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Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Betsy Brody
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
George Kao
April Kao
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 Interview with George and April Kao, September 28, 2021 2021oh001_di_001 02:04:29 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Chinese George Kao April Kao Betsy Brody wav oh-audio-dig-kao_george_april_20210928.wav 1:|16(3)|51(4)|78(3)|93(9)|113(14)|132(4)|150(10)|169(6)|189(11)|219(4)|235(9)|252(12)|276(5)|314(9)|343(3)|363(4)|383(6)|396(7)|415(4)|429(5)|444(3)|456(7)|472(6)|492(4)|510(6)|534(4)|548(8)|563(6)|575(11)|601(5)|618(6)|632(10)|649(7)|680(14)|721(4)|739(12)|767(4)|785(6)|804(13)|821(1)|839(10)|852(3)|863(4)|883(5)|900(5)|917(6)|936(6)|965(6)|1043(7)|1082(14)|1107(5)|1122(7)|1177(3)|1194(11)|1307(10)|1322(2)|1345(3)|1360(6)|1410(8)|1452(10)|1470(12)|1489(6)|1503(1)|1519(1)|1533(2)|1542(4)|1554(7)|1569(1)|1631(12)|1647(9)|1658(6)|1674(1)|1693(6)|1704(2)|1717(9)|1731(7)|1789(13)|1809(11)|1841(10) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/165408 Aviary audio 0 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Chinese ; Texas--History 35 Kao family comes to Texas from Taiwan Buck Kao ; Chinese restaurant ; Dallas ; Taiwan ; Texas 162 Arriving in Dallas and opening Royal China Asian community ; Cantonese ; chefs ; Chinese community ; Chinese restaurant ; Chop suey ; Dallas ; dry stir beef ; egg foo yung ; fried rice ; General Tso's chicken ; Mandarin ; orange chicken ; recipe ; Royal China ; Safari ; Shanghai Restaurant ; western palate ; wok 32.8971327074138, -96.80207992616816 17 560 Royal China's four generations of customers customers ; family run restaurant ; generation ; regulars ; Royal China 603 Fitting into Dallas in the 1970s Asian community ; Chinese population ; Chinese restaurant ; Dallas ; educate ; education ; English ; language ; Richardson ; University of Texas at Arlington ; University of Texas at Dallas 1025 " ; Authenticity" ; and the menu as a tool to educate authentic ; authenticity ; comfort food ; dumplings ; educate ; education ; menu ; palate ; Pearl Rice meatball ; western palate 1297 Experiences of racism/discrimination discrimination ; racism 1392 Redesign and remodel in 2008/ Menu changes broccoli beef ; Buck Kao ; Chinese restaurant ; design ; dumplings ; Henry S. Miller ; interior design ; landlord ; lease ; menu ; real estate ; remodel ; Shanghai style ; sweet and sour chicken ; Szechuan 2173 Chefs and labor challenges challenges ; chefs ; hiring ; labor ; labor shortage ; staffing 2539 Connection to the Jewish community celebrations ; Chinese restaurant ; Christmas ; Jewish ; neighborhood 2953 Atmosphere at Royal China on a busy night atmosphere ; Chinese restaurant ; food ; hospitality ; Royal China 3118 Sourcing ingredients Asian grocery ; local ingredients ; sourcing ; suppliers ; vegetables 3274 Relationship with neighboring businesses in plaza business ; neighbors ; plaza 3425 Buck Kao's legacy Buck Kao ; connection 3553 Chinese New Year Chinese New Year ; staff 3620 Experience with the 2019 tornado in Dallas Dallas Cowboys ; Royal China ; tornado 3845 Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Royal China COVID ; pandemic ; shutdown ; takeout 4053 Celebrities at Royal China celebrities ; Dallas ; Dallas Cowboys ; neigborhood ; President Bush 4342 Photography and art in Royal China culture ; interior design ; photography ; Safari 4577 Lessons and reflections from running a Chinese restaurant in Dallas celebrations ; Chinese restaurant ; connect ; connection ; culture ; Dallas ; food ; labor shortage ; neigborhood ; relationship 5527 Relationships with other Chinese restaurants in Dallas Chinese restaurants ; mentor |00:21:30| BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is September 28th, 2021. I am interviewing for the first time Ms. April Kao and Mr. George Kao. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In How Food, Culture and Class Shaped the Story of Dallas." ; All right. Thank you so much to both of you for joining me. I' ; m really looking forward to hearing your stories and the story of your family. First of all, could you just tell me where and when you were born? |00:22:09| APRIL KAO You go first. |00:22:10| GEORGE KAO No. |00:22:11| APRIL KAO OK. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1955. |00:22:19| BRODY How about you? |00:22:20| GEORGE KAO Same...Taiwan 52 in 1952. |00:22:24| BRODY Well, what brought you to Texas? What brought you to Texas? |00:22:28| GEORGE KAO Because my father moved here first, so we just followed the parents |00:22:32| BRODY Tell me about your father. |00:22:34| GEORGE KAO A career military man turned to diplomat. Now, after he retired, he decided to move family to the United States. For, you know, better future for the kids. For our generation. |00:22:50| BRODY Absolutely. What was his name? |00:22:51| GEORGE KAO Buck. |00:22:52| BRODY His name was Buck. |00:22:54| GEORGE KAO Buck Kao. |00:22:55| BRODY Yes. And so he was a diplomat. Where from? |00:23:01| GEORGE KAO Nationalist Government. |00:23:01| BRODY OK. Yes. |00:23:03| APRIL KAO He was stationed in many different countries, Switzerland, England, France, Germany, Korea. |00:23:14| GEORGE KAO Korea is during the Korean War. At that time, he was still on the military side. |00:23:19| APRIL KAO And he was helping the American side. |00:23:22| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |00:23:22| BRODY That' ; s right. So is that what that made him think that he would like to come to the United States? |00:23:28| APRIL KAO Yep. |00:23:29| GEORGE KAO I think yes. Probably he had some friends during that period. So they still connect. So after he retired, he decided to move to United States. |00:23:41| APRIL KAO He actually was here in D.C., living in D.C. in 1952 when he (George Kao) was born. He was three months old. George was three months old, lived in D.C. for three years. And they moved back to Taiwan, you know, and then after he retired, he decided to move the whole family here. |00:24:03| BRODY Well, did he have a sponsor or he just was able to immigrate at that time? |00:24:08| GEORGE KAO Yeah, just able to, yeah. |00:24:10| BRODY And so how did the family end up in Texas? |00:24:14| GEORGE KAO That' ; s an interesting question. I always joke and say. Because Dallas Cowboys. |00:24:22| BRODY Because of the Dallas Cowboys? |00:24:23| APRIL KAO No. They landed in San Francisco and tried to look for a place to maybe have some sort of business or a restaurant, and then later they came with two chefs to scout locations and they told him, maybe you should try Dallas. You know, it' ; s such a booming place. So they came. |00:24:51| BRODY They came. So all along, he was intending to be in the restaurant business? Had he been in the restaurant business before? |00:24:59| GEORGE KAO No, never. |00:25:01| BRODY What drew him to that? |00:25:04| GEORGE KAO I think what it is...This is type business nobody can compete with you, right? Chinese food, right? Absolutely. Your only competition is your own people. So at that time, Dallas is still kind of not like the East Coast and West Coast. That' ; s a really big, big Chinese community. Right? Dallas is still kind of new at the 70s. So they decided, " ; OK, it' ; s coming. A new market." ; So they decided to move to Dallas. |00:25:42| BRODY Fantastic. So how big was the community, the Chinese community at the time? |00:25:47| GEORGE KAO At that time? |00:25:48| BRODY Yeah. |00:25:48| APRIL KAO Very small, very pretty small. Very, very few Chinese people. That- when we came in 1977, still a small community. |00:25:58| BRODY Right. So the restaurant started in 1974. Tell me about the restaurant. We haven' ; t even talked about that yet. Tell me the name and how it all- how it got started. How did your dad start the restaurant? |00:26:11| APRIL KAO Well, they came in to look for any opportunities, so they ended up working for a restaurant called Shanghai Restaurant and then for some time in 72, I think. And then when 74, the current location of Royal China, it was called Safari. It was a steakhouse. And that location, I mean, became available. So they acquired that space and made it into Royal China. I guess, you know, because it' ; s on Royal Lane. |00:26:54| BRODY That' ; s right. It is on Royal Lane. |00:26:56| APRIL KAO Right. |00:26:57| BRODY So they took over the old Safari space and that had been a pretty popular restaurant. |00:27:05| GEORGE KAO At that time. Safari was very successful. |00:27:09| BRODY So they took over that that space and renamed it Royal China. How did, what were the first days of the business like in the family story? |00:27:19| GEORGE KAO Just before we move here. So when the restaurant opened, |00:27:23| APRIL KAO We heard it was packed, lined with people because it' ; s such a new restaurant, new concept, not too many Chinese restaurants around at the time. And they had, we had, chefs from Taiwan and the newspaper write-up. It was a very popular for some time. |00:27:48| BRODY A big splash. |00:27:49| APRIL KAO Big splash. |00:27:49| BRODY Right. So the community, you said was small, the Chinese community at the time. So the clientele at the beginning must have been. |00:28:00| APRIL KAO Caucasian. Yeah. Not Chinese at the time. |00:28:04| BRODY So was there anything special that your family did in the early days to sort of, you know, to bring in business, to attract business to, you know, or, you know, were people just lining up because they were interested in trying Chinese food? |00:28:24| GEORGE KAO I think that at that time, it' ; s only a few Chinese restaurants. Basically it' ; s only Cantonese immigrant. So all the Chinese food at that time in Dallas, I think pretty much everyone is Cantonese style. So just so-called like |00:28:41| APRIL KAO Mandarin |00:28:42| GEORGE KAO Chop suey, at that time, right? Like Cantonese style. Famous by egg foo yung, chop suey, fried rice. And I think we are, based on my understanding we are probably one of the few early to serve at that time so-called Mandarin style. |00:29:05| BRODY Tell me about Mandarin style. What is it like? What are the main aspects of Mandarin style cooking? |00:29:11| APRIL KAO We have Peking Duck at the time. We still have that. And then like moo shu pork, stir fry. And then we have dry stir beef was starting from that time until now it' ; s still... |00:29:28| BRODY Tell me about that. |00:29:30| APRIL KAO Dry stir beef? It' ; s a little sweet, little spicy, crispy fried beef, you know, with all this seasoning. |00:29:39| BRODY And would you say that' ; s the specialty of the house? |00:29:41| APRIL KAO Yes. Yes, yes, yes. |00:29:44| GEORGE KAO From the day one! |00:29:45| BRODY Who developed that recipe? Is that a traditional recipe? |00:29:48| GEORGE KAO You know, kind of- we modify it. We tried. In general, American people love kind of little bit sweet and sour. Everybody loves fried food. Right? So we just try to say, " ; OK, we do this beef. We fry a little bit, so it becomes crispy outside, then stir-fry in the wok with the sauce, it becomes a little bit spicy and little bit sweet." ; It' ; s become instant success, you know, kind of like General Kao' ; s chicken. |00:30:22| BRODY Yes. |00:30:23| GEORGE KAO It' ; s just a version. Just one is a beef version, one is a chicken version. That' ; s, you know, nowadays orange chicken, General Kao Chicken, all those become universal. |00:30:35| BRODY Right. |00:30:37| GEORGE KAO Even some American chain stores, they carry like orange chicken. |00:30:43| BRODY They do, they do. So those dishes are...They took off from the beginning, did you have a sort of regular clientele or, you know, lots of regulars? Tell me about that... |00:30:57| GEORGE KAO Lots of regulars. Even till now that we have a probably customers for four generation. |00:31:04| BRODY Amazing. |00:31:05| GEORGE KAO They still come to a restaurant. |00:31:07| BRODY That' ; s amazing. |00:31:07| GEORGE KAO Some of the older one already passed away, but they still keep on coming. |00:31:13| BRODY So you' ; ve really gotten to build relationships with families over time. Well, that' ; s really interesting. So it sounds like your dad picked the spot based on it was a popular spot that people were accustomed to going out to eat. And then also, though, do you remember any stories or have any experiences about, about fitting in. Fitting in in the restaurant scene or fitting in just in general in Dallas at that time, what was it like? |00:31:47| GEORGE KAO At that time? |00:31:48| BRODY Yes. |00:31:50| GEORGE KAO You mean in the seventies. Well, I need to think about it. |00:31:57| BRODY Yeah, absolutely. Take a, take a minute. |00:32:02| APRIL KAO Yeah, well, I was working in the back of the house. I started washing dishes, cutting vegetables. So not much of the time to deal with front of the house. It' ; s always my father-in-law and George was working the front. So, yeah, you know, a little bit. But fitting in? Well, language is my big problem. |00:32:32| BRODY Yes. |00:32:33| APRIL KAO OK, and it' ; s not easy at the time. I felt like I was in the black hole. |00:32:44| BRODY Oh, that sounds difficult. |00:32:48| APRIL KAO Yeah. For a while until I started to learn to speak and to communicate |00:32:53| BRODY Did you go back to school or was it just sort of an immersion? |00:32:59| APRIL KAO I did. I when my children was going to school and my sister came and I was helping her in enrolling in school and I thought, " ; Hey, I can go to school, too!" ; So I started to take ESL classes and horticulture classes and photography classes. |00:33:24| BRODY Where did you go to school? |00:33:26| APRIL KAO I went to Richland and then Collin County and then I took some classes at Texas Woman' ; s University. |00:33:36| BRODY Great. Well, and you obviously learned English very, very well. |00:33:43| APRIL KAO Yeah. |00:33:44| GEORGE KAO We' ; re still learning. Always room to improve. Yeah, absolutely. We try our best. |00:33:49| BRODY You' ; re doing great. |00:33:53| GEORGE KAO You' ; re very kind. |00:33:54| BRODY In the 70s when you both actually did arrive here. Were you already married at that time? And then...Yes? And so did you move into a house, apartment at that time? How did...you know...Tell me about your process and what your life was like during that early time. |00:34:17| GEORGE KAO First, when she (April Kao) moved to here, we just stay with, like, I think, most traditional Asian stay together. |00:34:26| APRIL KAO We stayed with his parents. |00:34:28| GEORGE KAO Yeah. All my brother, sister, us- we stayed where this one in Richardson. |00:34:35| BRODY in Richardson? |00:34:36| APRIL KAO Richardson |00:34:37| GEORGE KAO The house is facing Berkner High School. |00:34:40| BRODY Oh OK. |00:34:41| GEORGE KAO Berkner Drive. We used to live there. And then after maybe... |00:34:47| APRIL KAO A year or something, and then we moved. |00:34:50| GEORGE KAO To an apartment. We moved to an apartment. |00:34:51| BRODY OK. |00:34:52| GEORGE KAO We moved into an apartment |00:34:52| BRODY And all the while you were working at the restaurant. |00:34:55| GEORGE KAO We were all working in the restaurant. Then we saved some money. After one year we bought a first house. |00:35:03| BRODY Great. Where was your... |00:35:05| GEORGE KAO Also in Richardson. Also in Richardson. Yeah. It' ; s only here. |00:35:10| BRODY Yeah. At this at that point the Asian community must have been growing in Richardson especially. |00:35:16| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Yeah. At that time, majority, at that time, pretty much is Taiwan immigrant or students. |00:35:27| BRODY Or students. |00:35:29| GEORGE KAO They come to UTD or UTA. Pretty much. Then probably after Vietnam fall, they got lots of Vietnamese refugees. |00:35:41| BRODY Right in 1975. 1976 |00:35:44| APRIL KAO Yeah |00:35:46| GEORGE KAO Then start to, I think eighty or mid-eighties. Tiananmen Square is 89, right? You know, |00:36:00| APRIL KAO After that, it started to... |00:36:01| GEORGE KAO It starts, pretty much like mid-eighties and then you' ; ve got student from China at the time, really gradually open up. |00:36:11| BRODY Right. |00:36:12| GEORGE KAO So they let lots of students come to United States to study. So UTD is a pretty popular place. |00:36:18| BRODY Yes. |00:36:19| GEORGE KAO Lots of foreign students. |00:36:21| BRODY So that how did that impact the growing Asian population, you know, not just Vietnamese, but also, you know, Chinese and other Asian countries. |00:36:33| GEORGE KAO Indians. A huge population, right? |00:36:34| BRODY Yes. So during that time, Indians as well came. How did that change things at the restaurant where previously, when you first opened in 1974, the clientele had been mostly Caucasian, as you said. So did it change? |00:36:47| GEORGE KAO Totally...The dynamic of the restaurant business. Absolutely. |00:36:51| BRODY Tell me about that. |00:36:52| GEORGE KAO Yeah. And also there' ; s lots of from Asia, right? It doesn' ; t matter if it' ; s Korea or India or Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or mainland China. They start to have their own culture to serve their own people. |00:37:11| BRODY Right. |00:37:13| GEORGE KAO Right. Get it. Just like for example, like in Richardson or Plano, there' ; s so many Chinese are now there that the majority clientèle is Chinese people, very small percentage is American. Yes. Its just total...very authentic. |00:37:35| BRODY Right. |00:37:36| GEORGE KAO And like the Korean- big population. Korean probably has the most. I think probably Korean has the most population ratio. I' ; m not sure. |00:37:48| BRODY Right. |00:37:49| GEORGE KAO Either Korea or India...So we talk about dynamics. |00:37:55| BRODY Yeah, no...So did you have more Asians coming to your restaurant at that time? What was that like? |00:38:02| GEORGE KAO Probably after our major remodel in 2008. |00:38:10| BRODY OK, fast forwarding to 2008. |00:38:12| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Now know that our restaurant started to be |upward hand motion indicating taking off|, there' ; s lots of publicity. The newspaper writing review. People interview us. So we' ; ve got a lot of Asian community come to our restaurant. |00:38:34| BRODY That' ; s great. Well, I want to go back to that question of authenticity, because I think that' ; s a really interesting aspect of studying Asian restaurants, is that there' ; s that- what you' ; re talking about the very quote unquote, authentic places where the people within that community go to eat. But then there are other places that are more popular among the sort of mainstream American...Do you feel? So that' ; s what I was going to ask. Where would you put your restaurant, Royal China? |00:39:10| APRIL KAO We have a very authentic cuisine. And then we also cater to a lot of Caucasians because of the area we are in. We have to modify to, according to the tastes of the majority of the population. |00:39:28| BRODY Right. Right. So you have both the authentic and also the things that, you know, the people in the neighborhood that are your customers also enjoy. So you' ; ve kind of created a dual aspect to your menu? |00:39:44| GEORGE KAO It' ; s kind of like we also can like educate Americans. |00:39:49| BRODY Yeah, tell me about that. What do you mean by that? |00:39:51| GEORGE KAO Yeah. For example, I think that' ; s her specialty (|points to April Kao). She' ; ll bring, like, dumplings, soup dumplings, all those kind of, kind of like small plates like a tapas like the so-called dimsum type small plates. |00:40:06| BRODY Right. |00:40:07| GEORGE KAO She bring a lot of this and put it on the menu. In the authentic Taiwanese style, like a bao. So we add it on and we introduce to the neighborhood, to the community, so that we' ; ve got a great response. And then pretty much like, since we started in 2008, right now, it' ; s kind of like almost every Chinese restaurant is following in our footsteps. Everybody doing the same type of food. |00:40:41| BRODY So that' ; s I mean, that' ; s really interesting because how does that conversation happen? Like when you think, " ; Oh, I want to introduce something new," ; what are you drawing on and what are you trying to accomplish? |00:40:56| APRIL KAO There are other Chinese restaurants, they so-called authentic Chinese food. They do also have stuff that cater to American people and they have two sets of menu. When Chinese walk in, they give you the authentic so-called menu. |00:41:19| GEORGE KAO All Chinese character. |00:41:20| APRIL KAO And I don' ; t want to do that because that' ; s, to me, we shouldn' ; t discriminate anybody. All you know, regardless you' ; re Asian or you' ; re American, you can also try different food. I want everybody to accept the food we serve. And some people know what to order. Some majority, they would just stick to whatever they' ; re used to, you know, General Chicken always. |00:41:51| GEORGE KAO Their comfort food. |00:41:54| APRIL KAO So we do have Chinese people that love our food. You know, they will come and have big parties and all their families come and told us " ; Wow. This is the best." ; So that' ; s really, really rewarding. And we have American people that know that we do serve authentic food. |00:42:21| BRODY You struck a balance there between those two things. So. Well, that' ; s really nice. And I like the education piece of it that, you know, that you can have the authentic foods.. |00:42:34| APRIL KAO Like the meatball...Pearl Rice meatball that...I make that. I used to make that all the time for my kids, for my own family' ; s, you know, all kinds of special gathering. I made that and I thought, " ; Wow, this everybody loves it. Why don' ; t we serve this at the restaurant?" ; So I started to put in things that that I think people would like. And, yes, that became quite popular. |00:43:05| BRODY That' ; s really interesting. Did you run into in or your family, in