day, I just make something out of my soul.
22:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I never knew what I was because I didn't know anything.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I live in 10 a lot.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, you know, I want to galay high school.
22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I see it enough, but I always have that thing on my shoulder.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one day, I'd be, I do something meaningful.
22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I all wear color, it's in my, I think it's in my blood.
22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I all wear hustle, and I try to figure it out way to do something.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I was in town like, so we went high school, um, and I call this, and I get up
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: get in turn of one of the private investment coming, just running errand, you know, and with that, I was like, I became somehow, I just became one of the so aggressive.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't say any speaking with, I was so young, you know, I looked like,
23:31
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of ghetto myself, you know, like very floppy, you know, fuss up the boat, you know, ghetto.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You speak English, but the only thing I had, I was, I don't never think that I'm a smart person, up to it, it's still now, I just never, I've just had that in me where I'm very aggressive and I'm very hungry.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so that's one,
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a opportunity to do in college.
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a opportunity to do an intern for an investment company, and I used that opportunity to apply for a job as a financial advisor.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no one would hire me someone to be a finance advisor, even I taught myself.
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I did was, I just picked English that well, up to college, I just did this picking English.
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: When did you study in college?
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Business finance.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was doing very good in high school, but I got to college.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just sitting student.
24:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I kind of fell off the clip a little bit.
24:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to party, I was just hanging out and stuff like that.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But in me, all we know that I just need to do something from, I just need to be somebody, you know?
24:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We all want that, right?
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I have was just a hungry aggressive net.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, how did I get there?
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, shit.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I was an intern, doing callers, I was feeling living in a 10-way.
25:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just young, getaway, party, you know, I was went through that state when I was really partying, you know.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But in my head all the way, I want to make sure I don't lose job.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just I just never do that right.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't gamble.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't lose job.
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just know that something I just don't do right.
25:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I always drink.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's, you know, I keep my limit to the job, you know, all that stuff.
25:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't say a drop in all that stuff, but I would have a good head and soda except that I like to party.
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Still now, I still like party.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But um, so I get up to it to be to us doing an intern for investment coming.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, you know, I saw how this guy work.
26:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I say you too.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They make so much money.
26:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Just stand around, just do some talking to a
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, look at them, look at me.
26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I never could be like that.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But so what I did was I should be an aggressive, right?
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I use that on my resume.
26:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went to every company, like Marilyn Morgan Stanley, you know, all that becoming.
26:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And at that time, you do the standard things just submit a resume and all that stuff.
26:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what, I didn't.
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I walked into every freaking office.
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, what are you doing?
26:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you supposed to send in an email, right?
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I walk in an office and it's like, introduce myself and drop on my resume.
26:55
[SPEAKER_01]: somehow they saw that in me, you know, because being a financial advisor is actually a sales job, you know, right?
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to be the smartest guy.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You just need to be the aggressively.
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I saw it, right?
27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went to the office, you know, this guy, every office, I think of a drop-up of a resume introduced myself.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of embarrassing, but I did that anyway.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: financial advisor and training.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So they would, they would hire you on, take all the lessons for six months.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You study, you take your lesson, and they still pay you.
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, shit.
27:38
[SPEAKER_03]: That's me.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Of it.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you imagine, I would never imagine, they would, anyone would ever call me.
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, you never know, right?
27:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I just went to all the office,
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: There's somebody going to call me and apparently I'm going to call him.
28:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how my journey started and how I related to my restaurant because when I was financial training, I got my license, I never the smartest guy, I always just
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: the test.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So even at school, I very finished college.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I finished college 2.01.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I just never good at reading.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just like, it's still now.
28:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate reading.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But it just, um, but I have to address it.
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And they me.
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's really helped me to get to do what I want to do.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I became a finance advisor.
28:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the reason I want to tell you that story because when I was a
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, I did pretty well for myself because I did so much cold calling, you know.
28:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I spend eight, ten hours a day, just do cold calling the old day, you call people.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And imagine, and you like cold calling?
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
29:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course not, fuck, totally.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they're rejected.
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: The worst part was, my English was like shit.
29:16
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think drove you to keep doing?
29:19
[SPEAKER_03]: when you don't make something you don't do it like human beings when they don't like it.
29:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been to enough, you know, there's nothing to stop me, you know.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell you, I have that hunger, you know, I'm hungry, you like this.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I tell it right now, I'm still kind of missed that feeling, you know, like, I don't have the hungry in a different way.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I still hungry, but in a different way.