the course of running the restaurant, any racism, or, you know, issues like that that were more challenging? |00:43:20| APRIL KAO Yeah. |00:43:20| GEORGE KAO From time to time. And I think that that' ; s a pretty universally every race, you will...You will run into some people. Just not kind. Not nice. Biased. |00:43:38| BRODY Did you feel that there were in particular stereotypes about Chinese food that that you were up against, that people had a maybe an idea about Chinese food being this or that? How did you deal with things like that? |00:43:57| GEORGE KAO You mean how we...or their perception? |00:44:04| APRIL KAO And people have their you know, they are used to wherever they go, you know, like a restaurant, certain tastes, you know, they used to that. And when you go, when they come to our restaurant, it' ; s not what they normally, you know, not their normal flavor, you know, to their liking, we try to fix it. We try to make it the way they like it. And then if they don' ; t like it, we can' ; t help it. |00:44:40| BRODY That is true. Back to the starting of the business, and I know neither one of you was necessarily right there when it started, but what do you know about the sort of the nuts and bolts of that process? Like, obviously they decided on- your dad decided on the location. Did he- was he renting? Or did he buy it outright or? |00:45:04| GEORGE KAO It is leased. |00:45:05| BRODY It is leased. OK, and so was that? |00:45:08| GEORGE KAO Until nowadays it' ; s still leased. |00:45:10| BRODY Tell me about that. That piece of it, the sort of the real estate decisions that go into running a restaurant. |00:45:21| GEORGE KAO Landlord side or our side? |00:45:22| BRODY Just your own your experiences of sort of the business side of it, the, you know, renting the space, leasing the space also on the city side, getting permits and things like that. What is that like, what has that been like for you? |00:45:38| APRIL KAO We, we were not here, so however our father went through, we have no idea. But I know that he and the landlord, Mr. |00:45:52| GEORGE KAO Henry S. Miller |00:45:53| APRIL KAO Henry S. Miller III had a very good relationship. He was, Mr. Miller, was really generous, very kind man. So the relationship between the two lasted a long time. I know every time the new lease is |00:46:15| GEORGE KAO New lease |00:46:18| APRIL KAO Needs a renew, they would send us the lease and Buck would sign it and send it back. |00:46:26| GEORGE KAO That' ; s it |00:46:27| APRIL KAO Very simple. They' ; re so easy. I know the last lease that I was there was like ten dollars per square foot and he every time would increase a little, OK and, |00:46:45| GEORGE KAO Which is understandable. |00:46:45| APRIL KAO Yeah. Ten dollars and then he' ; d sign it and then send it back. It was just so easy until 2006. That' ; s a different story. |00:46:54| BRODY What happened in 2006? |00:46:55| GEORGE KAO That was the most dramatic event in our restaurant. |00:46:58| BRODY Really what happened? |00:47:00| GEORGE KAO Most dramatic, most theatrical. |00:47:04| APRIL KAO 2006. I mean at the time all other restaurants like Vietnamese restaurant, Thai, Korean foods all came to Dallas and Chinese was starting to go downhill because too much, too many restaurants are too saturated and, you know, too many, too many buffet places. And it was really difficult. |00:47:35| GEORGE KAO Nothing exciting. It' ; s just the same. Every restaurant is the same- Chinese restaurant. |00:47:39| APRIL KAO So the Mr. Miller' ; s daughter took over managing the property. She decided to change the concept. No more Chinese in her property. She wanted other Vietnamese or Thai restaurant for our location. So she didn' ; t want to renew the lease. |00:48:07| BRODY Oh, that must have been difficult. |00:48:10| GEORGE KAO Yeah, they wanted more sales. So they want a new business to generate more sales. So they said, based on your sales, it' ; s not meet our standard. |00:48:25| BRODY So how did you respond to that? |00:48:27| APRIL KAO So we tried to talk her, you know, negotiate and she said no, we-you know. |00:48:33| GEORGE KAO You are... |00:48:34| APRIL KAO Yeah. No more. So we were ready to move. I actually found other locations and then I hired a team of three restaurant consultants. And the consultants...One of the consultants came to Royal China at the time and they said, " ; No, you should stay here." ; I said, " ; No, the landlord didn' ; t want us to stay, so how can we you know?" ; He said, " ; Let me talk to her. I know the brothers." ; So, so he made a phone call and said, " ; Don' ; t sign any lease with anybody for a month, give us a month." ; So I work with the...All three of them. One was the architect. He started to do the design and then I worked with the other two on the menu side. I came up with the menu and they helped me kind of go into that and added to the menu. And by the end of the month, we presented the plan to Jackie and the team. So later she called and say, " ; OK, it' ; s green light!" ; You know, so w? Got the 10 year lease. |00:50:02| BRODY That' ; s great. So tell me about what the changes were. What was the new plan? And what was different about it from the old. |00:50:11| GEORGE KAO Revolutionized! |George Kao laughs| |00:50:15| APRIL KAO We knocked down everything, the wall, every, every wall, everything. |00:50:21| BRODY Had it been pretty much the same since the old, the old Safari days. |00:50:26| APRIL KAO No. Totally. |00:50:26| BRODY OK, so, you had changed it in between? |00:50:29| APRIL KAO We totally changed the whole look. |00:50:35| GEORGE KAO And to move the whole dumpling bar. That' ; s her idea. |00:50:40| APRIL KAO We put, we put a dumpling bar, I mean the kitchen right in the dining room so people can see it. And later we have the hand-pulled noodles. So the open kitchen in Chinese food with cooks that are making handmade dumplings there, it was the first concept in Dallas. So that that was a very... became a really big hit. |00:51:10| BRODY And that was your idea. |00:51:11| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Absolutely. |00:51:12| BRODY This is had so you had this team of... |00:51:15| GEORGE KAO I' ; m a very lucky man. |George Kao laughs| |00:51:17| BRODY Absolutely. So... And then the menu. Tell me about the other changes in the menu that were part of that proposal. |00:51:24| APRIL KAO I mean, we' ; re tried not to have this huge menu like every Chinese restaurant has. You know, we tried to simplify but diversify. So we had dumplings. We have noodles and different kinds of noodles. And we add in a little bit of the curries and a little bit of the little small plates that kind of cater to all different you know... |00:51:54| GEORGE KAO And we have kind of start to emphasize on the Shanghai style cooking and Sichuan style to balance out. |00:52:04| BRODY So you made sure that both of those were incorporated as well. So were there things that were removed from the menu that people still wanted? |00:52:14| GEORGE KAO Oh, yes. Of course. |George Kao laughs| |00:52:17| APRIL KAO I mean, almost every restaurant has Broccoli Beef, Sweet and Sour Chicken. And we kind of not have that on our menu because there' ; s just too many items. But we can still make those items if people ask for it. |00:52:35| BRODY So do people ask for them still? |00:52:37| GEORGE KAO Everyday. And they don' ; t even check the menu. They just come " ; Sweet and Sour Chicken. It' ; s not on the menu." ; I say, " ; We know that. We still make it OK." ; |Recording stops briefly here| |00:52:51| BRODY I' ; m restarting the recording and we were talking about the changes in the menu that happened in 2006 and the reaction to those changes. So let' ; s pick up where we left off. So you' ; ve been happy with the reception of the new floor plan. And what do you think people like the most about the new? What do you think people like the most about the new set up? |00:53:21| APRIL KAO OK, we started in 2006, but the restaurant didn' ; t finish the renovation until 2008. And most people, when they come in, they' ; re shocked to see this totally new restaurant. All new. I mean, we had marble, beautiful marble countertop, you know, some stainless steel. |00:53:53| GEORGE KAO More contemporary. |00:53:55| APRIL KAO And mixed in with the old. So it' ; s really contemporary and nice and clean restaurant at the time. So. People kind of went crazy about it. |00:54:08| GEORGE KAO And many they' ; re like, " ; Wow!" ; |00:54:11| APRIL KAO Everything was new. |00:54:12| BRODY Yeah, well, especially if you' ; ve had four generations of families coming to the old place. Tell me about some of the you know, just if you can imagine that the first time that some of those older families, established families came back, what was, what were the main comments you got? What was their reaction? |00:54:30| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Like, you know, basically speechless. So totally, in awe. |00:54:35| APRIL KAO Wow. That wow factor. |00:54:39| BRODY Is it, now is it more crowded now than it used to be? |00:54:43| APRIL KAO Yes. |00:54:44| GEORGE KAO Well, you know, from 2008, |00:54:48| APRIL KAO The business increased. |00:54:50| GEORGE KAO We had almost like swing |makes upward movement with hands|. |00:54:54| BRODY That' ; s amazing. |00:54:55| APRIL KAO Double, triple of the business. |00:54:58| BRODY That' ; s amazing. And is that partly because of increasing the capacity? |00:55:02| GEORGE KAO No. |00:55:03| BRODY No? |00:55:04| APRIL KAO No. The restaurant' ; s still the same size, but more popular, became more popular. The business. And we' ; re packed almost like every, every night. There' ; s a line. Forty five minutes wait, an hour wait, you know. Never before. |00:55:19| BRODY That wasn' ; t how it was before. So that sounds like that 2006 decision... |00:55:26| GEORGE KAO 2008. |00:55:26| BRODY Yeah. 2006 and 2008. |00:55:29| GEORGE KAO Start the process. |00:55:29| BRODY .That was a real turning point for the restaurant, wasn' ; t it? What would you say your biggest sellers are today? |00:55:37| APRIL KAO Well, General Chicken, still the biggest seller |00:55:40| GEORGE KAO We should put it in a different category. |00:55:43| APRIL KAO OK, dumplings, dumplings are almost like every... |00:55:46| GEORGE KAO Soup dumpling. |00:55:49| APRIL KAO Soup dumplings. |00:55:49| BRODY Yeah. Was that the ... |00:55:52| GEORGE KAO Actually is General Kao' ; s Chicken. No doubt. You know, the universal number one! |00:55:57| APRIL KAO General Chicken, Dry Stirred Beef, and Lo Mein is still very popular. Yeah. |00:56:02| BRODY Yeah. So have people cultivated new favorites? |00:56:10| GEORGE KAO Oh, yes. |00:56:11| APRIL KAO So those dumplings where they eat them, something that you had served before? |00:56:15| APRIL KAO We ha we had dumplings, but very simple. It' ; s just like pork dumpling, that' ; s all. |00:56:21| BRODY So tell me about the change. |00:56:22| APRIL KAO And then we added four different kinds of dumplings...Soup dumplings we added. And then we added shrimp, chicken, and vegetable dumplings with the pork we already had. And then I colorized the dough so each one has its own colors. We use vegetable to dye the dough. |00:56:49| GEORGE KAO Natural ingredients. |00:56:51| APRIL KAO Yeah. Like, we use spinach for the... |00:56:57| GEORGE KAO Spinach puree,. |00:56:58| APRIL KAO Vegetable dumplings. Chicken, we use carrots and then we use beet, you know, red colors for the shrimp dumplings. So it was very colorful. People would see that this dumpling sampler and go, " ; Wow!" ; You know, it' ; s not, not just tastes good, they look pretty too. |00:57:16| BRODY Sounds very pretty. And it' ; s an open kitchen so they can see the dumplings being made as well. How do you serve those dumplings? Are they in a steamer? |00:57:26| APRIL KAO Steamer. |00:57:26| BRODY Yeah, it' ; s a little dramatic as well. |00:57:28| APRIL KAO We steam them so they can see all the other stack of the dumpling baskets there being steamed and also making the dumplings right in front of them. |00:57:41| BRODY So tell me about the chefs. I know when your dad came first, he had, you said the two Taiwanese chefs. |00:57:51| GEORGE KAO Ancient now. Yeah. |00:57:51| BRODY Oh, so how about now? What are your...How do you? |00:57:55| GEORGE KAO You mean chefs nowadays. |00:57:57| BRODY Yes. Did the same. I mean, not the same people, of course. |00:58:02| GEORGE KAO No, I say maybe. That, when the restaurant opened, that chef probably, probably already gone. They pretty much the same age as my dad. So my dad already passed away. Twenty years. So I am assuming that generation probably really fade away. |00:58:20| BRODY Right. So how did you keep finding chefs that were authentic to the types of food that you wanted to serve and also flexible enough to adapt to the clientele? |00:58:32| APRIL KAO We try to find them locally, you know, by word of mouth, say so and so working somewhere. And then you know, we put out a search and I did, we did bring in from China, one from China, two from China and one from Taiwan. You know, that we got them green card and then work permits and then green card to work here. |00:59:04| BRODY Right. So that' ; s an interaction with the government. We were talking earlier about permits for the restaurant itself. And here you' ; re interacting with, you know, immigration and so on. |00:59:14| APRIL KAO It was easier. |00:59:16| GEORGE KAO And the some is a local talent. So we get them. |00:59:18| APRIL KAO It was easier back then. But now it' ; s getting harder and harder to find people, especially nowadays. |00:59:24| BRODY Right. |00:59:25| APRIL KAO Just so hard. And people change professions. This is not profession that people wanted to continue. So, it' ; s getting really hard. |00:59:39| BRODY So how are you meeting those challenges? What are what are your strategies? Still working on it? |00:59:44| GEORGE KAO The only solution in any business right now. Like service, retail? One solution- pay more. |00:59:54| APRIL KAO Yes. |00:59:57| GEORGE KAO All those small businesses, even at retail. Right? Especially Christmas just around corner. All the retail stores want to hire extra people, they just can' ; t find them. One of the main factor is all the big block stores like Amazon and Walmart. I think you know that, right? They hire tens of thousand people. To start with...minimum wage plus benefits plus. So small business .is just very, very difficult. |01:00:32| BRODY It' ; s been challenging |01:00:33| GEORGE KAO Very challenging. |01:00:35| APRIL KAO We even tried to hire unskilled cook to train. It' ; s actually nowhere to be found. So the only solution is to, to offer more money. You know, it just can' ; t increase pay enough, fast enough. It' ; s just really hard to keep people. |01:00:59| BRODY Right. That makes me think about the kind of what we' ; re talking about before. When you first opened the restaurant, there wasn' ; t you know, there weren' ; t any other Chinese restaurants here. And now, you know, at some point there was, as you said, a saturation. And so where are we now in terms of competition for Chinese restaurants? Is it at a a peak level? |01:01:24| APRIL KAO So many people still opening the restaurant. We don' ; t know why and it' ; s so difficult to find skilled worker and, you know, right now, but they are still opening. |01:01:38| BRODY Why do you think that is? |01:01:42| APRIL KAO Not sure why I, you know... |01:01:48| GEORGE KAO People just want to be their own boss. |01:01:50| APRIL KAO They want to own their own business and not knowing other things to do? They think owning a restaurant, opening a restaurant. It' ; s the easy solution, but it' ; s really not easy. |01:02:05| GEORGE KAO And also, especially after a pandemic. Right. The businesses start to come back- the restaurant business, the hospitality business. So it makes lots of people interested. OK, this is a good time to invest in the restaurant business. OK, but at the same time, everybody just right now start to find out, most challenging part is the labor shortage. You can have money, you might have a similar skill, you don' ; t have enough labor to fill in every position. |01:02:46| BRODY And there are many positions to fill in a restaurant. In the early days, I know... Right now there' ; s a labor shortage. In the early days of the restaurant, were those positions filled primarily by family in your case or did you hire people? |01:03:05| APRIL KAO We hired people and it was easy at the time to find who were people willing to work in the restaurant. Majority are immigrants. You know, we, as the immigrant ourself, we' ; d give other immigrants the opportunities. And to this day, we still hire immigrants and a lot of refugees. You know, by giving them an opportunity, I feel like we' ; re taking care of them and giving them their first start. |01:03:48| BRODY That' ; s great. And building connections within the community. So on the subject of connecting with communities, how connected do you feel that your restaurant is to the larger Chinese community in Dallas? And how has that been over time? Do you feel that there' ; s a strong connection there? |01:04:13| APRIL KAO Our restaurant, actually, it' ; s away from the majority of the Chinese communities. We' ; re in the majority of the Caucasian populations. So I, you know, from time to time, we have Asian come to our restaurants and probably that' ; s the only connection we have with them. |01:04:39| GEORGE KAO So pretty much they say, strongest connection, neighborhood and the Jewish community. |01:04:47| BRODY Oh, yeah tell me about that. |01:04:48| GEORGE KAO It' ; s our big supporter. |01:04:51| BRODY Yeah, that was going to be one of my questions I' ; ve got written down. What are your connections with other groups within Dallas, the Jewish community, the African-American community, the Latino community or any others? |01:05:06| GEORGE KAO Probably our strongest connection is the Jewish community? |01:05:10| APRIL KAO We' ; re in the neighborhood. |01:05:11| GEORGE KAO Yeah...demographic-wise the North Dallas is lot of Jewish concentrate. Lots of synagogues. Lots of business there. And also is some historical reason, Jewish people love Chinese food. |01:05:30| BRODY Why do you think that is? |01:05:33| GEORGE KAO They say it' ; s back to centuries ago? This is a back- old days. Before the OK, after the Russian Revolution, early start of the 20th century, lots of Jewishcommunities, they kind of run away from the Communists, they started to move to China. It all start from there. The majority, they moved to Shanghai, the largest city. |01:06:02| APRIL KAO Almost twenty thousand people at the time was allowed into China. And they lived in Shanghai for until after World War II, and they started to move back. I was just watching a program about it. |01:06:18| BRODY Really interesting. |01:06:20| APRIL KAO So that' ; s how they learned to play Mah Jong. |01:06:23| GEORGE KAO Yeah, that' ; s how the Jewish ladies learned to play Mah Jong. It all start from Shanghai. |01:06:30| BRODY It' ; s really interesting. So tell me about your customers who are Jewish and the sort of the relationships that have built up between your restaurant, your family, and the Jewish community. |01:06:42| GEORGE KAO We' ; re old. Like ancient culture, right? Like Indian ancient culture. So it' ; s a mutual respect about like your country, your people, my people, Jewish group...It' ; s mutual respect about for historic. |01:07:00| APRIL KAO All family-oriented |01:07:02| GEORGE KAO And also very family oriented. And Jewish people are also very loyal and very straightforward. They really connect with you. They let you know what they think. They' ; re very honest, very honest opinion is just that, " ; Hey, George, you...I think you need to check it out. This is a little bit different." ; We love this feedback. |01:07:38| BRODY So you appreciate that. |01:07:39| GEORGE KAO So we really appreciate that. ]They eat Chinese food on Christmas Day. |01:07:46| GEORGE KAO Oh, yes. |01:07:47| APRIL KAO That' ; s the only restaurant that opened and everyone else is, you know, closed and have family gathering at Christmas. But Chinese restaurants are open. So that' ; s the biggest day for the Jewish to go eat Chinese food and watch movie after. |01:08:06| BRODY So you' ; re open on Christmas Day. |01:08:10| GEORGE KAO We used to close before remodel. OK, that' ; s another top to add to that. Before we remodel, we always closed Christmas. We never think about opening because it' ; s family time. Right? So after we remodel all the neighborhood was so impressed by it and all those neighborhood Jewish communities approach us. " ; Hey, George, you need to open on Christmas. We' ; ll all show up. You will be surprised." ; |01:08:45| BRODY And were you? |01:08:46| GEORGE KAO Yes. OK, so we said, " ; Ok, ok, well we' ; ll start this year, we' ; ll see." ; I still remember that day I come to restaurant first, probably right after lunchtime, because we still closed at lunchtime on Christmas Day. We open for dinner, probably around to 2:00 or 3:00. I already see the line start to form outside. I' ; ll call April. " ; Come here fast, already, start to line up outside!" ; |01:09:26| BRODY Oh, that' ; s incredible. You were surprised. |01:09:29| GEORGE KAO That' ; s been every since- our Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. The two most significant things...all the neighborhood, especially regular Jewish families, they all made the reservation sometimes, they make every year. |01:09:49| BRODY A standing reservation. |01:09:49| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Yeah. So later... So on that day, those two days, we basically stopped taking reservations about several months ago already. Already full. |01:10:00| APRIL KAO So it' ; s really rewarding to see how people support us and how much they love us. And so regardless how tired we are, you know, when we see that kind of support, it' ; s