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's how I'm man.
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just hungry.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you know what I was doing?
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: 18-hour full.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine fucking, you get a client have million dollars to invest with you to the guy that don't even speak English that well.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I look like fucking a young little Vietnamese guy, right?
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: who would keep money to that person?
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And did you do money?
30:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I became very successful because it's very simple.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I was different.
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just so simple.
30:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Because my English was so bad.
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I tell them what to do, I use a very simple language.
30:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, I was A, B, C, and this, what you need to do.
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently, that worked for me.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got the client, you know, and I still don't know why the fuck they're hiring me on a client because
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I was broke as fuck because at the first few years of your business, you broke and you managed people with a million dollar money and you're like, how can I broke as do?
30:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Man is people with a million dollar money.
30:46
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the, I just like the experience is so, that to kind of maize myself, you're like, how did, how did that even happen?
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
30:58
[SPEAKER_01]: How does how that translate into me open a restaurant I would do well very very well for myself.
31:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I would draw and you know so
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So our man is a decent book of business, you know, like a few hundred million dollar book of business, you know, you make money on how much you get some percent on the book of business every month that you get paid on it, right?
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got, and then in our business, in that business, all the company trying to recruit you, and when they recruit you, they're going to give you a signing bonus.
31:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I said shit, so, you know, for me, when they operate, this amount of money is like, I was insane.
31:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought my first home.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought a fancy car.
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely remember.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That's L-500 convertible.
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the Mercedes coupe, right?
31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
31:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what I did?
31:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Big red car, again.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I got money to open a restaurant for my family.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's signing bonus.
32:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's signing bonus.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought my first hell, I bought my fancy car, and open a restaurant.
32:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Open a restaurant.
32:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Why a restaurant?
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that the third thing you've got?
32:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so I, so I, so I would do and create for those years, I did very well for myself.
32:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I came home, that's what every time I come home,
32:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I become my family was struggling.
32:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, everybody else.
32:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody else.
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not me.
32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was driving convertible, I had my own fucking office.
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: People, you know, all this auto vendor would take me out.
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: All that stuff.
32:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I would go hang out.
32:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I live in my life.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, when I came home, it was like, you know, my family was struggling.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: My sister would do a nail.
33:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a sister with doing a work in a restaurant in China, you know, 14, 15 hours a day and make very little money.
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: At that time, you don't get tip, you know, the boy would keep all that shit.
33:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You got a small, hey, every month, and worked 14, 15 hours a day.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: She burned her.
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, she came home.
33:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, burn.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like, what the?
33:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom would do a nail, just we just struggling, you know?
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Give money, it doesn't work on long term.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always say, you know, if I'm doing well, my family need to be okay.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So one day, I draw on, I draw my convertible.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: My nice convertible on Grand Avenue, right?
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I would draw a driving flight.
33:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I just didn't remember a five day afternoon.
33:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I drove downtown, brand Avenue, downtown, South San Francisco.
34:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I just drove by and I saw this one restaurant a five day afternoon.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: A very nice little spot, a little cafe, um, and it's the lightweight off.
34:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And business to open, right?
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Some somehow in my head, I'm making you turn back.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a creative story.
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I ever done, right, I turned back.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll park my car right there.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I walk into a store, I ask what the owner and the guys just stand where I was saying, hey, are you closed or you open?
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he's open, but there's no business.
34:33
[SPEAKER_01]: He's right in the corner.
34:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the grand, I mean, that was how San Francisco, the best bot.
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And no business.
34:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, it make no sense.
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I walk in there, I ask what the owner and I said, you know what I did?
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The most crazy thing I've ever did.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: The first question I have with it was, I told him, you know what, I'm looking to open a restaurant.
34:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how much I'm paying you.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote my number and I give you 24 hours of call me.
35:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just let, you know what I did?
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: He called me to our later.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Later.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how Ben Tray started.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, yeah, yeah, vengea starts.
35:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So literally you have this idea and turn around, offered it and it was the right price for him.
35:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he just want to get out.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think anyone would ever expect that.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who would ever.
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't expect that for myself.
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything I ever done on my life was just not expecting it myself.
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like this wheel, it's just a feeling.
35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like feeling.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Even this wrestling, even this wrestling, the center of time for the tail wrestling, they're all the same.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that, yeah, just the feeling.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't do when I have that feeling.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I stand there and I have that feeling in taintling in my body.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, that's it.
36:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You haven't been wrong.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: All the time.