really I mean... |01:10:18| BRODY It sounds like you' ; re a meaningful part of a lot of people' ; s lives. A lot of families lives over all these years. |01:10:27| APRIL KAO Generations. |01:10:27| GEORGE KAO Very rewarding, you know, you see that Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, all the neighborhood people show up, they all know each other. And you really feel... |01:10:36| APRIL KAO The, like, whole neighborhood of the Jewish there. |01:10:41| BRODY That' ; s great. Yeah. Can you can we just talk for a second about the atmosphere in the restaurant? What is it like the spirit in there when it' ; s when it' ; s a busy night. What are you both doing and how does it feel in there? Maybe if you could paint a picture with words. |01:11:03| APRIL KAO It' ; s lively. |01:11:04| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |claps| |01:11:06| APRIL KAO So, you know, when you when you see these people that' ; s smiling, happy face. You know, we, I usually go around the table and check how' ; s everything going. And, you know, they tell you it' ; s great and so and so to your server. This is great. |01:11:24| GEORGE KAO So it is a fun environment, especially in the front of the bar. Our bar is so popular, even just a several seat bar, probably eight. We only have eight seats. No more than eight. When a busy time, customers politely fighting for the seat. It' ; s not like really, you know, sort of a punch. But, you know... |01:11:59| BRODY There' ; s a big demand. |01:12:00| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Then they calling, just " ; Hey...save two seats for me." ; I say, " ; Ok,ok,ok,ok." ; This is what I remember, hospitality business and you need to have a certain kind of personality and character. |01:12:23| BRODY And what do you think that what are the main gifts that you have that you' ; re bringing to your time in the restaurant? Both of you. |01:12:35| GEORGE KAO Oh, to me, you know, it is my personality. I' ; m a...I love people. I love to connect with people. To make everybody walk into the door, you feel that you are satisfied. We do our best to accommodate. We want to have a great experience. |01:12:59| BRODY What does hospitality mean to you? |01:13:02| GEORGE KAO Yeah, absolutely. Totally. It just does the hospitality. As it' ; s also hospitality. |01:13:09| APRIL KAO And as a cook, you know, you love to see people enjoying your food. So I go around and make sure that you enjoy your food, everything good, you know? |01:13:21| BRODY And making sure people are satisfied and like you said, getting feedback that you find useful. What about the...Sort of the again, back to the nuts and bolts sourcing of ingredients and so on. It sounds like back in the 70s that might have been a little bit challenging. How did they do it? How did you do it? Back in the early days, how did you get the ingredients that you needed and so on? Was it difficult? |01:13:52| APRIL KAO There was a supplier. There was probably only the one or two supplier that would supply imported goods-cans and meat. But these days, the imports are getting so difficult and so expensive. And plus, I try to get away from using canned food imported. Not only they' ; re expensive and they' ; re you know, people don' ; t like the idea of canned foods. So we try to use fresh, local food, local ingredients. |01:14:35| BRODY So do you source them? Do you go to the farmer' ; s market or is it more Asian grocery stores or suppliers? |01:14:43| APRIL KAO I go to Asian grocery stores and try to look for local beef. There' ; s a smaller farm that would have local beef. Vegetables just wherever we can get them. There' ; s a local farmer and he grows vegetables, but just not enough for our demand. |01:15:09| BRODY Right. How much do you go through in a week of typical of meat, vegetables, things like that? |01:15:16| APRIL KAO We go. Every day, there' ; s like cases of- three or four cases of chicken. Couple of cases of beef. And broccoli, every day is like three or four cases. Mushrooms, a couple of cases a day. We have produce and meat come in every day. Nothing frozen. Try not to use canned food. Right now, I probably don' ; t have any canned food. |01:15:48| BRODY It' ; s really interesting and it sounds very challenging to keep up. |01:15:51| APRIL KAO But now we have three or four, four suppliers. So, you know, if this one doesn' ; t have it, I' ; ll go to the next one. Yeah, luckily. |01:16:03| BRODY OK, OK, you' ; ve been in the same location for, you know, the whole time physically, so you' ; ve lots of neighbors have come and gone. What is the sort of their relationship with the plaza that Royal China is in? |01:16:19| GEORGE KAO Oh, you mean the businesses. |01:16:20| BRODY Yeah, the other- your neighbors. |01:16:22| GEORGE KAO The other businesses. We always have very good relationship with our neighbors, but their business, you know, sometimes they just, for example, they don' ; t make money, so they not resign the contract. some just leave. |01:16:46| BRODY Yeah. There' ; s been a lot of turn around. |01:16:49| GEORGE KAO Lot of turnaround.Yeah. Yeah, yeah. |01:16:49| BRODY In that plaza. |01:16:51| GEORGE KAO In our corner, only oldest tenant- I think only us |01:16:59| APRIL KAO and Ken' ; s Mens Shop. Two of the oldest ones. |01:17:03| BRODY Two originals. |01:17:04| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |01:17:05| APRIL KAO Our neighbor store Toy Maven. The week, after we closed. We closed one week in July for vacation and when we reopened, Candice is the owner, came to us and said " ; You have no idea. After six o' ; clock, this whole shopping center almost empty because you guys are closed. The parking lot empty because you were not open." ; |01:17:39| BRODY That' ; s really interesting. And you would never know. |01:17:42| APRIL KAO So she said the landlord better know that. How much contribution you brought to the center. |01:17:50| BRODY Yeah. That' ; s a good way to measure that for sure. Do you advertise at all? |01:17:58| APRIL KAO Not really. |01:17:59| BRODY Word of mouth, primarily. |01:18:02| APRIL KAO Word of mouth, primarily. |01:18:03| GEORGE KAO Word of mouth. And also, we have a lot of personal friends. They own a newspaper. They are our loyal customers. It' ; s more like personal friend. |01:18:18| BRODY Right. |01:18:19| GEORGE KAO So they' ; ll say, " ; Come on I, I want to write something." ; Yeah. We say, " ; No, no, no." ; They just love to tell the story. |01:18:30| BRODY Well it' ; s a great story. |01:18:32| GEORGE KAO Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. |01:18:34| BRODY Tell me about your dad. What was he like? His personality. Because I know that he was really the spirit behind the restaurant when he was running it. Tell me what he was like. |01:18:46| GEORGE KAO Yeah, he' ; s pretty much kind of like me, but he' ; s more traditional. More- a little bit more old fashioned, but, he actually is probably, out of his generation, he probably is more Westernized because he' ; s been studying the English and he' ; s being stationed on the Washington, and so he' ; s a very open minded and have a great people skills. Loved to connect with people. Very outgoing. And also he' ; s a very knowledgeable person, very knowledgeable person. even write a book. Write the poems. |01:19:43| BRODY Did he come up with the original menu? |01:19:46| GEORGE KAO No, I don' ; t think he did. |laughs| |01:19:50| BRODY The chef did. |01:19:52| APRIL KAO The chef did. Yeah. |01:19:53| GEORGE KAO And chef, and my mom. And everybody contribute, everybody will give their... |01:20:01| BRODY their input. |01:20:02| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |01:20:02| BRODY Well, he sounds like a fun man. |01:20:07| APRIL KAO They call him Buck. His name is Shu Chang Kao. But somehow they call him Buck and they call the restaurant " ; Buck." ; " ; Let' ; s go to Buck' ; s place." ; |01:20:18| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |01:20:18| BRODY That' ; s what his original customers. |01:20:21| APRIL KAO Yeah, right. His original customers. |01:20:22| GEORGE KAO Right. And now people " ; Go to George' ; s." ; " ; Go to Aprils." ; |Laughs|. |01:20:24| BRODY Do people say that? |01:20:25| GEORGE KAO Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. |01:20:27| APRIL KAO Now " ; George' ; s Place." ; |01:20:27| GEORGE KAO We love that connection. |01:20:32| BRODY It sounds like exactly that. The connection that you' ; ve built with the, with the community. And so we kind of touched on this earlier. But on cultural holidays and special events, do you do or historically, have you done special events for Chinese New Year, for example? |01:20:54| GEORGE KAO Mmmm. OK, we used to, but now that we still do, it' ; s our own celebration for Chinese New Year for employees. |01:21:06| BRODY OK, tell me about that. How is that? |01:21:09| GEORGE KAO We cook a, you know... |01:21:12| APRIL KAO Feast. |01:21:12| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Big feast for everybody. And the Chinese tradition is also so-called " ; red envelope." ; So that' ; s pretty much every business sends out that extra bonus to all the employees who work for you. |01:21:29| BRODY So you have the feast. And so the restaurant' ; s closed and the employees all...And then you do the red envelopes. |01:21:38| GEORGE KAO Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. |01:21:41| BRODY That' ; s really nice. There must be something that your longtime employees are looking forward to. |01:21:46| GEORGE KAO |Laughs| And you know, absolutely. |01:21:49| BRODY Well. The past few years have been a difficult time, definitely with Covid and everything. But even before that, here in Dallas, we were hit with a tornado. So tell me about what- how you all fared at Royal China with the tornado. |01:22:10| APRIL KAO Well, Royal China was kind of lucky. We didn' ; t have really too much of the damage except just out of power and some AC units here and there. So we closed for nine days. Our neighbors in stores across the street, like Central Market was not lucky. Like they had to close for a long time and rebuild. And fortunately, they reopened. So, I mean, for nine days we feel really, really lucky. |01:22:55| BRODY So that tornado was in October 2019. |01:22:58| GEORGE KAO October 20th. |01:22:58| APRIL KAO 20, 2019 20, 2019. |01:23:02| GEORGE KAO October 20. |01:23:03| APRIL KAO 20 of 2019. Yes. |01:23:07| GEORGE KAO Cowboys played Philadelphia. Sunday Night Football game. |01:23:11| APRIL KAO OK. |01:23:12| BRODY I mean, it' ; s a good way to remember. Who was playing? |01:23:15| GEORGE KAO Philadelphia,. |01:23:15| BRODY Philadelphia and the Cowboys. |01:23:18| GEORGE KAO And Cowboys. Play at home. |01:23:21| BRODY That' ; s right. |01:23:21| APRIL KAO That was really scary. We were all at the restaurant. |01:23:25| BRODY How was that evening for you? You were at the restaurant? |01:23:28| APRIL KAO We were at the restaurant. Our daughter call us and say, " ; Mom! Tornado' ; s coming your way." ; I go, " ; OK?" ; |01:23:36| GEORGE KAO We have no idea. |01:23:37| APRIL KAO You know, tornado never came, never really touched down for all this year. I mean, OK. And then she called again a few minutes later. " ; The tornado was really coming your way!" ; She was crying. You know, I, I go. So I came out of my office and it' ; s " ; OK, what should we do?" ; And then at the time, it was really windy. The wind was howling and they tried to get the door closed. And then people was standing at the big window and trying to look out. I say, " ; Stay away, get away from the..." ; |01:24:12| GEORGE KAO Customers. |01:24:13| APRIL KAO " ; Get away from the door!" ; And we have no idea what to do. We had no place to hide. |01:24:19| GEORGE KAO We just had...Most of our customers- very calm. |01:24:22| APRIL KAO But we had half of the customers you know, half of the store was with customer in it. And luckily, it was, it was quickly really very, very quick. |01:24:35| GEORGE KAO Probably thirty seconds. Yeah. |01:24:37| BRODY So no damage other than no power. No power. |01:24:40| GEORGE KAO No, electricity. That' ; s it. The electricity, the power come back exact one week. Sunday through following Sunday. Rght? |01:24:52| APRIL KAO We closed one night. |01:24:53| BRODY So you were closed. |01:24:54| GEORGE KAO The access we need is a gas company. ATMOS. They came to check every business one by one... |01:25:04| BRODY And there a lot. |01:25:05| GEORGE KAO And make sure no gas leaking. Then they give you a green tag. |01:25:08| BRODY To open again. |01:25:09| GEORGE KAO To open. |01:25:09| APRIL KAO And our house got hit too. |01:25:12| BRODY Oh your house got hit. I' ; m sorry. |01:25:15| GEORGE KAO Not too bad, all things considered. Our garage. Greenhouse. Boom. |01:25:26| APRIL KAO Compared to our neighbor, we still consider we are lucky. |01:25:30| BRODY There was so much damage in such a short time. |01:25:33| GEORGE KAO Yeah, but know this tornado is no compared to pandemic. That' ; s totally...Yeah, absolutely. Nobody ever experienced that before. |01:25:46| BRODY Yeah. That was my next question. How...how... |01:25:49| GEORGE KAO It was crazy. |01:25:50| BRODY Let' ; s go back to January, February, March. 2020. |01:25:55| GEORGE KAO Oh, when it started? |01:25:56| BRODY When it' ; s starting... How did? |01:25:59| GEORGE KAO When they started it' ; s ok. Not about...You don' ; t really feel that much different. |01:26:04| APRIL KAO January or February, were still very busy. |01:26:07| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |01:26:08| APRIL KAO Up till March before we closed...Before the governor closed the restaurant on the seventeenth or eighteenth. So we...that we were only allowed to take out. So we started to have the take out business and take out actually grew. You know, people needed a place to eat. So we only open at night doing takeout. |01:26:40| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |01:26:41| BRODY So takeout only. So how did that change your employees' ; situation, their hours, your workflow? Because if everybody was doing takeout, that' ; s a whole different way of doing business, right? So how did you- what was it like and how did you handle it? |01:27:00| APRIL KAO We closed during the day and then...well...server? We have to stop them, hold their job. And then the front of the house, everybody is working. And we have, we had a couple of the server came and help us, answering phone, packing take out order, and take out actually was very busy. It was enough to sustain our regular pay and we pay everybody all the kitchen staff the same. They all keep the same pay. |01:27:40| GEORGE KAO Only wait staff because you' ; re not open for business, you can' ; t hire. |01:27:43| APRIL KAO Right. So it was not too bad for us. |01:27:47| BRODY That' ; s good. Is takeout still booming? |01:27:50| APRIL KAO No, not at this point. |01:27:52| GEORGE KAO Right now is pretty much coming back. |01:27:54| APRIL KAO People came to eat. |01:27:55| GEORGE KAO Like in 19. |01:27:56| BRODY Right. |01:27:57| GEORGE KAO On the last year, it' ; s reverse of the business. Normally, or just the same like. 70 dining, 30 take out to-go. Pandemic reverse. Seventy percent pickup. Dining, when you' ; re open, you only can seat 50 percent, remember? First, when this started to 25 percent, we' ; re not open. Because 25 percent, it makes no sense. You open 25 percent. It doesn' ; t translate to anything. So just concentrate, you do the pick-up to-go. Pick-up to-go is so easy. Oh, that' ; s crazy. |laughs| |01:28:56| BRODY Well, and now you' ; re back to 100 percent. |01:28:59| GEORGE KAO Yeah, yeah, yeah. |01:29:02| BRODY You mentioned the Cowboys earlier because the tornado hit on the day of the Cowboys game. Do you have a lot of celebrities in your restaurant? |01:29:14| APRIL KAO Oh, yes. |01:29:15| GEORGE KAO I should consider in Dallas, considering we' ; re in Dallas, not on East Coast, West Coast. In Chinese, restaurant, of course, we' ; re not a steakhouse, right? But I think we can...Pretty good shape of celebrities. |01:29:31| BRODY Do you have any stories you want to share? |01:29:35| GEORGE KAO For example, like President Bush? Mr. and Mrs. Bush, they used, but they' ; re still living now very close to us. The GW been here one time. Mrs. Bush has been there several times. And we have what- lots of people, I can' ; t remember. |01:29:57| APRIL KAO We have I mean, we had, old Cowboy team, after they practice, they came to the restaurant. |01:30:05| BRODY So when was this... Back? |01:30:08| GEORGE KAO Back to in seventies. But we still some Cowboys come. |01:30:12| APRIL KAO Cowboys. Yeah the old... |01:30:14| GEORGE KAO We got the, um, Oscar winning director! |01:30:20| APRIL KAO Ang Lee. |01:30:23| BRODY Yeah. |01:30:24| APRIL KAO Ang Lee came to the restaurant. |01:30:26| GEORGE KAO At the restaurant |01:30:27| APRIL KAO John Travolta |01:30:27| GEORGE KAO John Travolta, come to the restaurant. Kathy Bates, come to the restaurant. Who else? From town, we have so many. Can' ; t remember. |Claps| Jerry Jones come too. |Laughs| |01:30:41| BRODY That must be fun to talk to all these people in addition to your regular, your normal customers. |01:30:49| GEORGE KAO Oh...Don Henley of The Eagles. |01:30:51| BRODY Don Henley. Yeah, yeah. |01:30:52| GEORGE KAO Don Henley lives here in the neighborhood. But, Don Henley is very private. Very, very strict. He walks in first, gives you the sign. |Makes motion of zipping his lips| |01:31:07| BRODY That crosses...Zip your lip. |01:31:11| GEORGE KAO Then bring his family to a certain table. Not facing to anyone. He doesn' ; t want people to know. Everybody has a little bit their different style. Yeah, some is very friendly. Most friendly, of course, is GW Bush. That' ; s a politician. Yes, of course. Reason, you just like, you know that. The nicest person. I mean, I guess it' ; s a nice surprise, but of course we know. He, he' ; s a career politician, right? He got a lot of staff following him. The day they come, show up. He walked in...called my name. So, " ; Hey, George!" ; OK? |01:32:05| BRODY You have the same name. |01:32:05| GEORGE KAO Hats off, after all, they did some homework. They know each one. |01:32:11| BRODY That' ; s impressive. |01:32:12| APRIL KAO We try to respect their privacy. So we don' ; t we don' ; t go to them and ask for autographs or taking a pictures. We said we have pictures with President Bush. |01:32:27| GEORGE KAO Yeah. That President Bush was there, once he finished the dinner, the whole restaurant, standing ovation. |01:32:36| BRODY Oh, really? |01:32:37| APRIL KAO Yeah. Everybody was paused. Yeah. |01:32:39| BRODY When was this? Was this back when he was president or since he finished... |01:32:43| GEORGE KAO Way after presidency. Then all the families start to line up and take a picture with him. |01:32:50| BRODY Oh yeah. Right there in your restaurant. |01:32:54| GEORGE KAO Yeah. The Secret Service people just like, " ; OK. The President loves to take a picture with them, but just one by one. |01:33:02| BRODY One by one, I' ; m glad you got one, too. |01:33:05| GEORGE KAO Oh, yes, absolutely. |01:33:09| APRIL KAO That' ; s the only picture we have with celebrity. |01:33:13| BRODY Well, that I mean, this respecting the privacy, what you were just saying of celebrities, that just goes back to what you were saying about hospitality, you know, and, you know, making people feel comfortable and feel at home. |01:33:26| GEORGE KAO And also, I kind of see it as why- it' ; s the neighborhood. They have to common understanding. So they respect all of those celebrities' ; privacy, you know. I think this also contributes. |01:33:47| BRODY This is the sort of the vibe in the neighborhood. |01:33:49| GEORGE KAO Yeah. |01:33:51| BRODY So we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, the way that the restaurant has been renovated and decorated. Tell me about the art that makes up the restaurant, that' ; s decorating the restaurant, both the woodwork and the photographs. |01:34:07| APRIL KAO The woodwork is from the original, steakhouse. It was decorated like an Indian. You know, the woodwork was from India. So we kind of refinished it and to make it look a little more modernized and then we refinished the tabletop. It has the copper imprint of postmodern design on it. It' ; s really priceless. And all the chairs are really comfortable. And then I used to have a flower arrangement, putting on it on the wall. And then later we put photographs, black and white photographs, and people seem to like them. |01:35:05| BRODY So who took those photographs? |01:35:09| GEORGE KAO Of course! It' ; s her! |Laughs|. |01:35:09| APRIL KAO Oh, it' ; s my work. I am. |01:35:12| BRODY So are they photos of... |01:35:16| APRIL KAO Family. |01:35:17| BRODY Family and travel? |01:35:19| APRIL KAO I have some family photos there, and then I have some travel when I went to Tibet and Mongolia and all over places. And I don' ; t have money to collect other people' ; s art. So I guess the cheapest way to decorate is it' ; s use what I have. |01:35:42| BRODY Use your own art. You' ; re an accomplished photographer, so that' ; s a good use of your talents. |01:35:50| APRIL KAO And I used to exhibit friends of mine, colleagues and their work, but it' ; s been so busy I haven' ; t been keeping up with it. |01:36:03| BRODY Yeah, that' ; s another thing. A lot of the restaurants and grocery stores that were representing sort of Asian cultures and Asian foods have turned out to also be, you know, hubs for people to gather, you know, cultural information or, you know, in your case, art and so forth. Could you tell me a little bit about where you see your own restaurant' ; s role in sort of spreading the culture and the education about aspects of Chinese culture? |01:36:42| APRIL KAO I think I haven' ; t done enough for that. |01:36:45| BRODY What would you like to do? |01:36:47| APRIL KAO I would... |01:36:50| GEORGE KAO We start with food. That, every culture, the food is most direct. People can connect. Human nature...People love to eat, so we show the culture. Introduce a culture basically through the food. |01:37:10| APRIL KAO And through photographs and people would love to talk about and ask, " ; Hey, where is this and where did you go?" ; And, you know, that sort of connections kind of help explain. |01:37:24| BRODY Absolutely. You' ; re right. You know, your philosophy of food, you know, bringing people together and you' ; re... |01:37:31| GEORGE KAO Always, almost always the culture, your introduction- food. To connect. Then it starts to touch the other area. |01:37:49| BRODY What lessons or reflections do you have from your experience over all these years running a restaurant here in Dallas? What are the- your takeaways or what words would you use to describe your experience when you look back on it? |01:38:13| GEORGE KAO Very enjoyable to me. |Laughs| Yeah, it' ; s a very demanding, hard work, but it can connection with neighborhood, with people. I think that is most rewarding aspect of this business. You make people happy. Right? To people come to your place to celebrate anniversary, graduation, birthday, whatever occasion. It just feels...yes. |01:38:46| APRIL KAO It is very rewarding. You know, through people' ; s satisfaction of their experience in our restaurant and also very difficult, very hard business. But, you know, those hard work, compared with the reward. It' ; s really... |01:39:22| GEORGE KAO No business is easy business. A restaurant is very challenging business. That' ; s for sure. |01:39:29| BRODY So what are the most challenging parts about being a restaurant owner? |01:39:35| GEORGE KAO Oh, I think, for example, this year, this year, particularly, post-pandemic, this year most times it' ; s the labor. Hiring. Normally, it' ; s about running your business, it' ; s about inventory. Cost cutting. You have to basically, it' ; s managing your financial things, but this year' ; s additional. |01:40:06| BRODY Sure. How about the issue of waste, you know, is it you know, that kind of jumping off of what you said about, you know, cost cutting and trying to be efficient, how, in in your line of work and, you know, and cooking Chinese food in particular, are there tricks that you' ; ve had to sort of be able to manage and be more efficient and reduce waste of, you know, of ingredients and so on? |01:40:35| GEORGE KAO You know the point is you have to train your people right. So cut out the waste. So that' ; s...They have to develop a certain kind of skill- your employee. And how process, how they prep. For example, even like to save the energy, they have to develop certain common good habits. So that' ; s not in one day. You have to train very diligently. |01:41:06| BRODY What are some examples of what you' ; re talking about? |01:41:10| GEORGE KAO Yeah, for example, you call cost-cutting, right? For example, like, you prep...You cut vegetable, you cut chicken, and some can be very absent-minded, they will waste a lot of stuff. So some can be, you have a good training. They will save you a lot of, save you a lot of money. |01:41:33| BRODY Right. |01:41:33| APRIL KAO For instance, we sell a lot of duck, so when the prep take off the meat that... |01:41:47| GEORGE KAO De-bone. |01:41:48| APRIL KAO To serve and there' ; s still a lot of meat on the bone, and our chef will develop a dish, so he will take off all the leftover meat that he can use and to use it on another dish. |01:42:05| BRODY What is the other dish |01:42:06| APRIL KAO That that is stir fry duck. |01:42:08| BRODY With the smaller pieces. |01:42:09| APRIL KAO Yeah, with the smaller pieces. That was leek actually that that was, that is very, very popular. |01:42:16| BRODY Still on the menu? |01:42:17| APRIL KAO So it is on the menu. So that that' ; s a way to not waste. |01:42:24| BRODY A great example. |01:42:28| BRODY So you have two daughters and did they grow up in the restaurant? |01:42:32| APRIL KAO Yes. |01:42:32| BRODY Yeah. Tell me about what it was like having young children and running a very popular restaurant. |01:42:39| APRIL KAO They, when they are growing up, the restaurant wasn' ; t as popular, but they would come to the restaurant from time to time. And the younger one actually loved to cook when she was little, probably four or five years old. She would try to make pancakes, cherry juice, even she would add cherry juice in the pancake, and make cherry pancakes and, you know, with flours over her face and say, " ; Mom, try this." ; |01:43:14| BRODY That' ; s really cute. At the restaurant kitchen? |01:43:14| APRIL KAO At the restaurant kitchen. |01:43:17| BRODY How were they? How were the cherry pancakes? |01:43:20| APRIL KAO They were good. And she- actually really friendly. She would go to tables and say hi to the customers. And we have one lady in particular. She had her granddaughters with her and she would take my daughters with her granddaughter to have ice cream. |01:43:50| BRODY Oh. |01:43:50| APRIL KAO So cute. |01:43:51| BRODY That is very cute. Well, it just reflects that neighborhood feel that you all cultivated in the hospitality and the family, the family aspect of that. Do you feel like, you know, that you would do it all over again? |01:44:13| APRIL KAO With this year, make me think, " ; OK, probably I won' ; t be doing it all again," ; because the labor issue, it' ; s really hard to find people willing to work in the restaurant, especially in the kitchen. Not regardless how high the costs are going to be. But before that, it it' ; s really...I love to see people eat. I love to see people enjoying their food. I would do it again last year. But this year it' ; s just too hard. |01:44:51| BRODY Right. It has been very challenging. |01:44:53| APRIL KAO It' ; s very challenging. Never, never this... For the 40 some years in the restaurant business. This is the hardest year. Last year was... |01:45:06| GEORGE KAO And all the people we know from the restaurant business, everybody say that. |01:45:08| BRODY Right. Yeah. Well, going forward. What, what lessons have you learned from this year? And, you know, and from, your whole experience prior that you think that that would be helpful for people in the future who are listening to this and trying to understand how you survived and how you connected with people here in the you know, in the middle of north Texas. |01:45:41| GEORGE KAO Oh, I think basically just try to try to adapt the situation, home environment. Whatever come to you, you try to, try to find a way, you know, it' ; s a still on the process, still on the middle of the come out, we said, I don' ; t know, you said the crisis or what. It' ; s just lots of people that everybody is still trying to figure out how to manage the situation. |01:46:18| APRIL KAO Like we have to simplify the menu. We, we used to have three guys working at the deep fryer. Now we only have two. So I have to simplify the menu so they won' ; t be too crazy, too busy. And some of the menu items, we have to take it off, you know, more complicated one to simplify it for the... |01:46:48| BRODY It' ; s been hard. |01:46:49| GEORGE KAO And some, like Chinese restaurant, some Chinese in Plano. Right now, they close half day. They don' ; t have enough labor. So they have to only sacrifice for lunch time. Concentrate on the dinner time. |01:47:10| BRODY You have to work with what you have. |01:47:13| GEORGE KAO Yeah. Absolutely. |01:47:15| BRODY So it sounds like your demand is high and the you know, and then you' ; re just challenged by meeting the demand here under these circumstances. |01:47:27| GEORGE KAO For this, you have to try to adapt to the situation. |01:47:30| BRODY Yeah, I just asked April this as well. But George, if you could do it all over again, would you do it again? |01:47:37| GEORGE KAO Hmm? |01:47:38| BRODY Would you would you do, do this again? If you were doing your life over again, would you choose to go into the restaurant business? |01:47:45| GEORGE KAO Oh, absolutely. Yes. |01:47:50| BRODY It' ; s been really rewarding for you it sounds like. |01:47:52| GEORGE KAO Yeah, and also... I love people. That' ; s basic, right? When I come to the United States, I very honestly, I think we both never think we will do the restaurant and the restaurant was going to be our what we do for a lifetime. We all try to pursue it on art. So, I want to be a movie director. She want to be a photographer and a painter. And of course, she' ; s here, already achieved a lot. But I' ; m coming out first couple of years, I didn' ; t adapt very well because I' ; m still kind like |claps| " ; No. This is...I' ; m not ...I' ; m not willing to do this for the rest of my life." ; Then starting to develop like, " ; Well, actually. It' ; s a fun business. It suits my personality." ; |01:49:07| BRODY So at first, when you were working in the...in the restaurant, it was just a, you know, in your mind, a temporary thing? |01:49:16| GEORGE KAO I kind of say it' ; s a temporary thing. I want to go to school. I want to continue. You know, I want to be able to learn something to be a director, at that age. |01:49:32| BRODY What do you think you' ; ve learned from your customers and from your staff and from, you know, from feeding people all these years? |01:49:44| GEORGE KAO OK, it' ; s funny. Can you say it again? |01:49:47| BRODY What do you think you' ; ve learned from your experience, from your customers, from your staff and from from feeding people over all these years? |01:49:56| GEORGE KAO What I learned from that, you know actually, I learn a lot from just for the for the people-side, the personality-side that. You know, I' ; m always trying to connect with people, so it just...I always think that everybody have something to inspire. It' ; s just like that. So I always try to pick up even some small stuff from different person, or customer, or employee or, something to enrich my life, use my knowledge to enrich my present. Yeah, it' ; s just me. |01:50:51| BRODY How about you, April? |01:50:53| APRIL KAO I always tell our server, " ; Restaurant business. It' ; s maybe, it' ; s your stepping stone, but it' ; s the best place you can learn from people how...How you treat people and how people treat you. It' ; s- it can teach you a lot. A lot of skill and. |01:51:18| GEORGE KAO Humanity. |01:51:19| APRIL KAO Humanity. That' ; s true. That' ; s how I told them, you know, be patient and learn. Be observant. You know, you learn a lot from this business from day to day, you know, daily interact with people. |01:51:39| BRODY That sounds like you both have a wealth of experiences with interacting with all different kinds of people have and I' ; m sure running a restaurant, you have some wild stories or interesting stories too. Can you think of the, I guess, other than the tornado and the pandemic, what are the most or that we were willing to share wildest restaurant story that you have experienced? |01:52:13| GEORGE KAO Something I really...It' ; s a lot of small stuff, I just, you know... |01:52:21| BRODY Most memorable, maybe? |01:52:25| GEORGE KAO Most memorable is tornado. |Laughs| Pandemic! |01:52:32| APRIL KAO Well, we have one family they lived in...They live in Oklahoma. So from time to time, they will fly in in their.. |01:52:44| GEORGE KAO Private jet. |01:52:45| APRIL KAO Private jet to come and dine in our restaurant. Not so often after pandemic, but before that theywill come sometimes, 10, 13 people, and they will order like 17 or 20, you know, orders of soup dumpling. They love soup dumplings. And then after the dinner, they would take another 10 or 13 soup dumpling to go home. |01:53:18| BRODY Back home to Oklahoma. |01:53:19| APRIL KAO Oh, yes. And they tip very, very well. |01:53:23| GEORGE KAO Very, super generous. |01:53:26| BRODY They sound like. They love the restaurant. |01:53:29| APRIL KAO Oh, so that' ; s one, you know, really, |01:53:32| BRODY That is very memorable. Thank you for sharing that. One thing I forgot to ask you earlier, you know, there have been so many restaurants that, you know, have developed after you guys were already established at Royal China. Have you had much of a mentoring type relationship with other Chinese restaurant owners that came after you? Have you do you have you know, did you show them the ropes or, you know, help out with different restaurants that were? |01:54:04| GEORGE KAO She helped out with several restaurants.... |01:54:10| APRIL KAO There are there are restaurants in. |George Kao excuses himself for an appointment| You got to go OK |to George Kao|. |01:54:17| GEORGE KAO My apologies. |01:54:18| APRIL KAO OK, so I thought, OK, we used to go one restaurant. We used...We used to go to one restaurant in Richardson because my mother in law lived in Richardson at the time and...and almost every week we would eat lunch with her. And that restaurant, they used to only take cash. So every time we go, and we' ; ll talk to the owners and George will share with them and oh, he would tell them, " ; Maybe you should start taking credit cards." ; So, so they did. And that kind of helped them bring in a lot of non-Asian customers. And we see the business grow. And every time we go and we talk and there' ; s something, you know, more suggestion. |01:55:30| BRODY Because you had developed so much experience over time. With the credit cards, had had you taken credit cards at Royal China that the whole time. |01:55:39| APRIL KAO The whole time, yes. |01:55:40| BRODY Were there other things like that that were small things that you adapted that really helped business like. I know... |01:55:49| APRIL KAO Our business. |01:55:49| BRODY Yeah. Helped yours. |01:55:51| APRIL KAO Last year we did online order... |01:55:57| BRODY First time? |01:55:58| APRIL KAO First time with a company and it really took off really, really helped, helped the takeout business that was like crazy booming. |01:56:11| BRODY Yeah. And did it make it easier for you in the restaurant because someone didn' ; t have to answer that phone call? |01:56:17| APRIL KAO Yes. That that took over. I mean, with all the takeout business, there was like 90 almost, no, 70 percent of the online order. And then we still have 30 percent of call in last year. We' ; re still with that company. |01:56:35| BRODY Well, that' ; s good that it was a... |01:56:36| APRIL KAO I would tell other restaurants, we have a lot of customers that that' ; s in the restaurant business. And particularly, there' ; s one in Trinity Grove that we love...the Mexican restaurant. I told them, " ; You need to take Chow Now! You need to take that!" ; |01:56:56| BRODY Yeah, that' ; s I mean, you learn as you' ; re doing it. |01:56:58| APRIL KAO And, then, you know, I' ; m excited. You know, it works for us. So I would tell them... |01:57:04| BRODY Yeah. |01:57:05| APRIL KAO " ; Do that!" ; Help them too. So they will come back and say, " ; Hey, that was the best thing!" ; |01:57:10| BRODY Yeah, that' ; s true. You have customers who are also in the restaurant business, though probably not necessarily your competition, but. |01:57:16| APRIL KAO We share. |01:57:17| BRODY You share. Yeah. So that' ; s a more collaborative approach to to being in business. Well, I wanted to ask you if there is anything that I didn' ; t ask you that or a topic that, you know, that that comes to mind that would be valuable to add to this recording. |01:57:41| APRIL KAO We probably covered everything. |01:57:44| BRODY OK, well, thank you so much both to you and George for sitting for this interview. And I' ; m really happy to share your story. |01:57:54| APRIL KAO Well, thank you so much for doing this project. And, you know, later, people can go and do research and know there were once Royal China or there' ; s a history of Royal China. |01:58:08| BRODY Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with George and April Kao, September 28, 2021
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2021oh001_di_001
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking, Chinese
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2021-09-21
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Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Pramod Shah
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5.4 Interview with Pramod Shah, December 6, 2021 2021oh002_di_002 01:48:35 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Indian Asian American grocers Pramod Shah Betsy Brody wav oh-audio-dig-shah_pramod_20211206.wav 1:|44(8)|54(6)|65(11)|78(13)|105(12)|113(1)|123(7)|137(2)|166(5)|183(12)|254(4)|292(2)|322(6)|372(5)|404(1)|425(1)|435(1)|480(7)|565(6)|589(13)|718(3)|778(7)|797(7)|827(10)|839(3)|873(14)|955(6)|1003(1)|1022(6)|1064(1)|1100(1)|1135(5)|1153(8)|1167(8)|1193(7)|1242(1)|1292(2)|1309(1)|1334(10)|1365(4)|1378(8)|1397(10)|1421(13)|1483(8)|1521(15)|1567(2)|1653(15)|1816(3)|1851(4)|1883(4)|1894(1)|1919(11)|1934(7)|1949(7)|1971(4)|1998(5)|2011(5)|2047(8)|2066(1)|2119(1) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/164337 Aviary audio 0 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Indian cooking ; Texas--History 31 Coming to Texas from India/ Working at an Indian grocery store in Houston Asian grocery ; Houston ; India ; Indian grocery store ; Texas 496 Coming to Dallas to open a new Indian grocery store Asian grocery store ; Dallas ; Houston ; Indian grocery store ; Richardson ; Taj Mahal Imports 32.95389154793355, -96.73798630392501 17 861 Early advertising and outreach to Indians using the White Pages advertising ; gradn opening ; marketing ; White Pages 998 Initally stocking Taj Mahal Imports beans ; Houston ; products ; spices ; Taj Mahal Imports ; wholeslers 1165 Advertising and building relationships with customers advertising ; customers ; expansion ; flyers ; growth ; mailing list ; marketing ; relationships 1345 Importing directly from India/ Demand from customers for particular products exporters ; imports ; India ; London ; products ; rice ; wholesalers 1897 Responding to demand for British products British ; British Embassy ; Cadbury ; Dallas ; embassy ; Indians ; London ; motels 2073 Impact of Y2K hiring on customer base at Taj Mahal Imports bridge ; friendship ; friendships ; Indians ; vegetables ; Y2K 2161 Stocking fresh vegetables at Taj Mahal Imports bridge ; local produce ; mango ; mangoes ; vegetables 2290 Taj Mahal Imports as a community hub/ Formation of India Association associations ; bridge ; celebrations ; community ; Dallas ; festivals ; hub ; India Association ; Indian community ; information ; kite festival 2484 Involvement with activities of Indian groups in Dallas associations ; festivals ; Holi ; Krishna ; products ; religion ; statues ; Taj Mahal Imports ; temples 2698 Selling phone cards at Taj Mahal Imports hub ; phone cards 2786 Selling kitchen utensils for Indian cooking at Taj Mahal Imports cooking ; kitchen utensils ; rice ; tea 2930 Renting out Indian movies at Taj Mahal Imports India ; Mahabharat and Ramayan ; movie rental ; movies ; rental ; television ; VCR ; VHS ; videos 3309 Community events associations ; India Association 3447 Expansion and addition of Chaat House fast food corner Asian grocery ; expand ; expansion ; fast food ; growth ; Indian grocery store 3645 Creating rangoli display in the store at Diwali art ; bridge ; celebrations ; Dallas Morning News ; Diwali ; expansion ; growth ; holidays ; hub ; newspapers ; rangoli 4015 Taj Mahal Imports as an anchor for Indian shopping center anchor ; bangles ; Indian products ; jewelry ; luggage ; sari 4140 Chaat food items sold at Taj Mahal Imports/ Increase in American customers bridge ; chaat ; coconut ; cooking classes ; culture ; educate ; education ; fast food ; juice ; labor ; snacks ; sugarcane 4556 Selling ayurvedic products/herbal supplements 4706 Language books for American born kids to learn Indian languages educate ; education ; English ; language 4796 Carrying cricket equipment cricket ; games 4944 Involvement with the Dallas Carrom Association, Cowboy Carrom Association, and carrom ; Cowboy Carrom Association ; Dallas Carrom Association 5395 Reflections on running Tak Mahal Imports connect ; connections ; fundraising ; India ; India Association ; Indian community ; relationship 6187 Keeping a list of product names in many different Indian languages India ; language ; products 6296 Sweets and celebrations at Taj Mahal Imports celebrations ; dessert ; desserts ; hub ; India ; parties ; products ; sweets ; weddings (00:00:00) BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is December 6, 2021. I am interviewing for the first time Mr. Pramod Shah. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Dallas." ; Hello, Mr. Shah. Welcome and thank you for sitting for this interview. Why don' ; t we start? Tell me where and when you were born. (00:00:34) PRAMOD SHAH I born in India on October 20, 1949. I came to USA, May 1st, 1981. (00:00:49) BRODY What brought you to Texas? (00:00:53) PRAMOD SHAH Started with Houston, Texas. And I was working in an Indian grocery store in Houston, Texas. (00:01:02) BRODY What was the name of that store? (00:01:04) PRAMOD SHAH Oh. (00:01:05) RENUKA SHAH (Inaudible) (00:01:15) PRAMOD SHAH Lex Enterprise, okay, (00:01:19) BRODY So you were there in Houston at Lex Enterprise for how long? (00:01:23) PRAMOD SHAH About one and a half year. (00:01:26) BRODY Had you done grocery store business before anywhere else? In India? (00:01:33) PRAMOD SHAH Ah no. No, no. (00:01:34) BRODY What did you do in India? What was your area? (00:01:36) PRAMOD SHAH In India, I was working with some, you know, company in accounts department. (00:01:44) BRODY So back to Houston, you were in Houston and you were working there and then what? How did you end up in Dallas? Tell me about your story. (00:01:51) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. When I was working in Houston, I learned a lot from there. And the owner of that shop, was a brother of my very good friend in India. We used to... We were in admission at University of Baroda and the owner of the Lex Enterprise, his younger brother was in there. We were in the same class and actually so many times I used to teach him- that brother- about the accounts, all that stuff. So he met me in India...the, Mr. Patel, the owner of this Lex Enterprise. He met me in India in 14th January? And that is, you know, in Gujarat, it is a kite festival. (00:02:54) BRODY The kite festival. (00:02:56) PRAMOD SHAH So, usually in the kite festival, I usually go in his house. We didn' ; t know we were Mr. Patel. We didn' ; t know. But his younger brother? Yeah. So we met at the terrace of his house. (00:03:16) BRODY In India. (00:03:17) PRAMOD SHAH In India. And I don' ; t know. Somehow he like my nature. He was there. He usually comes every year the for the kite festival also. So he liked me. So the...he must have talked to his father and brother, younger brother about me. They must have told about me, whatever you know. I...I was...The way I was a good friend. And so he, so very next day there are two days for the kite festival, fourteenth and fifteenth of January. So he told me- my, his, his brother, the younger brother, he was knowing that I' ; m getting, after a few, few weeks, I have an appointment for the U.S.A. Yeah, my sister in law had filed for us. (00:04:19) BRODY Oh, OK, so you were planning on coming to the United States anyway? (00:04:23) PRAMOD SHAH Anyway, yeah. So, at that time, he told, so that talk, they have done at night at the fourteenth night. And next day, he says " ; OK. Hey, Pramod, I know that you are coming to the United States." ; I say, " ; Yeah. How come you know that?" ; The guy-" ; Yeah, I know what day you have an interview with the American Embassy? And so yes. So, what are you going to do?" ; I say, " ; Well, I' ; m a Commerce graduate, so maybe I will have some job." ; And he says " ; OK. So you know what? Go straight to Houston." ; Well, I say " ; No, I-we- have to go to New York first because my brother in law has filed for us, so we have to go there." ; So, " ; OK, give me your brother in law' ; s name, number. I will talk to him about your job." ; So he must' ; ve done the same, you know, within two or three days, he had done that also and then he says," ; OK, yeah, yeah, you can. You can go there, and stay there for a two weeks or whatever you like, and then come to Houston." ; (00:05:34) BRODY What did he have in mind for you? (00:05:37) PRAMOD SHAH He just he was offering the job. (00:05:41) BRODY At the Lex Enterprises? (00:05:44) PRAMOD SHAH Indian grocery store in Houston. OK, but when he went there in the in the store, my God, he was not only the Indian grocery only, but there was lots of luggage, and there radio clocks and lots of things besides that, also including TV also. (00:06:07) BRODY So that surprised you that it was more than just a grocery store, more than just food? (00:06:11) PRAMOD SHAH Right? Yes. So, so he gave me a work-only the accounting work in the beginning. But he told me whenever somebody is not here in the store, you come. And so that you can learn everything about the store. And that is what going on since about one and half a year. Yeah. And meanwhile, and meanwhile, one of his friend, he' ; s my owner' ; s friend, he also came to know about me. And he what he came, he says, " ; Pramod, I want to talk to you something. I said, " ; OK, you can talk to me today." ; I had a separate meeting room, also for accounting work, so we went there and he told me about, " ; I am interested in opening a grocery store. Somewhere in Texas. So are you interested?" ; That' ; s what he told me. " ; Well, um. Yeah, I' ; m OK. Yeah. I mean, interested." ; Because what happened is at that time, that store, there were three partners in that store. Mr. Patel plus two other partners, but somehow they were not paying the bills. But, you know, on time in all this thing, and his friend who came to me, he was knowing all these things because that friend had also given a loan to them. So he knows that this is not going to last longer time. So he told me all these things later on. And this is OK...So, became to myself and him. We came to Dallas, driving, to find out the location. During this one in half-year in the Indian grocery store, I came to know lots of people of Dallas. Because at that time, there was no good or accurate Indian grocery store in Dallas. So they have no choice but to come to Houston so many used to come there. (00:08:52) BRODY So you knew there was a demand? (00:08:53) PRAMOD SHAH To know so many people because I I was from Baroda, the name of the city, right? And they were also Barodians. So when they come, they come and say, " ; Hey, we come from Dallas to get the grocery and I have never seen you here before." ; I said, " ; No, I' ; m a new guy here." ; So, " ; OK, where you...You came from where?" ; I said, I was, " ; I came from Baroda." ; " ; Oh, we are also Barodians!" ; So, that' ; s the way I had a lots of telephone numbers also for all this. Yes. When you come to Dallas, OK, come to, you know? So, we can become a friend, just, you know, like that. (00:09:32) BRODY So you came to Dallas and you looked for a location. How did you come? Where was the location that you decided on? (00:09:40) PRAMOD SHAH You know, the gentleman was a very, very clever guy. Very clever. He has studied a lot about the Indian population in Dallas area also, and he has studied a lot. So he kept straight to the Richardson. And we drove around everywhere, you know, to taking the exit of each and every Richardson area exit, like we started with the Spring Valley Road, then Beltline, then Campbell and Arapaho. We were looking for the location for that. (00:10:17) BRODY What were you looking for? (00:10:19) PRAMOD SHAH And we found out there was lots of good population in Richardson for Indian people. (00:10:24) BRODY So you decided on Richardson and what year was this? (00:10:28) PRAMOD SHAH That was 1982, 1982, right? Yeah. For location. Yes, 1980. (00:10:36) BRODY So where was that location? (00:10:38) PRAMOD SHAH That was in the southwest corner of Spring Valley and Beltline. (00:10:46) RENUKA SHAH Beltline. (00:10:47) PRAMOD SHAH Beltline Road. (00:10:52) RENUKA SHAH Our location was Beltline and 75. (00:10:53) PRAMOD SHAH Oh, 75, sorry. (00:10:54) RENUKA SHAH Beltline. (00:10:55) PRAMOD SHAH Southwest corner of Beltline and 75, highway 75. (00:10:59) BRODY Got it. Well, what was Dallas like when you got here? You mentioned that there were- there was a pretty good population of Indians in Richardson. Just kind of paint a picture for me. What was Dallas like when you got here? (00:11:12) PRAMOD SHAH Well, it is, for us, definitely, it' ; s a new city. Yeah. And she was working in Houston. So, yeah, the location we have selected. So and we were in the south west corner and the southeast corner, there was a, and what is the name of that bank? (00:11:43) RENUKA SHAH At that time it was something called... (00:11:44) PRAMOD SHAH There' ; s was a bank on there. And she had an experience of banking work in India. So she wants to get a job there. (00:11:53) BRODY OK, great. (00:11:54) PRAMOD SHAH So then we have an, got an apartment rental. And the location was fixed, so I, next, is my work is now because it is just an open big area. So I had to put the, all the everything, you know, the shelvings- where to put and how to put, and all this thing. And we got all those stuff. (00:12:20) BRODY And tell me, tell me about that. Just the sort of the nuts and bolts of starting a business, you know, the permits and the, you know, the shelving and all the things that you' ; re talking about... Sort of walk me through how, what did you do? What was the process like? (00:12:37) PRAMOD SHAH You to go to the Richardson City office? We got the name also, you know, you have to your registered the name and everything. (00:12:48) BRODY Yeah. So tell me what was the name of the store? (00:12:51) PRAMOD SHAH Taj Mahal Imports. (00:12:55) BRODY How did you decide on that name? (00:12:57) PRAMOD SHAH Because Taj Mahal is, for the Indian, Taj Mahal is a very common... (00:13:02) RENUKA SHAH Known name. (00:13:05) PRAMOD SHAH Known name. So we decided, " ; Taj Mahal Imports." ; (00:13:08) BRODY So you went to City Hall, registered the name " ; Taj Mahal Imports." ; (00:13:13) PRAMOD SHAH Company' ; s name, everything. Legally whatever we have to do? Yes. Then we went to City of Dallas Health Department. (00:13:24) BRODY What, what did you need to do with the Health Department? (00:13:29) PRAMOD SHAH Just to know the app? What are the laws? (00:13:32) BRODY Yes. (00:13:32) PRAMOD SHAH About the- to open the store also. And the how many restrooms you want, how many these want, all those kind of stuff. (00:13:45) BRODY Did you... (00:13:47) PRAMOD SHAH And to get the permit also from them? So they give us in writing... (00:13:51) BRODY The health permit? Did you rent or own that space? (00:13:56) PRAMOD SHAH No. Rent. (00:13:57) BRODY You rented the space and how large was it? (00:14:00) PRAMOD SHAH It was...The first one was about two- 2200 square feet. (00:14:05) BRODY 2200. Were you in the end, were you happy about that location? Was it a good location for drawing the customers? (00:14:15) PRAMOD SHAH I called all those friends who give me the number. They say, " ; Oh my God, Pramod, this is the best!" ; (00:14:23) BRODY Who were these? Who were the customers initially that you that that first came to the store when you were first opening? (00:14:32) PRAMOD SHAH (Speaks to Renuka Shah in Gujurati) (00:14:33) RENUKA SHAH Who were the customers? (00:14:35) PRAMOD SHAH Oh, customers, first customers? No. OK. They. It just started out those friend... (00:14:45) RENUKA SHAH Majority of them were Patels. (00:14:49) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, yeah, yeah. Main customers in the end, because she worked, before we start the store, when I was getting ready for this, to start the store, before that, she had to work. Very good. And calling all the Indian populations, you can say, okay, last name " ; Patel," ; " ; Shah" ; all those, we know the last name of the Indian people. (00:15:16) BRODY So did you go through the phone book? (00:15:19) RENUKA SHAH The White Pages? (00:15:20) PRAMOD SHAH White Pages. I went through all on " ; Subramaniam" ; came from the South. All those kind of...We know that. So, yeah. She called everybody to be able to start the store and Indian grocery store and not like the other small Indian grocery store, which is about 600-700 square foot area. (00:15:43) BRODY Right. This was much bigger. So when you called them, you told them, you' ; re opening this store, it' ; s going to be bigger. It' ; s going to be different. Was there a big grand opening event or anything like that? (00:15:59) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Yeah. Yes. (00:16:01) BRODY What was that like? Tell me what that day was like for you? (00:16:04) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Before that, yeah. I think we didn' ; t put any sale paper or anything, right? (00:16:10) RENUKA SHAH We had a grand opening. (00:16:12) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yeah, we did, too. Then the address also in the same book. Right? So we had the addresses also so grand opening sale with the list of the order items and we send it by mail to everyone. (00:16:29) BRODY So you oh, so you sent a flier with information about your store, the address, the grand opening and some of the items. So what were the items in the first, the first sort of stage? (00:16:43) PRAMOD SHAH Food items, spice items, everything. Beans and sell all of the spices? (00:16:53) BRODY Yeah. So initially before the store opened, you needed to stock the store. And so tell me about how you decided what to order and where you ordered it from and the process of filling that store with things? (00:17:15) PRAMOD SHAH That thing...One and a half year I worked in the Indian grocery store. (00:17:17) RENUKA SHAH In Houston. (00:17:18) PRAMOD SHAH In Houston. So I know everything in, in that store also where I used to work. I knew from where it is coming, who is giving... (00:17:31) RENUKA SHAH Meaning who are the wholesalers. (00:17:34) BRODY Yes, that' ; s right. (00:17:36) RENUKA SHAH But it was like who are the wholesalers in the US? (00:17:39) PRAMOD SHAH He was getting certain items, even from London, he was importing. And a few items directly from India also. (00:17:48) BRODY OK. (00:17:49) PRAMOD SHAH So I had those names also. (00:17:51) BRODY You had those contacts. (00:17:53) PRAMOD SHAH Contacts. (00:17:54) BRODY So how did you estimate how much you needed initially for the store? (00:17:59) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yeah, because we were talking to the friends here, Dallas friends. This is this much population. So according to population, yeah, we have, we fill up the stores. (00:18:14) BRODY What were your biggest sellers? (00:18:16) PRAMOD SHAH Biggest sellers was some spices. Spices, spices, beans. And...lots of soft drinks, kind of, you know, then sweets. Then, oh, my God, twenty-six years, later. (00:18:46) RENUKA SHAH But, gradually we added more departments and more variety, like he was about to say. For grocery from UK were sold. As we occupied more and more space, we started importing, and that' ; s when we added more lines of... (00:19:02) PRAMOD SHAH There was one small store, yeah? Next to us and that was going out of business. So we got that extra space also. (00:19:15) BRODY OK. (00:19:16) PRAMOD SHAH After about eight, nine, ten months of the grand opening after that. (00:19:21) BRODY So you grew that quickly? (00:19:22) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Yes. (00:19:25) BRODY So the advertising we talked about initially, you advertised the grand opening. What sorts of things, as you know, as the years went on, did you find to be the most effective for advertising? (00:19:40) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, because that advertising helped us so much as is, they told their friends who didn' ; t get this. So everybody started. So I used to ask, " ; OK, you got our sale paper?" ; They say, " ; No, we are not in your list." ; So I started that also... (00:20:00) BRODY So you started a list just on a notebook when customers came in. (00:20:04) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (00:20:05) BRODY That' ; s great. (00:20:06) PRAMOD SHAH And all those work (points to Renuka Shah) (00:20:09) BRODY ...your wife did. Fantastic. And so it sounded like you grew pretty quickly. I mean, eight or nine months. So was, was that growth driven by just popularity or more demand. What made you decide to expand so soon? (00:20:27) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. The reason is we...All other small stores, they hardly have like, hardly have 300-400 items? We have more than 1000 items, so big. So that, we need more space accordingly. So we got it also luckily and done everything and people started. You know, I' ; m, I' ; m very good in nature-wise also talking and, you know, if someone comes through after one week with the product, " ; This is- Pramod, we didn' ; t like this." ; OK, no problem. Don' ; t worry. I just take it throw it in the garbage in front of you." ; And I says, " ; OK, whatever. What else you whatever you like it? You want money? Or do you want to buy?" ; " ; No, no, I want to buy." ; So you...that way, you know, they say " ; Oh my God. That' ; s, that guy. They don' ; t take anything return or anything." ; (00:21:33) BRODY Right? So the customer service and building relationships with your customers, right? So. So tell me more about those types of relationships that you built over the years with customers? Who were most of your customers, Indian- Americans or people who were... (00:21:54) PRAMOD SHAH In the beginning, like the first two or three years, Indians. Indians. " ; Indians" ; means all 24 states' ; people. (00:22:04) BRODY Yes, India is a big country. So how did you handle that? Because the needs... (00:22:09) PRAMOD SHAH You know, everybody started coming to my store so he says, " ; Oh, why don' ; t you get this thing from..." ; You know, the south people says " ; OK. Do you hear, you, you know, we, we have to have a pickle, this brand, this brand" ; and they started giving me all the details. (00:22:25) BRODY So what did you do with that? (00:22:26) PRAMOD SHAH So we started importing directly from India. That after two and a half years of our business, we started importing. But before that we import. We started importing from London. Because all those time, London has a huge population. So __________, yeah. So and there also there are wholesalers. So we got it from them. Then we realized " ; Wait a minute. He' ; s also getting from India and we are going so slowly, slowly." ; Then, after five six years of the business, yeah, I started going to India. (00:23:04) BRODY So... (00:23:05) PRAMOD SHAH To meet all those people. (00:23:06) BRODY So you literally went to India physically and met the wholesalers in India. (00:23:12) PRAMOD SHAH In 1988. (00:23:14) RENUKA SHAH The exporters. (00:23:14) BRODY The exporters to the US. In 1988. So after about six years, you decided to do that. So, yeah, tell me more about that. What, where did you go? Who did you talk to? What did you learn? (00:23:29) PRAMOD SHAH All those, you know, the addresses, we used to get it from the, you know, whatever those things we used to import from London. So, suppose, pickle, so varieties, manufacture, what it is- all those things. So all those- cities. I went there, met them. And told them, to do this, So, and my partner, the guy who you know, he was knowing some people in India who were exporters. Yes. I just know where do this product manufactures? Right? And he knew some people. He says, " ; Pramod, you, don' ; t worry. I know how to get it." ; So that part, he started, and you know, I said, " ; OK, I have given orders to this company." ; Yes, yes. Then to him from there, what he used to do is, he used to call his friend, who is an exporter, OK? This guy, from Hyderabad, " ; You will get this merchandise, this quantity." ; Right? So, from everywhere I ordered, I give the list and everything to the partner. And he used to do all this thing. (00:24:56) BRODY So do you mean that the, for instance, the company that manufactures the pickle in India would get it to the exporter. (00:25:06) PRAMOD SHAH Exporter. (00:25:06) BRODY And then the exporter would send it to you here? OK? Yeah. So you had sort of a clearing house in India to get everything to you here? OK. So from all over India, people were fulfilling orders. (00:25:21) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, a very important point I' ; ve forgotten. And during that, I came to know about lots of laws here. (00:25:28) BRODY Yes, the laws here about that. (00:25:30) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Suppose the pickle. So pickle has, oh, you know, weight and everything. So I came to know during this five, six, several years? The bottle has to have a sticker: name of the product, ingredients, weight, but weight in ounce. You can write. You can write " ; two hundred gram," ; but into bracket, you have to put the ounce also. (00:26:04) BRODY OK. (00:26:05) PRAMOD SHAH And below that, you had to put " ; Product of India." ; So customers should know, all these things. (00:26:14) BRODY So how did you learn about all these laws? (00:26:19) PRAMOD SHAH I have learned all these things in Houston. Because he was also importing, so whatever it was, I was watching, you know, reading all this thinking, " ; Oh my God, this is totally different things." ; (00:26:33) BRODY Yeah, so... (00:26:33) PRAMOD SHAH It is not only kilo. You cannot write...OK, you can write " ; kilo." ; See the- I know there, the rice, basmati rice, used to come in that store in Houston. Basmati rice. Yeah, five kilo. But underneath, he has to write how many pounds and how many ounces also. (00:26:54) BRODY So who does that, the extra level? (00:26:57) PRAMOD SHAH The manufacturer. (00:26:57) BRODY The manufacturer. (00:26:58) PRAMOD SHAH Indian manufacturer. (00:26:59) BRODY OK. So you have to designate and tell them what you need in terms of- to comply with the law. (00:27:06) PRAMOD SHAH Those manufacturers who are already exporting this thing to all over in Europe. And yeah, they also know what we have to, what they have to write. (00:27:18) BRODY Right. So you can comply with the law. (00:27:19) PRAMOD SHAH But there are some new I have to teach them. (00:27:24) BRODY OK, that' ; s really interesting and not something that you want that, you would know about naturally, right? You had to learn as you as you go. So those regulations and laws? OK, so back to the process of getting these products to your store and onto your shelves. You mentioned that you' ; re, you physically went to India and set up relationships with the different manufacturers of things like pickle and with the spices as well. (00:28:01) PRAMOD SHAH Yes, nuts, spices, there are new...What are the new items coming out in India? (00:28:07) BRODY Oh, right, because you wanted to be able to have the latest things in the store. (00:28:12) PRAMOD SHAH Because India was also progressing at that time. So there are lots of good new items. (00:28:18) BRODY For example, what types of new items were there in the late 80s that were coming out? (00:28:23) PRAMOD SHAH New lots of new varieties of mixes, spice powder, mixing sauce, mixture like garam masala. So garam masala has a lot of varieties or this kind of stuff with, you know, new in India also. So all the stuff we started getting. (00:28:43) BRODY So your customers must have been happy because they were getting the same new items from India here, right here in Texas. (00:28:52) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Mainly the varieties of pickles. Baedecker pickles. These pickles. So many pickles. Yeah. Different, different state has a different different. (00:29:04) BRODY So, yeah, tell me about the people who came to your store. Were