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's South California fancy, but I always been wrong.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is, every time I be wrong, crazy enough, a better thing come.
36:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Even more widest, it's like, every time you be wrong, a better opportunity come.
36:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, every time I want something, it doesn't work out.
36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: As somehow, a lot of way, a better opportunity come after.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many people that don't work out for me, because I want to so bad.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And next thing, you know, it's felt through, and I got better to do after.
36:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Same at that, I would never expect that to happen.
36:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how the first venture opened.
36:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think being open a restaurant is natural for us because my mom and sister, they all were being very good at cooking.
37:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason I say that, because everyone I ever bring to my home doesn't matter, Asian, Vietnamese, white, black, Indian, whatever, anyone who ever brought home, they just love the food, right?
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter what they cook.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a become a natural thing for us that we have that I would say that we just like the food that we eat, that a lot of all the people like or two.
37:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And do you feel like you are the, your name, taste buds of all of the restaurants?
37:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Or do you feel like the soul of this stuff is really about your mom and your sisters?
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always, I would say, I'm the taker and the recipe, the way they make the food is always from my family.
38:04
[SPEAKER_03]: When you probably give the final decision, you make the final decision on what goes on.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's going to be, that's when we talk about a business side of it, right?
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just saying it's like, it's all the flavor of the food, somehow my mom and sister, magically make everything taste good.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, so that's really opening restaurant is a naturally, naturally thing for it.
38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, Vietnamese have come to America, you do nail, you do restaurant, you know, being adopted, that's not even, you know, head because that's, that's, we just not, I just never think that I'm educated enough to even, I just hate book, I just hate,
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: reading, right, in general.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So the two choices, if you're a restaurant or a new, so restaurant become natural thing for us, and that's the reason when I draw by that, but that's way, it's just something just hit me.
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I always want to open a business, but that's something that hit me that's when we decided to take that action without thinking about it.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when we opened that restaurant for a couple of years, we, I mean, at the beginning, we did like $100 a day.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what's a $100 a day in business?
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's really tough, but,
39:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We build, at that time, there's no social media, none of our doubles, right?
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: A 2008, that's when we opened the first one.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no such thing as social media and any of that stuff.
39:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So you still have to feed the restaurant, you have to capitalize the restaurant, right?
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was a financialist, too.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I was still a financial advisor, but you know, because the restaurant was run on Oprah by my family.
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't matter what to say, it was okay.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We cover the rent and all that money.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these money.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we just rent the rent and the cost of all that stuff.
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But business is first, we did a few hundred and then 1,2,3,000, the next thing you know, we did for 10,000, 12,000 a day and you know, just imagine a 500 square free space.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't even have space to move in a kitchen.
40:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because of that, we run the business on a tight-spank.
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, just imagine we go into a refrigerator.
40:52
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to turn around.
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to like, wow, in, because I'll just, every time I think about it, it's just someone's fun.
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing about how did we be able to run 10, 12,000 a day on a tiny little spot on words of mouth?
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Always decent, you know?
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I never think we're the best foot, what's always decent.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Still now, I don't think my foot's the best but it's decent.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: People love it and words are mal and that's how we grow, right?
41:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Words are mal, everybody ever eat and come back.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, most of the repeating customer, and we go for a few hundred to 10,000, 12,000 a day for like, and 500, 500 square feet space.
41:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, it's unimaginable.
41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything I've ever done, it's like,
41:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a fucking habit, you know, like I'm feeling, I still don't know how to fuck that happen, you know?
41:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So that, and then at that time, I was still a financial advisor, a day time, and even I would go in, you know, take up my clothes and go in, help put everything else.
41:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I still run the business.
41:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I always run the business.
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But we didn't know anything better to try to figure it out, you know.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and then after two to three years, I saw another spot open up and we opened a second one and we don't do well too, and at that time I just had a reason on my head, I say, you know, we can we can grow this business.
42:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And that.
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I thought, had that in my head, I just couldn't do my job as a financial advisor anymore.
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it was a very fun job as a financial would make very good money.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But one you lose, the best passing was like, it become, you know, you know, you
42:47
[SPEAKER_01]: burden.
42:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you just come in.
42:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to go into office.
42:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't have the driven dual code calling.
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have, I don't want to see a client.
42:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just become every day.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting more excited about this.
43:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I lose the Simon on my job.
43:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I make that decision to do that full of time.
43:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me ask you, there's got to be a moment when we're in the food business
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I do every time because how do you keep going?