coming. You know, they' ; re all people from India who are settled here in Texas for a long time or a short time. But they' ; re here, but they' ; re not necessarily all from the same part of India. So when they would come to your Indian grocery store, were there times that people asked for things that-from their state- that you tried to get into the store? (00:29:35) PRAMOD SHAH And that thing started after like my four, five, six years of importing. After that, they do started, " ; Hey, you have this thing? Why don' ; t you have this?" ; (00:29:46) BRODY Right. So, for example, what types of things were people asking for? (00:29:51) PRAMOD SHAH They started giving me the sample? (00:29:52) BRODY Oh, really? Like of... (00:29:54) PRAMOD SHAH " ; Look, we went to India and we got this thing." ; So that sample has all the, you know, name, in manufacturer' ; s name. (00:30:03) BRODY So and then you would try to get it. (00:30:04) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (00:30:05) BRODY So. How did you? You' ; re just the, you' ; re here in Texas, and the time zone is different than India. This is before the internet. You know, really before, you know, personal computers were being used in stores... (00:30:22) PRAMOD SHAH Computer, nothing. (00:30:23) BRODY So? So how did you do it? How did you? (00:30:25) PRAMOD SHAH Call. Every day, night? (00:30:26) BRODY Every night you got on the phone? (00:30:28) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, I got to sleep around 1:30 to 2:00 in the morning. Because India' ; s all the offices starts at 11:00. (00:30:40) BRODY Right, so 11:00 o' ; clock. (00:30:41) PRAMOD SHAH Midnight. I go to sleep at night, right and do this job on phone, phone, phone everywhere. (00:30:49) BRODY And. So you had things from every state in India on your store shelves. Yes. And so your customers, you know, what was their reaction to seeing these items from their home state? (00:31:06) PRAMOD SHAH Those customers...is calling, seeing, talking to all their friends also. (00:31:13) BRODY Yeah. So the word of mouth was good. (00:31:15) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (00:31:17) BRODY So obviously you had the majority of your customers, as you said, were people who were from India who were here for work. (00:31:26) PRAMOD SHAH Very high number. Lots. (00:31:26) BRODY Yes, lots of Indian folks. Earlier, you mentioned also... (00:31:31) PRAMOD SHAH I go every year to India because of that... (00:31:33) BRODY Because of that to learn more about the different products and so on. Earlier, you mentioned that there were British products as well. Tell me about that. What types of things and why did you stock them? (00:31:45) PRAMOD SHAH What happened in that also...After how many years, I don' ; t know from the store starts, the dollar value, in early 90s, or maybe, it has little bit gone down compared to the British pound. So lots of Gujurati-Indian people living in London, they converted their money and bought the motels here. (00:32:23) BRODY OK, motels, yeah. (00:32:26) PRAMOD SHAH Right. Those people they came here on. Right. And those people, they were, like their kids and all those they were using the different kind of candies there any, which is, you know, it wasn' ; t available here and there are so many items they were used to in London, so they totally gave the list of everything. So, we started from this same supplier that used to give us the groceries and all the other stuff. So that is the reason we started that thing. (00:33:04) BRODY So you started seeing the, stocking the British products because these families were coming from London and the children were accustomed to this? (00:33:15) PRAMOD SHAH They helped me so much the other way? What is that other way? I didn' ; t know that in Dallas, there is a British Embassy. And those people, they have to go to the British Embassy when they come here. And you know that. So went there, and they told the ambassador that all the British stuff is available here. (00:33:38) BRODY Really. So you reached a whole different population just that way. So then did you start seeing British... (00:33:44) PRAMOD SHAH When new people come, from London to Dallas, they have to go to the Embassy. So they gave literally this " ; Whenever you want, go to this Taj Mahal Imports." ; Like that. (00:33:58) BRODY To get your Cadburys. What were the British products that were most popular? (00:34:05) PRAMOD SHAH Candies. (00:34:05) BRODY The candies? (00:34:06) PRAMOD SHAH Cookies. (00:34:07) RENUKA SHAH Yes. Cookies and baked beans. (00:34:09) PRAMOD SHAH Baked beans. (00:34:09) RENUKA SHAH All the jams and jellies. (00:34:13) PRAMOD SHAH Eno. Eno. (00:34:13) BRODY I don' ; t know that one. What is that? (00:34:16) RENUKA SHAH It is some baking ingredient? (00:34:20) BRODY OK. OK, yeah. (00:34:23) RENUKA SHAH Softening stuff. (00:34:25) BRODY So you had a connection with a whole different population that had nothing really to do with India at that point. So what about other people in Dallas, other communities? Did you have very many? (00:34:40) PRAMOD SHAH It started. That thing started from year 2000. (00:34:44) BRODY What happened in the year 2000? (00:34:46) PRAMOD SHAH Because lots of people from India came here for Y2K problem. So solving that thing. They were working, very big, all of these Texas Instruments and kind of all those things, and there already, Americans are working there. (00:35:03) BRODY Mm-Hmm. (00:35:03) PRAMOD SHAH So these became friends. (00:35:07) BRODY The Indians and the people who are already here in Texas became friends (00:35:11) PRAMOD SHAH Even sometimes, they bring them... (00:35:12) BRODY To the store. (00:35:13) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. " ; You know what? You tasted one pickle. I bought it from here. So let' ; s go." ; So, that' ; s where it started. (00:35:22) BRODY So you started seeing more. (00:35:25) RENUKA SHAH Americans? Yes. Yes, local population. (00:35:28) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (00:35:29) BRODY So that' ; s. (00:35:30) PRAMOD SHAH They started...They came and started even buying the betel nuts? Karela. (00:35:39) BRODY Oh, the bitter melon, (00:35:41) PRAMOD SHAH Bitter melon. Bitter melon. (00:35:42) BRODY That was popular. (00:35:43) PRAMOD SHAH Right? Because this is it. And if you have more sugar and all these things, you must eat that thing. That is what the Indian must have told them. So even the vegetables, they come to buy vegetables also. (00:36:00) BRODY And where did you, how did you stock the vegetables? The fresh vegetables? (00:36:05) PRAMOD SHAH I had a very nice refrigerated vegetable display case. (00:36:12) BRODY Where did you? Who was your supplier? How did you find suppliers for those? (00:36:18) PRAMOD SHAH Local. Yeah. Yeah. (00:36:18) BRODY Even for things like bitter melon. And what were the (00:36:23) PRAMOD SHAH Lots of vegetables? (00:36:24) BRODY Yeah. What were the... (00:36:26) PRAMOD SHAH And a lot, they are big. Lots of Chinese, they have our vegetables source in the downtown Dallas. (00:36:34) BRODY OK, so you were able to stock it. (00:36:36) PRAMOD SHAH We were getting from there also and slowly, slowly, in Florida, there are lots of Indian, Gujarati Indian people. The they also started and yeah, when you were growing these vegetables and all those. So they used to send us, by air, also. (00:36:56) BRODY They would. OK, so tell me about the fruits and vegetables that were the ones that you tried to keep in stock. What were the most popular fruits and vegetables? (00:37:09) PRAMOD SHAH Mainly, mostly vegetables all...You know, the name is very different which you, maybe. Mostly each and every vegetables? Yeah. Whatever the vegetables you go in now in Indian grocery stores? Everything. (00:37:28) BRODY You had that all there then. (00:37:30) PRAMOD SHAH Yes, Gujurati peoples, there have a different kind of vegetables. Maharashtrian people different. So accordingly, South Indian- totally different vegetables. All those vegetables. (00:37:47) BRODY You had all that. What about mangoes? Was that a big? (00:37:50) PRAMOD SHAH Mango in the season? Yes! (00:37:51) BRODY In season. (00:37:52) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yeah! (00:37:53) BRODY Did you have different varieties of mangoes? (00:37:55) PRAMOD SHAH No. That mean- that mangoes? Not from India. (00:37:59) BRODY No. (00:38:00) PRAMOD SHAH Whatever the varieties of mango in Mexico? Yeah. (00:38:04) BRODY OK. And they sold well. (00:38:07) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yeah. (00:38:07) BRODY Yeah. (00:38:08) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yes. (00:38:10) BRODY So obviously for the customers who were coming in who were from India, originally your store offered a taste of home and some familiarity. Can you talk to me a little bit about, sort of the, the role that your store played in helping people feel more at home in their new, you know, living here or raising their kids here? (00:38:39) PRAMOD SHAH Varieties of people, things. Yeah. And because we are growing fast and adding lots of items in this. Then the Pakistanis started coming, Bangladeshi started coming, and Nepali people also started coming. (00:39:01) BRODY Did you do you feel like your store was sort of a place where people got information, sort of a community hub? (00:39:13) PRAMOD SHAH Well, it is a very good point. After that, what happened, the population- of Indian population increased so much. Then the Gujarati Association started- Gujarati Samaj. Even Hyderabadi, or Tamil people. All those people had their own association. So I started giving them help whenever they have needs, something, I say, " ; OK, I will get it for you." ; (00:39:45) BRODY What kind of things might they need? (00:39:48) PRAMOD SHAH Like suppose. Kite Festival. So the Gujurati Samaj, they wanted to start a Kite Festival here also. So I get all the kites and everything. Thread, kites, everything from India. And the very first time, I says, " ; OK, this is- this is a gift from the Taj Mahal Imports." ; So they have a very nice, right? Plus in the very first Kite Festival, there are 150 people came. (00:40:16) BRODY Where was it? (00:40:17) PRAMOD SHAH There? What was that big lake? I forgot. It' ; s been a long time back. So, near some big, very big lake here, (00:40:26) BRODY Here in Dallas? (00:40:27) PRAMOD SHAH In Dallas, they have that. They' ; ve got the permission from that. So. But after that, what happened? The people they wanted to slowly, slowly, they wanted to teach their kids also. So they started coming to the store and buy all the stock there from us. (00:40:49) BRODY So they were happy to have a kite festival in Dallas, and then they also wanted to get the supplies so they could do things at home with their kids. (00:40:59) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, and the Maharashtri people, they like some, you know, the mango pulp. All right. So there are some very good mango pulp available in Maharashtra also. So they give me the can also " ; Look, this is the best mango pulp." ; So I started like that. Whoever comes, give me this tip. Yes. (00:41:24) BRODY It' ; s really interesting that as the community grew here, that these associations for the different parts of India started forming here in Dallas. So, you mentioned the kite festival that you were part of. What were some other sort of things that the associations, the various associations were doing that you were involved in? (00:41:44) PRAMOD SHAH So, Holi? (00:41:48) BRODY Tell me about that, what is it? (00:41:49) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, this Hindu temple started, they feel, " ; OK, let' ; s start the Holi also." ; So they started that Holi function. (00:42:01) BRODY What is that? What does that look like? (00:42:05) PRAMOD SHAH Holi functions looks like...Mainly, it' ; s a religious thing, you know. They have a fire. They put lots of nice...this and the fire little bit and they, everybody go around and whatever the things they have to say whatever it is, they do that this. And the next day of Holi is the color festival. Right? (00:42:41) BRODY Yes. (00:42:41) PRAMOD SHAH So the colors, they put it on everybody, right? It is, and all these thing is, you know, for us, it is all adding in the item, adding in the item continuously, all this, this then the Krishna Jayanthi, right? So Renuka used to get the nice, small, small Krishna statues and all this thing. So in that also they, you need, you know, the born on the one o' ; clock in the morning of the Krishna. So they put it in that to get. (Speaking in Gujurati to Renuka Shah) What we call that? This is OK... Sleeping things, so they put it there and do this to right everybody to do that thing at home also. They take home and buy this in home. Yes. (00:43:47) BRODY So you were able to supply those things? (00:43:49) PRAMOD SHAH Activities, whatever they need. That also, we started slowly, slowly because all kind of temples, you know, Hindu temple and then the South Indian makes, the Bengali people has a different kind, Maharashtrian people has a different kind. So all of those things. (00:44:06) BRODY All the different supplies you were able... (00:44:08) PRAMOD SHAH Started selling the big temples. (00:44:13) BRODY Oh, a big temple. Like a model? (00:44:15) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, very nice. (00:44:17) BRODY For- what did people use those for? (00:44:20) PRAMOD SHAH For, they put the all the- whatever they get, buy- the statues of gods and all this. They put it. (00:44:29) BRODY In their home? (00:44:29) PRAMOD SHAH In the home. (00:44:30) BRODY Yeah. So did you have a wide variety? That sounds like it takes up a lot of space? Did you stock a lot of the little home temples? (00:44:41) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, yeah. (00:44:42) BRODY How did you... (00:44:43) PRAMOD SHAH Starting from two feet to three feet to four feet? (00:44:46) BRODY And did they sell well? (00:44:47) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, yeah. (00:44:51) BRODY That' ; s really interesting, and I think people were probably grateful to have a place to purchase those. Well, what were some other things in the store that brought people in? Did you do phone cards or videos, things like that? (00:45:14) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (00:45:15) BRODY Tell me about the- let' ; s start with the phone cards. (00:45:17) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, phone cards. You know, and by the time the phone cards started, before then, my store was very famous everywhere or for all the Indians. So whatever the, whoever Indians started the phone card business, they came to us and yes, we started selling phone cards. (00:45:34) BRODY What did people use the phone cards for? Since that' ; s no longer a thing that people use? Tell me about what the, what the function of the phone cards. (00:45:41) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Function of the phone card is you can call and if you use that phone card, calling your parents or something, right? So they have like only like five, five cents per minute, ten cents, so, so, so cheap! When they use their own, it' ; s costly. (00:46:04) BRODY Right. (00:46:05) PRAMOD SHAH Right. So because of that, the phone card sales was like huge. Huge. Very good. (00:46:11) BRODY So just making a long distance call on your phone. International call was quite expensive, but if you purchased a phone card, it was like a prepaid lower per minute fee. Is that right? (00:46:23) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Right. And the kitchen utensils. (00:46:31) BRODY What kinds of kitchen utensils? (00:46:34) PRAMOD SHAH Everything. Whatever you need, you know, required for cooking, (00:46:38) BRODY For Indian cooking? (00:46:39) PRAMOD SHAH Indian cooking.Yes. (00:46:40) BRODY So what were some examples? (00:46:46) PRAMOD SHAH (Speaking Gujurati to Renuka Shah) Starting from easy, easy to the you know, you want to make the tea, when you make the tea, you need a way to handle... (00:47:03) BRODY Right to make it Indian tea. (00:47:05) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. So you put it on, but then you, you cannot do with some thing and you have to use that thing. The tea cooking, roti making stainless steel utensils, you know. And there are lots of varieties. Cooking the roti, to make the roti in this. You need that. (00:47:29) BRODY Special pan. (00:47:31) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. And the, yes, plate to eat? (00:47:39) BRODY Yes. Well, like the stainless steel plates? (00:47:42) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Yes, small bowls. If you have, you know, the liquid stuff. I think spoons. (00:47:51) BRODY All of those things were things that an Indian family might, might use. Were, were people who were not Indian purchasing those as well? (00:48:03) PRAMOD SHAH But we were using very, very good quality of stainless steel in that. See the storage like, you know, you buy, you buy like 4 kilos of rice, so how you put it? So you need the storage area. So that storage is also stainless steel. We used to have a stainless steel can kind of stuff, big one. (00:48:26) BRODY A stainless steel like a bin to put the rice in? (00:48:29) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (00:48:30) BRODY Yes. So it seems like you were thinking of everything that Indian people setting up a household here in Dallas might need to, to stock their kitchen, communicate back home. (00:48:50) PRAMOD SHAH Then the videos started. (00:48:52) BRODY Tell me about the videos. Yes, the videos. (00:48:55) PRAMOD SHAH All kind of videos. Like movies everywhere in India. South Indian movies, South Indian language, Gujarati movies, mainly Hindi movies, Hindi language. All the movies. There were a guy here. He used, he was- all the movies, video, the publicity in India- he had a contact with them. So he used to get it from there. And we were buying from him. (00:49:31) BRODY The VHS tapes? (00:49:33) PRAMOD SHAH Yes, the VHS tapes. (00:49:35) BRODY So how soon after a movie came out in India, were you able to get the VHS? (00:49:42) PRAMOD SHAH Oh...between two, two weeks, less than two weeks. (00:49:44) BRODY Really? (00:49:44) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (00:49:45) BRODY So even if it was in the theater there, you could get it on VHS here. (00:49:50) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Yes. (00:49:52) BRODY So how was the process of renting those movies out? They were rentals, right? (00:49:57) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, yeah. (00:49:58) BRODY So you had sort of a library of movies in the store? (00:50:02) PRAMOD SHAH The big area. From there to there? (Gestures). (00:50:05) BRODY Yeah. So a big area and shelves. Did you have an index or something? How did people find the movies? Oh, like how did they know what you had there? (00:50:18) PRAMOD SHAH They know. They see, by the time, lots of news also coming from India through TV. So they know which are the new movies. And they are...They have their family members, the rest of the family members in India. They also talk. (00:50:35) BRODY Right? (00:50:35) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. So that' ; s the way they know, and they used to come to us. (00:50:43) RENUKA SHAH Also, the supplier of these VHS tapes, like you can call it, like a wholesaler from here. That person would have latest movies. So he would obviously supply to us, so we would know which ones are coming and we were arranging that alphabetical order. (00:51:02) PRAMOD SHAH So, so once, you know, once they are got used to it and they go, " ; Hey, Pramod what is a new movie you got?" ; That' ; s what they.... (00:51:10) BRODY They just come to you, and they just ask you what' ; s new. And you said you arranged them in alphabetical order and then so people came in and just were browsing like at a library. (00:51:21) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, yeah. And they can even read also, (00:51:24) BRODY They can see it. Yes, with the labels on the side. And then did you have like a membership card or something like that? How did you keep track? (00:51:33) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. It started with the notebook. Yeah. Right? That also alphabetical names, you know? OK, this guy took the movie, date. Right? So the rate is like a day. Right. So when they when they return, " ; Ok. All right. Sir, you have to pay $4. Sir, you have to pay." ; They pay. (00:51:59) BRODY Right. At that return time. How much did you charge per day at the beginning? Do you remember? (Pramod Shah gestures) $1? One dollar a day? (00:52:10) PRAMOD SHAH It also depends again. So on some movies, they' ; re costly for us. So we charge $2. (00:52:15) BRODY OK. So there were different categories in movies as well. (00:52:19) PRAMOD SHAH If the movies comes from South India, that is also costly. So because in South, they were not watching in...They go straight to the theater. So that may maybe a manufacturing in VHS, doing the VHS of those movie must be costly in India also. So accordingly, they charge us so. (00:52:45) BRODY So. Were people pretty good about bringing the movies back? (00:52:50) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (00:52:51) BRODY Or did you have problems with that? OK, that' ; s good. That' ; s good. Also, was there damage ever to the movies, to the VHS? Did you run into that? (00:53:01) PRAMOD SHAH Very rare. No, I don' ; t think so. (00:53:02) BRODY Good. People really just watched them and brought them back. That' ; s great. Well, I wonder if did, do you get much feedback about when you started the videos, were people really happy about it? (00:53:17) PRAMOD SHAH Very happy. One, what the very, very happy who were very, very happy. You know, Mahabharat and Ramayan. Not even the video. Not the movies. And the Mahabharat and Ramayan starts in India. Oh my God. In India, the you know what happened in India at the time? When the Mahabharat and Ramayan starts, nobody go outside the house. Everybody' ; s sitting. (00:53:46) BRODY And watching the TV. (00:53:47) PRAMOD SHAH Watching the TV. (00:53:48) BRODY Yeah, this is on. How often was this on? (00:53:53) PRAMOD SHAH Every? (00:53:55) RENUKA SHAH I don' ; t know how frequently the episodes where shown on TV there. (00:54:01) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, we used to...You know, it' ; s a long thing, so it comes every day. Mahabharat. Every day, in the evening time in India. (00:54:10) BRODY OK. OK. (00:54:11) PRAMOD SHAH So at that time, everybody sitting here, all the businesspeople are sitting and women. (00:54:19) BRODY So it was a very popular show and it was on frequently. So since it was on TV, how did you get it here? (00:54:29) PRAMOD SHAH Same thing. VHS. Yeah, yeah. We used to get all the supplies and get it? Yes. Yes. (00:54:38) BRODY OK, so then that did you just have one copy of each or did you need much more than that? (00:54:46) PRAMOD SHAH We get one copy original delivered for this and the rest of the copies, we, there is the one machine you can transport from there, OK? So we used to do that to make it more. (00:55:02) BRODY Because you had a lot of demand. (00:55:04) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (00:55:06) BRODY That' ; s interesting. So tell me now about community events, things that your store at this point, you' ; re a very big store, very popular store and lots of ties within the community here in Dallas. What types of community activities or community events were you involved in as leaders in the community? (00:55:36) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, lots of is all, as I told you, you know, it' ; s all kind of-Hyderabadi Association, Telegu Association, Tamil Association. All those associations started. Right. So when they have some functions and needed some special items from Hyderabad or yes, yes,yes...They give us all the details, and we tried to get it and give it to them. (00:56:03) BRODY Right. (00:56:05) PRAMOD SHAH Mainly India Association. Huge. (00:56:07) BRODY Yeah. Tell me about your sort of interaction with them. (00:56:11) PRAMOD SHAH India Association...is...This started? You know, August? Fifteenth August. Big function. Very, very big functions. More than twelve, thirteen thousand Indians used to come. (00:56:35) BRODY Where, where did they host, where did they hold those events? (00:56:37) PRAMOD SHAH They started with one big hall, very, very big hall. The City of Dallas hall and big hall. Right? And they have there, all kind of items, means food items. Whoever wants to do the business there, they gave us some this area. (00:56:57) BRODY Like a booth? (00:56:58) PRAMOD SHAH Booth. And everybody knew that, so that' ; s the way they started. (00:57:03) BRODY What did you do in your booth? (00:57:06) PRAMOD SHAH No, we didn' ; t start it right away, OK? Because in the food, we started up in 98. 98, right? Taj Chaat House. (00:57:22) RENUKA SHAH And before that, we had Chaat Corner here. (00:57:26) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. 1996. We started doing that thing. Yes. There' ; s a fast food we call " ; Chaat House." ; (00:57:40) BRODY And was this something that you sold in the store as well? (00:57:44) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, in this we created, you know...after, in the year 2001. We moved that location. The same shopping center. We got 8000 square feet. There was empty...It must be something there and there. And so we rent that. We moved our store from there to the 8000 square feet. And even only after one year, there was another 8000. You know, next to it. We got that also. We rent that also. The total store is in the 2000. (00:58:39) RENUKA SHAH 1996. (00:58:40) PRAMOD SHAH No. (00:58:41) RENUKA SHAH 1996. (00:58:42) PRAMOD SHAH 1996. 16000 square feet. (00:58:46) BRODY 16000. So you had started out at two thousand square feet and you ended up by (00:58:52) PRAMOD SHAH 16000 square feet. Biggest Indian grocery store in U.S.A. at that time. Because that is the reason because there are lots of people in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, but their real estate is very costly in those areas, in these cities. Here in Texas. Yeah, it' ; s not much. So they, they have a very hard time if they want to open this big. They may be end up paying, oh my God, sixty, seventy thousand per month. (00:59:26) BRODY Yeah. So how much, do you remember how much you were paying? (00:59:29) PRAMOD SHAH Ah, we were paying oh, sixteen, oh oh. (Speaking to Renuka Shah) 16000 multiplied by point seven zero. (00:59:50) BRODY Point seven zero per square foot. Yeah. So much less expensive than Chicago or New York. (00:59:58) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. They pay there...I know that there are lots of those people also need to contact me, you know. So they pay 150 to 250 per square feet. (01:00:10) BRODY Well, wow. So, it' ; s a lot less expensive. So you had a lot more square feet to fill up in that in that store. What were the various new departments that you added when you expanded? (01:00:22) PRAMOD SHAH Started making rangoli... (01:00:23) BRODY And yet let' ; s hear about that, the rangoli. Can you tell me more about it? (01:00:29) PRAMOD SHAH Rangoli specially (Gestures to Renuka Shah) (01:00:33) BRODY Tell me about the rangoli. When do you do? When did you do that? (01:00:37) PRAMOD SHAH 90 (Speaks in Gujurati to Renuka Shah) 96. Sorry! Sorry, sorry. (01:00:44) BRODY 1996. So you had all this new space so well, and this is, what did you decide to do? (01:00:51) PRAMOD SHAH The Diwali time? Make a rangoli. (01:00:52) BRODY Yeah. So for people who don' ; t know what a rangoli is, tell me what is a rangoli? (01:00:58) PRAMOD SHAH People, mostly know. Because before we started this rangoli, you know, we have already started selling the rangoli also. The Gujurati people, they do, they use more. (01:01:12) BRODY So at Diwali time, you do a (01:01:16) PRAMOD SHAH Gujurati and Maharashtrian, both. (01:01:18) BRODY And it' ; s a form of art. (01:01:21) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (01:01:21) BRODY So where is it? (01:01:22) PRAMOD SHAH They must be using, doing it, teaching their kids in the house or something. (01:01:27) BRODY So you were selling the sort of supplies. (01:01:30) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:01:30) BRODY To people. But then in this in the story, you created a (01:01:34) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, (01:01:35) BRODY a large one? (01:01:37) PRAMOD SHAH A large one. (01:01:37) BRODY Yeah. How long did it take to do that? (01:01:40) PRAMOD SHAH Well, it depends. And yeah, but easily, easily, oh, my God. I used to keep the track also of hours. Like, five people went- about five people work on it and each must have spent about more than about 200 hours. (01:02:10) BRODY Really. (01:02:13) PRAMOD SHAH A lot. Because lots and lots of... There are- it starts with the painting first. Then filling, drawing first. Then, starting- which colors will go on head, face, and all those stuff. To do all these things. And for that also you have to mix the- create the colors also. (01:02:37) BRODY And you create them out of sort of a sand, right? (01:02:40) PRAMOD SHAH Yes, yes. One guy is doing that, one is doing the picture, one is started putting this thing, all this thing. Five people minimum per, no matter how big it is. Yes. (01:02:54) BRODY Then did people come in and watch the work being done? Did people, customers come and watch? (01:03:02) PRAMOD SHAH Watch? We will start, you know, start doing, and then it got very famous. Very, very famous. (01:03:08) BRODY Yeah. How did it get famous? (01:03:11) PRAMOD SHAH People started and seeing that and you say, " ; Hey, have you been to Taj Mahal? They have a nice rangoli." ; (01:03:20) BRODY Yeah, so people started coming to see it. What time of year was this typically? (01:03:27) PRAMOD SHAH Diwali time means in October or early November. And middle of October to November. Yes. (01:03:35) BRODY So did I mean, obviously people who are celebrating Diwali are coming, but were there people, other people from the community that came to see? (01:03:45) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, yeah. All this, all this, on this community, some people must be knowing to the, the newspaper people. (01:03:53) BRODY OK, so you were covered in the newspaper? (01:03:54) PRAMOD SHAH They must be calling them, though. So they started... (01:03:58) BRODY So that, like the Dallas Morning News started coming to cover the rangoli as well? (01:04:05) PRAMOD SHAH And the radio people also, you know, news? Yes. (01:04:16) BRODY Were there any other cultural events, holidays like the rangoli that you were involved in and we' ; ve talked about the Krishna ceremony, things like that, were there any other things like that that you could think of? (01:04:28) PRAMOD SHAH This is really not much because there are lots of South Indian people has, you know, and have religious days. Some religious days and all these things, but not much people they come to us to- for that. You know what, you why don' ; t you get these or did you get these like that? So the very few we know, like all over India is famous like Ram_________it' ; s all those things. (01:05:08) BRODY So you had- we started talking about the rangoli because you had all this extra space when you expanded to sixteen thousand square feet. What about what other things did you fill? You- I know you had the movies, you had the phone cards, you had the spices and the foods and the produce. Were there, were there other items that now that you had all this space- bigger items? (01:05:29) PRAMOD SHAH She just reminded me one very, very, very good items. You know the Ganesh, Ganesha? In Bombay everywhere? Yeah. They keep it for 15, 20 days. And then at the end of it, they put it in the river or sea, right? So that is Ganesh Chaturthi. So Ganesha, very big selling. We used to get it from India, directly- Ganesha Murti. From this size (Gestures a small, several inch size) to four feet high also. Big...And two feet high, all the temple used to get it, those. (01:06:09) BRODY The temples would buy them from you. (01:06:10) PRAMOD SHAH Yes, they get it and they have a big function of that. So lots of people go at, in that function. So temple also gets lots of money because wherever they go to temple, they put some money. (01:06:27) BRODY That' ; s great, so. So this store really, there is no limit now. Like you' ; ve got all sorts of- and it' ; s not just groceries, it' ; s not, it' ; s not just movies, there' ; s things. What were other things that Indians in Dallas needed from you? Were there, you know things for it, for travel, things for, you know, teaching their children? (01:06:55) PRAMOD SHAH The biggest advantage of my store to all the Indian people is because of my store is just doing so good, all of the sari store, travel agency, jewelry store, all those people come in the same shopping center. (01:07:15) BRODY Oh, so you were like an anchor? (01:07:17) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:07:18) BRODY So, so your neighbors must have been pretty happy you were there. (01:07:23) PRAMOD SHAH Two or three South Indian restaurants also came. Punjabi restaurants. All those things. (01:07:31) BRODY Right there in that in that plaza? (01:07:33) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:07:34) BRODY So, you know, somebody could come and spend the afternoon. They' ; re going to get groceries and clothes and luggage. Did you sell luggage in the store? (01:07:47) PRAMOD SHAH No, no, no. There was a big sari store. They had the luggage and everything. Everything they had, they used to carry luggage. (01:07:53) BRODY So in your store, did you sell, at any point, did you sell clothing? (01:07:58) PRAMOD SHAH No, no, we started. The people started asking, " ; Why don' ; t you give this?" ; So we started artificial jewelry. And, and bangles, the glass bangles and metal bangles in the arm. Do you know what they were in India that they used, right? All those things also we started. (01:08:18) BRODY Great. So this or that was so good for people to be able to have access to that sort of thing, the costume jewelry. (01:08:23) PRAMOD SHAH Bindi also. (01:08:23) BRODY Bindi' ; s as well? Yes. Yes. (01:08:30) PRAMOD SHAH And Bindi also very nice, very beautiful. Matching to your (01:08:37) BRODY to your sari? (01:08:38) PRAMOD SHAH Clothes, saris, or... (01:08:40) BRODY Shoes? Did you sell shoes there? (01:08:43) PRAMOD SHAH For a while? Chappal, right? Yeah. Slippers, chappals, from Bata. (01:08:50) BRODY Bata shoes. (01:08:52) RENUKA SHAH Fancy chappals only. For ladies. (01:08:53) BRODY Just fancy ones. Yeah, but that was just for a short time. (01:08:58) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (01:09:00) BRODY I want to go back- to you mentioned that in 2001, you started that chaat corner. What was that? What did it look like and what prompted you to do that? (01:09:12) RENUKA SHAH First, let' ; s correct the time- the year. I think we started in 1996. The Chaat Corner. (01:09:19) BRODY 96. Okay. Okay. And so what was it? (01:09:26) PRAMOD SHAH When we started first, you know, there was only items like, we' ; re like, yeah, (Gestures) this big area. The pani puri. And it is it is like a chaat item, chaat items in, you know, in like Maharashtra or north. Not in the South mainly. You know, it' ; s popular. But from, from Goa, it' ; s all popular like this. Pani puri, bhel mix means, muramura, and all other items. Mix it and put the two, three varieties of chutneys in that, right? And the pav bhaji. Pav bhaji, parathas. And....we did. We started the juice also. Juice, juices. (01:10:37) BRODY What kind of juice? (01:10:39) PRAMOD SHAH Mango juice and then sugarcane juice. Yeah, that was the most selling. (01:10:48) BRODY Really sugarcane juice. (01:10:49) PRAMOD SHAH Sugarcane juice. (01:10:50) BRODY So was it open all the time when the store was open or just at meals? (01:10:56) PRAMOD SHAH All the time the store was open. (01:10:56) BRODY So was it pretty crowded? (01:10:59) PRAMOD SHAH Coconut. We used to get the coconut and then cut it nicely and give it with the straw. Coconut in the hand and they drink the real, fresh coconut water. (01:11:13) BRODY That' ; s really nice. So was it pretty crowded, busy time? (01:11:20) PRAMOD SHAH Ooh. Saturday and Sunday. Very busy. Yeah, very busy. (01:11:28) BRODY Did families come or was it mostly... (01:11:30) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yeah. (01:11:32) BRODY The whole family would come and have juice and snacks and things like? Did so...But at this point, how large was your staff? Did you have just the two of you? (01:11:45) PRAMOD SHAH Particularly in that area? There are six seven people. (01:11:49) BRODY Working? (01:11:50) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:11:50) BRODY Okay. How did you find the staff for that? Was it difficult? (01:11:56) PRAMOD SHAH No, it was not difficult now because all this time there are lots of people there, you know, like their wife is not working anywhere. All right. So a lot of people used to... Punjabi people at that time used to come a lot. Yeah. And the Punjabis people, they are not mainly highly educated or something. So they started coming all sorts. So we get lots of yeah, yeah. (01:12:26) BRODY You get a lot of a mix. Just given where your location was, you know, during that time period, there were a lot of, you know, office buildings and things like that in the area. Were you crowded at lunchtime with people who were not just Indian? (01:12:43) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah...lunchtime. (01:12:43) BRODY Yeah. (01:12:45) PRAMOD SHAH That' ; s when the American people also started. The lunch time. The Indian, yeah, he says, " ; Let' ; s go and eat something or drink something to Taj Mahal." ; So, you know, they come as a friend and yeah. (01:12:57) BRODY And they like it. (01:12:59) PRAMOD SHAH They like it. They like it. (01:13:02) BRODY That' ; s, that' ; s an interesting way that you were able to share Indian culture with a broader group. Did you, do you feel like and looking back at your store and your time in business, you know what, what role do you think that your business played in, I guess, educating people about India in Indian culture? (01:13:31) PRAMOD SHAH Huge. (01:13:32) BRODY Yes. Tell me more about your thoughts about that. (01:13:35) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, we actually in (Speaking Gujurati to Renuka Shah) When we started there, you know, one lady started a cooking classes in our store. (01:13:58) BRODY So you had cooking classes in the store? (01:13:59) PRAMOD SHAH We had- there was a space. (01:14:01) BRODY Because you had- once you had the more space. (01:14:03) PRAMOD SHAH The space where we used to do the rangoli, and when the rangoli is over. Nine, nine months...It' ; s, you know. So one lady also started there. Yeah. So there also, American people used to come. (01:14:17) BRODY So they were- a lady came and she gave, briefly, Indian cooking lessons. (01:14:21) PRAMOD SHAH Cooking lessons. (01:14:22) BRODY Do you remember what she cooked? What types of things were being taught? (01:14:26) PRAMOD SHAH Mostly North Indian. North Indian foods, as is I told you know, not the, you know. It' ; s a huge difference between the North Indian food and the South. (01:14:39) BRODY Yeah, yeah, there is. So in the time that that cooking class is going on, that piece of education was going on, you know, do you have any other thoughts about sort of the place that or the role that your store played in spreading Indian culture or sharing Indian culture? (01:14:58) PRAMOD SHAH There were lots of books. And. Oh, yes, I remember something. Sometimes, on weekend, Hare Krishna temple people used to come and sit outside the store and I provide them to table and chairs. And they used to talk to the people. (01:15:36) BRODY As they were coming through. (01:15:37) PRAMOD SHAH They were mainly because they says, " ; Okay, we have a this temple. So you can come to temple and then what we do in the temple." ; And they also they used to give all these things too. Yes, very good. Yeah. And then we started, then slowly, slowly, what happened is we started selling the ayurvedic products. (01:16:05) BRODY So what type of products were those be? (01:16:08) PRAMOD SHAH Right? Yeah. Started from the ayurvedic. The...we don' ; t write medicine. This is- we write on that the " ; herbal supplements." ; So the ayurvedic products we used to get it from the India' ; s, the biggest number one manufacturer in Hyderabad. So there- what is the name? Baidyanath is company name. Baidyanath. And the- who started the herbal supplements and the exports making the medicine. There in India, they say " ; medicine." ; Making the medicines. Now they start. Yeah. They started exporting those also. (01:17:07) BRODY Ayurvedic products. (01:17:08) PRAMOD SHAH Ayurvedic products. " ; Ayurvedic Herbal supplement" ; is the American name. Yes. (01:17:12) BRODY Yes. So- that- were those popular sellers as well? Was that something that people... (01:17:18) PRAMOD SHAH Within India? Yes. Yes, yes. (01:17:20) BRODY And here in your store? (01:17:21) PRAMOD SHAH What we used to...started when we started. Then those Baidyanath people they offered us, right? That, " ; Can we send one ayurvedic guy doctor?" ; In India, there is a lots of ayurvedic doctors also. To your store, in the store and even you can so that you can do free of charge. Anybody has a problem. And with the regular medicine, it' ; s not possible to cure it, what to do and what you know. So yeah, so we you know the free- the doctor. We started. About not long, long time, but at least at least 30, 30 days a year in the one year, 30 days he comes there and... (01:18:18) BRODY He just sat in the store and talked to people if they wanted to talk to him. (01:18:23) PRAMOD SHAH Correct. Correct. (01:18:24) BRODY That' ; s interesting. You mentioned that there were books in the store. Like, would those be things that popular books from, you know, from India that were like the movies coming in at that time? And also, did you have any books that people who are raising their children here in the United States...so Indian people who were raising their children here in the United States might want to help their kids learn something about India? (01:18:54) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. And those kind...Well, I think, yeah, we were, but not much, but the language and language books. (01:19:03) BRODY Yeah, tell me about that. (01:19:04) PRAMOD SHAH So many people, you know, the kids born here they will...It is not easy for them to learn their father, mother' ; s language, like our son (?). So we have all of the languages' ; book, from English to Hyderabad, from English to Keralian, and English to Gujarati, from English to Hindi, or English to Bengali. (01:19:30) BRODY You carried all of those? (01:19:31) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:19:33) BRODY Did you did you sell a lot of those? Were the families interested? (01:19:37) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Yeah. (01:19:38) BRODY Yeah. Yes. Did you get much feedback from the parents? Were they...What did they say? (01:19:44) PRAMOD SHAH Very, very happy. (01:19:46) BRODY Yeah. So in these... (01:19:48) PRAMOD SHAH Sometimes, they come, " ; OK, my kid has started speaking Gujurati." ; (01:19:54) BRODY Great. Did you, that reminds me...I know that there are a lot of and you' ; ve talked about the religious piece of it. We' ; ve talked about now the language learning piece. Were there, other than the movies, were there sort of fun things, games that you sold in the store? (01:20:17) PRAMOD SHAH Very few. Yes. (01:20:17) BRODY Yeah. Tell me about the games. (01:20:18) PRAMOD SHAH There is a game called....