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when we started business working with family, it was very tough because we are going to be fun all the time.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a different way of running the business.
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: My family was more, it's a mom and part.
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So a family conflict.
43:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's very different.
43:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what the most difficult thing about running a mom and part business with family.
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We love each other, but then we don't understand.
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have, we're not on same pace.
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, I always, you know, I don't know what the, why would I keep doing this?
44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we would don't know, okay, but we always thought it was very unhealthy business because we argued every day and see my family, you know, came to America and they were working for getting, they didn't get home until like two, three of our money.
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, you know, I thought I was doing them a favor, but it's like, damn, they work a lot harder.
44:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's like, am I doing a writing or am I hurting them all of them?
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like, so that continue doing this?
44:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe they'd better off doing something.
44:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you know, maybe they didn't work with them.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And don't have to worry about a business.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, at that time, we opened seven days a week.
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We closed one days a year.
44:42
[SPEAKER_03]: So how did you get over that?
44:46
[SPEAKER_03]: How did you get over the family fighting struggle?
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And what made it smoother to get that third or fourth of it, you know, the more we quote a business, the more they trust me And eventually they just listen to them
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So, believe it or not, now it's like, we really fight, it's some, you know, they just, everything I set out to do, they in 100% can you imagine it?
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at, we're making the right decision to do it.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, you know, they see the compliment that we have, and I say, and now is when I do anything, I will apply to them, because this one will do.
45:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
45:34
[SPEAKER_01]: and they never, rarely ever, no, they don't even have a check and they just do what, they just, they all in the 400%, life is good enough.
45:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, that's really the biggest obstacle for me was it's not been the business, it's the family.
45:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's also, it's a problem, but it's also a plus
46:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We never apart.
46:06
[SPEAKER_01]: The Russian business, it really keeps us together.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still now.
46:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's beautiful.
46:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of, you know, we all get together.
46:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Russian business is keep us together.
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I think the Russian business is one of the top-it business, but then it's also the most rewarding business.
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the reason I keep doing what I do, because of that.
46:34
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I came here to really talk about idea of pricing because you're one of the few people who have reached the goal of what I've always dreamed of for the Vietnamese cuisine is high prices for our food, which we don't see a lot.
46:52
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, people complain when they see a $25 dollar bullet file, you're charging $40 here.
47:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I think somehow maybe we need to get to a second episode down the road, because I didn't even get to any, we really talked about the journey of becoming somebody in food in this last hour or once.
47:15
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm still missing the social media component of who you become as a social media person.
47:21
[SPEAKER_03]: How the pricing of this all works out?
47:23
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think we'll spend the next few minutes to just cover that.
47:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we have to do a part two because the part two we're really going to get about the personality that you bring, you know, that the actual side that you bring, because you know, I've come up here and I've done content with you and we've spent time in your restaurant,
47:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think about the drama that you bring to the visual side of what you do here is a whole separate episode.
47:55
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's finish this off today part one about how we get to the pricing that you've got to.
48:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's one of the most amazing things.
48:09
[SPEAKER_03]: that you do without really doing it.
48:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't even, it is, because of Ashton earlier, and it's not really a thing that you're like, I want to hit a $40 bullet fall and absolutely get there.
48:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't feel like that's something that,
48:22
[SPEAKER_03]: you were aiming for, that's not your goal.
48:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So can you break down this idea of the quality, the service, the standard of getting to pricing, that's at this higher level?
48:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And you have a line, that's not it.
48:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, fine, everything, I was hearing of what, at a Sunday afternoon one time, and I was like, a line of the door, but before you even open, it was the craziest thing.
48:52
[SPEAKER_03]: what an Italian restaurant or Japanese restaurant charges.
48:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's unbelievable.
48:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I brought a chef in, chef win, came with me, and we both talked about that for days after that.
49:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I usually feel asked me, and then my quick response would be, a very similar response.
49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I look cheap to you?
49:15
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my social media response but you know in reality is it's more than that, right?
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's also me that I mean, I do a lot of social media, but it's very hard for me to be able to really get to what it's really is.
49:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more social media, more fun for me, but I don't sow the other side of my business or meet personally
49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So to get, to get to a $41 ball file, it's never an intense one.
49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who would want to charge the most offensive ball file?
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's offensive well for the ball file.
49:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a piece of simple, a very decent price, right?
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But for me, you know, I go eat.
50:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sometimes, sometimes,
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I do this because after I start doing my business, I understand, I'm an energetic, though.
50:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a businessman, an energetic.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a professional chef, just to be clear.
50:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a professional chef.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a businessman, the only reason I can grow my business is not because if I am a chef or not, it's because I understand my business.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I respect my business and I respect myself.
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not the same to make money running my business, right?
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Because in order for me to run a happy business, I'm going to be able to make sure my business makes money.
50:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's all come down to what I put into a bull of up.
51:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You can come here.
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You can come back and get a 20 dollar bull for 17, $19 a bull for.
51:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You can come down.
51:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You get a 23 dollar bull for.
51:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can pay 41 dollar bull for.
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, 125 dollar bull for.
51:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a fuzzy little bit of it.
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
51:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about
51:24
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a formula, right?
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's, it's, it's going to cost me, whatever it cost me, I'm multiplied by four.
51:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
51:32
[SPEAKER_01]: The, the best of one I would do is I would multiply by three.
51:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, the, the cheaper ingredient I'm multiplied by four.
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how you be able to make enough profit to run in your business.
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a business, too.
51:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, break that down real quick.
51:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a formula in the food business.
51:55
[SPEAKER_03]: 25% is the food cost rent is the percentage, labor is the percentage.
52:01
[SPEAKER_03]: So when we talk about a $14.25 in Orange County, what we're talking about is really $3 ingredients, right?
52:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is, which is crazy if you think about,
52:13
[SPEAKER_03]: $3.54 for ingredient, which is you're barely getting anything outer inside of the ground.
52:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not like bones, it's not like with anything.
52:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we're talking about a $40 bowl of flour, we're talking about $10 of ingredient.
52:30
[SPEAKER_01]: $10 of ingredients is, yeah, for that $41 is that they cost a lot more than $10,
52:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so
52:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to give people awesome, right?
52:46
[SPEAKER_01]: They come in, they can have every day.
52:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to eat for 41 more followers.
52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You come here every day.
52:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The eat time is three.
52:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the filet me on file, right?
52:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's $20, $23, whatever it is.
52:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, people who come far away, they want to say, hey, I won, experience, experience.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to get back to them, right?
53:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Choices, right?
53:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they come back again, they're probably going to eat a bowl filet me on file.
53:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my best salad.
53:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a symbol of all of all.
53:13
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, you know, the reason also is you know, I run business now, I understand the have you ever heard the term, you know, on a, on an older generation, Russian owner, you work to that you see the family that work so hard day in and out and that food is so cheap.
53:40
[SPEAKER_01]: For years after year, and they never take a break, he's until they die.
53:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And no, in their family cannot have been taken over the business because they never really make that much money.
53:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They're paying for the rest.
53:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so little.
53:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I think of myself as a new generation.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to break that curve.
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I want, if I'm going to do this, I would never run my business like that.
54:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to make sure that
54:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my food value, it just asks value at the Japanese restaurant or Italian restaurant, because I put more effort in making my food.
54:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, far is not my money making items because
54:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We cooked the fucking, we cooked the broth.
54:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Over night, I'm not kidding, more than 24 hours.
54:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I say 24 hours, not more than 24 hours.
54:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Happily pot, what's all bone marrow?
54:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so much should go into it, right?
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And just imagine the cost of that, just to make the broth, the cost of the vegetable, the cost of the sauce, the cost of noodle,
55:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand why do we have a char-so-cheat.
55:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to break that.
55:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And enough for me to break that, when I make a bull for it, I want to make it look more than...
55:17
[SPEAKER_01]: what people usually see on a ordinary mobile phone.
55:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But I let them know, I want, obviously, let them know, hey, just what you get in the picture, you'll experience it again.
55:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd be able to charge them, what it meant to be charged.
55:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they can just go ahead and eat a filetma in your mobile phone.
55:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's,
55:44
[SPEAKER_01]: how I would be able to feel comfortable enough to charm and never feel bad.
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I want to charm what my value is and what my foot value is.
55:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I think here's the thing that I think
56:01
[SPEAKER_03]: regular business people don't think about often is when we eat food the energy that's actually in the food that's quality the time it actually transfers into our tail tongue and as human beings we can actually taste it but a lot of owners don't want to really sustain that quality because
56:22
[SPEAKER_03]: they want to make more margin.
56:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we cheat people from the margin, then people know it.
56:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And you add Julian, and you are seasoning.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2006, and we are in a Bay Area.
56:35
[SPEAKER_01]: People know it doesn't matter.
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: People understand they don't say it.
56:38
[SPEAKER_01]: People understand it doesn't matter if you mean it's not gonna be me.
56:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They know it.
56:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I call, you cannot cheat customer.
56:46
[SPEAKER_01]: When you cheat a customer, they know it.
56:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
56:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You just can't, you can't, your business can't last, I know.
56:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can have, you can have busy for a certain, and then it's never going to last.
57:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, a lot of the time, when you go to a lot of restaurants, they have, they do a lot of social media, beautiful,
57:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then you look at a manual, the picture looks so good or at the wall, but when the food come out, it's totally different, right.
57:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's actually we're going to destroy your business.
57:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I try to do is my food, um, I want to be.
57:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't cheat on a customer.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So, whatever I do, I take a picture is actually what I serve the customer.
57:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they don't, they don't, they, you manage their expectations.
57:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, the worst thing for me was like, I saw a beautiful book of art and when they had a special much and they'd come and say, what the fuck is this?
57:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That kind of hurt me, personally.
58:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I would never have had to,
58:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't do it.
58:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And it goes back to the early days of the coming to America when your expectation was shattered about what America is, what your life in America is going to be versus that small studio space.
58:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that early lesson of managing expectations all the way through from your own self to the public's expectation is key to really the success of somebody's life.
58:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, yeah, it's an expectation.
58:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything I have been done, I just want to make sure that expectation is realistic.
58:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus just too much expectation, right?
58:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, after you're now, I'm still doing my manual at the food.
58:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still doing my default.
58:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So because I want to make it real.
58:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I never want people to come in and take picture of my food because they can make it so beautiful.
58:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Beautiful and certain things.
58:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, when I look at it,
58:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what for you.
59:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I do my own video.
59:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I still take picture and do my own menu.
59:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I still do that by the way.
59:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't let people come and take picture and do my freaking menu, no, this is so.
59:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to thank you today for opening up and to really bring me and allow me to come into your restaurant and do this.
59:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know it takes a lot of trust for you to do that.
59:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it and I am asking that we get to do this again, whether you come to LA or I come back up to San Francisco in the near future.
59:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope that today was a good experience for you and that not only for me that you open up to, but I do hope that you open up.
59:44
[SPEAKER_03]: to other influencers and podcasts that come to you because your story is so valuable.
59:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know that every time you're going to be telling this story, it'll be in different angles, because different people have a way of capturing different angles of who you are.
1:00:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what they say?
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Like,
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when you touch an elephant, and you blindfold people, you touch the trunk, if you touch the body, you touch the legs, that the, that the, that the katas.
1:00:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody has a different description of that elephant, and it's the same.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_03]: When you have different podcasts, there's plenty of talk to you.
1:00:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll be a different, so they can see different sides of who you are.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think opening up to different people about your story makes the Vietnamese cuisine elevate.
1:00:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you so much for performing over there.
1:00:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks, thanks for coming by to put away, yeah.
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's very difficult for me to open up and tell my story.
1:00:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I'm in this, I'm in the reason.
1:00:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I really want to do this with you because,
1:00:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope my, you know, I'm still trying to figure it out, right?
1:00:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, you know, a lot of people now that they send me a lot and people, a lot of people look up to me, they email me and message me and I'll ask up and I still think that, you know, I'm just still trying to figure it out, you know what I'm saying?
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to be able to know that.
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Why try to figure out how you can still do what you do, right?
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we all try to figure it out.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_01]: When you stop trying to figure it out, you're not gonna get to know when, right?
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm still, I never considered myself successful.
1:01:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still trying to figure it out.
1:01:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I still learn my English.
1:01:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still trying to, you know, run my restaurant.
1:01:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So we are trying to figure it out.
1:01:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you continue trying to figure it out, you're going to go a long, long way.
1:01:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And that you should never stop trying to figure it out enough.
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And knowing every success person is still trying to figure it out.
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_03]: appreciate it with so much.
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, man.
1:02:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're working.
1:02:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we say, okay, we're going to.
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So we cannot end this by saying something that very meaningful to me.
1:02:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna follow it.
1:02:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so this is what I do for my social media every single pose So just follow me.
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so one two three do what you love do what you love and love what you eat and love with you eat Yeah, so you got me in it when you said okay, we love and love what you eat
1:02:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So you said so we're going to do again in a very you get you gotta be like you mean it when you say I'm not for this right don't make it feel like I'm for this.
1:03:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta mean it We said I say one two three is a okay one two three do what you love
1:03:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
1:03:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sidney Jamie and Crystal Tran.
1:03:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese Podcast.