(Speaks Gujurati to Renuka Shah) (01:20:28) RENUKA SHAH Snake and ladder? (01:20:29) PRAMOD SHAH Snake and ladder. Very few kind of (Speaking Gujurati to Renuka Shah) Oh, I keep forgetting all the names. (01:20:39) BRODY That' ; s OK. (01:20:42) PRAMOD SHAH Like in Mahabharat, they, you know, they played it is that (Speaks Gujurati to Renuka Shah). (01:20:52) BRODY So what about... (01:20:54) PRAMOD SHAH Something. What is it called? I don' ; t remember that. (01:20:58) BRODY That' ; s OK. That' ; s OK. Carrom? (01:21:02) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:21:02) BRODY Tell me about the carrom. (01:21:05) PRAMOD SHAH Carrom. Cricket. (01:21:06) BRODY You sold cricket supplies. (01:21:07) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Yeah. Yes. (01:21:10) BRODY Yeah. So tell me, tell me the things that...So let' ; s start with cricket and we' ; ll get to carrom. Tell me about...What, what were the supplies that you sold for cricket? (01:21:18) PRAMOD SHAH Cricket? Mainly? The items, cricket ball? Right? And cricket has up here (gestures) is the, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And this it is called stumps. Right? So they put it and that guy comes and he has to throw before this right? He throws the ball. And they play the carrom bat. It is called " ; bat" ; to those, you know, played that carrom bat, stumps, cricket bat, and cricket stumps and balls. (01:21:57) BRODY Yes. So you sold all those things? (01:21:59) PRAMOD SHAH There are two kind of balls. One is a solid ball and one is a tennis ball. (01:22:05) BRODY So was there a cricket community in in Dallas at that time? And did... (01:22:11) PRAMOD SHAH Started. Yeah. (01:22:14) BRODY They' ; re probably... (01:22:16) PRAMOD SHAH Gujurati people have started the cricket team. (01:22:18) BRODY Like a club or a team? (01:22:19) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Yes. (01:22:20) BRODY So they could buy their supplies and practice? (01:22:23) PRAMOD SHAH Practice. Yeah. (01:22:23) BRODY All right. So tell me about carrom. What is carrom? (01:22:28) PRAMOD SHAH Carrom. Very good game. And the carrom is you have it- carrom- right? (01:22:35) RENUKA SHAH It' ; s a table game. (01:22:37) BRODY So we' ; ve got a board. (01:22:38) PRAMOD SHAH This is four, four (Speaks in Gujurati to Renuka Shah) you know... (01:22:48) BRODY So you' ; ve got- there' ; s a board with (01:22:50) PRAMOD SHAH With the four holes (01:22:52) BRODY Four corners (01:22:54) PRAMOD SHAH All the four corners or the holes, and you have a striker which is about 15, almost 15 grams. And the coins are five grams. So you play with that striker and hit the coins, so that coin- supposed to go to the hole. (01:23:21) BRODY Into the corners? (01:23:21) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. (01:23:23) BRODY And you can play with two people, four people? (01:23:26) PRAMOD SHAH Two or for. (01:23:29) BRODY So you carried the boards and the strikers and the coins all in the store? (01:23:34) PRAMOD SHAH And the powder. (01:23:35) BRODY And the, oh the powder. (01:23:36) PRAMOD SHAH When it' ; s not smooth much, you just have some. There' ; s a special powder for it. (01:23:42) BRODY To make it slippery. (01:23:43) PRAMOD SHAH Little bit. Yeah. (01:23:44) BRODY So were these big sellers, the carrom boards and supplies? (01:23:49) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. Yes. So because in India, most of the people, everybody, not only all over India is they play carrom at home? So yes. (01:23:58) BRODY Was there a large community of carrom players? (01:24:04) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. But then we started a Carrom Association. (01:24:07) BRODY OK, tell me about that. (01:24:09) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. So we, we have tournament within Texas, and Texas and Dallas, we started in Dallas first, Dallas Carrom Association. You know, tournament. Cowboy Carrom Association. (01:24:25) BRODY Cowboy Carrom Association. How large was the association? (01:24:31) PRAMOD SHAH Oh, about 20, 25 members. (01:24:35) BRODY And you mentioned tournaments? You hosted tournaments? (01:24:38) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah...We started hosting tournaments. There is a good area of India Association office. So there was a big, bigger than this (Gestures). (01:24:50) BRODY Large enough. (01:24:50) PRAMOD SHAH Uh-Huh. So we, we used to put the six or seven carrom boards (01:24:56) BRODY And host a tournament? (01:24:57) PRAMOD SHAH A tournament. (01:24:59) BRODY Over like a weekend or something like that. (01:25:02) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Yes. (01:25:03) BRODY Did that grow? (01:25:04) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. That yeah. (01:25:06) BRODY Tell me about the growth in the Carrom Association and sort of all of your involvement in that. (01:25:13) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. So that helps lots of kids also because you know that, most of the people they come to, kids with them, " ; So, see, beta, you play it this way, this way, this." ; And he used to play, so they can see- the kids also see. So they started, the small carrom board. We started selling the carrom boards, a small carrom boards for the kids. (01:25:39) BRODY Right, right. (01:25:41) PRAMOD SHAH So but yeah, but then it becomes very big and it becomes a " ; Texas Carrom." ; So we, we hosted a carrom tournament. Texas Carrom Tournament. (01:25:56) BRODY Where did you host those? (01:25:57) PRAMOD SHAH The same place. This India Association office. (01:26:02) BRODY So still about six boards, or bigger, much bigger? (01:26:07) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (01:26:07) RENUKA SHAH Because people from Houston and any surrounding cities in Texas, they will be able to...They will come and participate here. (01:26:18) PRAMOD SHAH About 12, 14, depending on how many people are coming for to the tournament. (01:26:23) BRODY Did you charge a registration fee and things like that or just... (01:26:27) PRAMOD SHAH Yes. Little bit? Yes. (01:26:28) BRODY Yes. Was there a prize? (01:26:31) PRAMOD SHAH But the this doesn' ; t...And it doesn' ; t have to do with the Taj Mahal Imports. It goes to the Association? (01:26:38) BRODY Yes. Yes. So... (01:26:42) PRAMOD SHAH And prize. Yes. (01:26:43) BRODY What were the prizes? (01:26:44) PRAMOD SHAH Nice. Trophy. (01:26:46) BRODY Oh, that' ; s nice. (01:26:47) PRAMOD SHAH With the name on it. Whoever wins, we put their name and everything. (01:26:53) BRODY How long did that go on? (01:26:57) PRAMOD SHAH About three days. (01:26:59) BRODY Or how many years? (01:27:00) PRAMOD SHAH Oh. How many years? Well. This. This Texas and Dallas... (01:27:10) RENUKA SHAH Local tournaments didn' ; t last, you know, (01:27:13) PRAMOD SHAH Three, three, three, four years. Yeah. Then we entered in the national tournaments. (01:27:19) BRODY Oh you, you entered into the national tournaments. Now, do you mean that you, you all, the two of you entered into national tournaments? OK. (01:27:30) PRAMOD SHAH Host. We became. We began hosting the national tournament. (01:27:34) RENUKA SHAH We were players also. Participants. (01:27:36) BRODY Double duty. (01:27:38) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, so big. That is. There are lots of motel people here, and I have seen some motels and they were very big area, also empty. So we started in those motels who has empty area. Those places. Renting that. (01:27:53) BRODY How big when it, at its peak, how big were these tournaments? (01:27:58) PRAMOD SHAH Twenty-six to thirty carrom boards? (01:27:58) BRODY Wow, that' ; s pretty impressive. And I bet it was difficult to organize that. (01:28:05) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. US Carrom Association also. So organization-wise, they do. But the initial thing, to put the carrom boards so nicely and each carrom board has to have the lights also all those things to manage all those things, we used to do? (01:28:25) BRODY You guys did that. So people came from all over? (01:28:30) PRAMOD SHAH Arranging the carrom boards, strikers, coins, everything. (01:28:34) BRODY So it' ; s a lot of work. So the store was hosting it? (01:28:38) PRAMOD SHAH No, no, no. The store was giving the carrom boards. And all other items, like strikers and all these things, right? But when the International, no, National Carrom Tournament, all those people they used to come with their own striker. So we don' ; t have to worry about the striker at that time. Only coins and carrom boards, lights, and stands, chairs, seating and all those things we manage. Locally, we rent. (01:29:12) BRODY So, you know, you were doing that... (01:29:14) PRAMOD SHAH Carrom board, we supply. Only the Taj Mahal give. (01:29:16) BRODY The Taj Mahal sponsored in the sense of providing the carrom boards and so on, and the two of you were just interested and members of the association. And so you were helping out in that way as well, so as well playing. (01:29:30) PRAMOD SHAH She' ; s (Gestures toward Renuka Shah) a very good player, not me. Well, I am a very good managing guy. (01:29:35) BRODY Yeah. That' ; s why you' ; re a good team, it sounds like. (01:29:37) PRAMOD SHAH She used to represent Gujarat state. For all India Carrom Tournament. (01:29:43) BRODY That' ; s incredible. That' ; s incredible. (01:29:47) RENUKA SHAH (Inaudible) (01:29:49) BRODY So. When you expanded, how that, you know, how many more years did you stay open after the expansion? (01:30:05) PRAMOD SHAH Till 2016 end? (01:30:09) BRODY OK. OK, so when you look back at your time running this very large and successful Indian grocery store in this particular area, you know, what are what are some of the reflections that you have, what you know, what stands out to you as sort of your key experiences or key lessons that you learned during your years running the store? (01:30:39) PRAMOD SHAH Well, mainly. Most of the Indian people from India anywhere, at least they know us now. And we, we saw many places like India Association have a functions. We sponsored the " ; Kids Corner" ; all those kind of stuff. So everybody knows our, with our name also. Like they wherever we would go, " ; Hey Pramod, hey Pramod!" ; I don' ; t know the guy who is saying " ; Hi Pramod," ; the his name or anything, but this thing is, yeah. (01:31:21) RENUKA SHAH They still remember and miss us. Our store, our services. Our quality. (01:31:30) BRODY Yeah. Yeah, because you were a part of by being in charge of that store for so long and for supplying those things, all the things that people needed. You were a big part of people' ; s lives for a long, long time. If you could go back and tell yourself when you were starting one thing, Like if you could go back to the 1986 and tell yourself something, knowing what you know now, what would you, what advice would you give yourself? (01:32:06) PRAMOD SHAH Well, I have given only one advice to myself, just getting retired now. (01:32:15) BRODY That is funny. (01:32:18) RENUKA SHAH Lot of... all this thirty, thirty-five years, we worked like....We' ; ve never seen weekends almost unless, except when go to India for business work. And it' ; s like a 24/7 work, even when you' ; re at home in the middle of the night, even if a customer calls me, we would run for it. So we are always on the go. (01:32:41) BRODY Yeah, well, that' ; s really nice customer service. (01:32:44) PRAMOD SHAH And we both like. So one thing is it' ; s OK. Like if somebody is doing a good job and needs help. (01:32:53) BRODY You know, that' ; s great. And when you think about the changes in the Indian community and the Asian community in Dallas over all the years that you were in business, what are you know, what do you think about that? How would, you know, what are your reflections or thoughts about the changes over the years in the Indian community? (01:33:19) PRAMOD SHAH Not much, because you know, everybody' ; s becoming, you know, this busy, busy, busy, lots of South Indian people now. Right? And they are so busy. They' ; re working from home or they go to the office. Those huge, you know, so it' ; s good that the most south Indian, they come, they buy, they go. Right? And I, some, as I told you, some South Indian Association, we help them. Whenever they want, like there was a big, big, big, you know, about 6000 people, Hyderabad Association. All the Hyderabadi people all over the United States, they have a big function here in Dallas. OK, so they came in, they says " ; Pramod, you are the only one can supply us fresh coconut, you know?" ; We gave six thousand coconuts. (01:34:28) BRODY That' ; s great. (01:34:30) PRAMOD SHAH And we went, also went there. They put the straw and give it to everybody. (01:34:38) BRODY That' ; s nice. So do you feel like by the end of, you know, when you retired, what did you think that the...your store' ; s place in this community was? (01:35:08) PRAMOD SHAH Well, now, we are retired about three years now. So it' ; s... (01:35:13) RENUKA SHAH More than that. (01:35:15) PRAMOD SHAH 16 right? Oh yeah. Five years, so it' ; s not much, but we you know, we have some close friend also and during these five years, some good friends. So we met now, and we, we go to India also. And lots of places too in the United States also here. (01:35:43) BRODY You know, that' ; s great. Well, I' ; m glad you' ; re enjoying your retirement. That' ; s fantastic. Well. Trying to think if there' ; s anything we haven' ; t talked about or need to go back and talked about. Did you ever run into any discrimination or sort of racism in your either interactions with the general public or as you were trying to set up your business? (01:36:15) PRAMOD SHAH No, no, no. All the local people. So very nice. All the officers in Customs department. Here, everywhere because I used to import, so I was in touch with all those people. So, no. (01:36:30) BRODY You didn' ; t run into... (01:36:32) PRAMOD SHAH Even all the big, big wholesalers here, like I might buy almond, the local everywhere. Nice. Nice, nice people everywhere. Yes. (01:36:43) BRODY Yeah. How do you how did you try to go about setting up those relationships and sort of maintaining the relationships that you had with, you know, with the city leaders or people that you might interact with there or with, you know, the you mentioned the newspaper would come and interview or take pictures and things like that. You know, what was your philosophy or of, you know, how you presented yourself? (01:37:15) PRAMOD SHAH Tell you the truth after retirement? Yes. They' ; re also not in touch with me, and I am also not doing. (01:37:21) BRODY Yeah. But during the time that you were there, what did you? I guess what I' ; m asking is sort of did, did you have sort of a philosophy about how you wanted to present the store to the to the public? (01:37:35) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, that is, you know, as I told, when it' ; s the rangoli time, this is went on and that it was a big problem in India in 2021. Big earthquake in Gujarat at the time also. You know, those people helped us so much. they used to even on the news also, there is a big earthquake in India. If you want to help anyone, you know, go to Taj Mahal Imports, they used to announce also, OK. (01:38:11) BRODY And so did you did fundraising? (01:38:13) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. (01:38:15) BRODY And then you were able to sort of connect with the associations and present whatever money that the people collected. That' ; s nice. And so everyone. It sounds like what you' ; re saying is that in the local community, you were seen as the sort of the leader for the Indian community. (01:38:35) PRAMOD SHAH All the local people also when they come and see. They put the money or check, right? So, I was to, to people say, OK, worse than that. " ; OK, sir, would you like to drink tea, Indian tea? You want to try? It' ; s free." ; We used to do that also. (01:38:56) BRODY It' ; s very nice. (01:38:57) PRAMOD SHAH To them. Because they are so nice. (01:39:00) BRODY Yeah. So. That makes me think about, you know, nowadays, you know, we' ; ve got the internet, we' ; ve got TV and advertising, the radio, advertising, social media, all of that. But during the sort of peak of your store, none of that really was there. So was the store a place that people would put fliers and posters for events? Tell me more about that. (01:39:30) RENUKA SHAH Yes, we had set up a wall, actually a whole display wall where people could having their own, for example, having a baby and looking for a babysitter, looking for a job. Anything they want to advertise or anything they can take a slot from us and put it in that particular slot, their fliers, they come out and refill it. And that' ; s how they would advertise themselves and we were helping them that way to get what they want. (01:40:04) PRAMOD SHAH And we have some small idea of what some wall. Whoever wants to do like, you' ; re doing something. Suppose somebody is doing from home or their business. They can come and put the business card also there. (01:40:24) RENUKA SHAH Yeah, it was the whole display of fliers and cards. (01:40:27) PRAMOD SHAH Cards. (01:40:29) BRODY So it was kind of a community hub where people could get information. At that time, it' ; s, you know, it' ; s hard to imagine nowadays because we have so much information at our fingertips. But to find out something back then, you had to go look at something. So it sounds like your store was very helpful for people also in getting information about things that were happening, as well as seeking out babysitters or things like that. I don' ; t, you know, I don' ; t know if you knew, but were there people also who were starting their own little businesses, like especially like food, you know, making samosas or things like that, were those types of things going on during that time as well? Do you have any, any stories or any recollections? (01:41:20) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, we had one North Indian lady. She was making very good samosas, she told us and we tasted it, and it was nice. So she used to give us samosa- every week- supply? And when we opened a very big store, when we with the restaurant, she used come there and make it fresh there! (01:41:41) BRODY Oh, how nice. Yeah. So you had the best people? Yes, that' ; s great. And then when one last thing, I was wondering if you could...You mentioned the Kite Festival in January, then also the rest of the year. What were we talking about Diwali in in October? But what were the other other festivals that that you' ; re aware of that were Indian festivals that were going on? (01:42:12) RENUKA SHAH The one, particularly one of the main ones was that Ganesh Chaturthi where we used to get lots of Ganesh idols from small size to big ones. (01:42:22) PRAMOD SHAH And everybody buys, South Indian also. (01:42:26) RENUKA SHAH Big festival going on in the display and towards the end, it was like whole two weeks or more. (01:42:31) BRODY What time of year is that? (01:42:33) RENUKA SHAH It' ; s mostly about around August also or early part of September, that' ; s all. (01:42:42) BRODY And any other one? (01:42:49) RENUKA SHAH What else? (01:42:58) PRAMOD SHAH Krishna Jayanthi (Speaks in Gujurati) (01:43:05) BRODY Yeah, that' ; s OK. Well, one more question that I just thought of. We' ; ve talked about language and how India has so many different languages, and also how your store, your customers were from all different parts of India and, you know, working here in different capacities. How did you manage the fact that the same item might have different names to your various customers? Yeah. Tell me about what you did. Tell me about it. (01:43:39) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah. You know, different, different languages name like Hindi in what they call ,whatever the call in Hindi, same thing in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali. (01:43:55) BRODY So you kept a...You learned the words in all different languages? (01:43:59) PRAMOD SHAH No, no.I started asking people, when they come home, we call this thing been, you know, in Tamil Nadu, we call this name, this name. (01:44:09) BRODY So you kept a list. (01:44:11) RENUKA SHAH We kept a list of names. (01:44:13) BRODY And then how did you use that list? (01:44:19) PRAMOD SHAH We used to put it on some wall also and keeping in the office also. So if anybody were asking to some other, my employee or something, right? So the employee will take it, " ; OK, you look at this here." ; (01:44:35) BRODY Right? So you- people- it helps people communicate and to ultimately buy the item that they, that they need, right? Well, is there anything else that I haven' ; t asked you that that you' ; d like to share any stories that you remember that we haven' ; t talked about? (01:44:57) PRAMOD SHAH Oh, we forgot one thing. We have a very big sweet...Indian sweets. (01:45:03) BRODY Oh the sweets. Yeah, tell me about the sweets. Tell me about the Sweets Counter. (01:45:07) PRAMOD SHAH Yeah, there' ; s a very big, very big manufacturer in New York. And he used to supply us sweets every week, every week. By air, by air. Fresh. (01:45:19) BRODY So tell me what? What types of suites were the most popular? (01:45:23) PRAMOD SHAH Oh, very different names in North and South. Very different names. (01:45:29) RENUKA SHAH But as far as the category, we can say Bengali sweets, North Indian sweets, Gujurati sweets, something like that? (01:45:39) BRODY And did they sell pretty reliably? Did people buy them? (01:45:42) PRAMOD SHAH Oh yeah, right? Yes. Yes. (01:45:44) BRODY For, for parties, for? (01:45:47) RENUKA SHAH Parties. Yeah. At home, birthdays. Everything. (01:45:51) BRODY So really, by the end... (01:45:52) RENUKA SHAH Weddings. (01:45:54) BRODY Weddings. Yes. Yeah. Did you did you have wedding supplies as well as special things for, you know, for Indian weddings? There' ; s a lot of... (01:46:01) RENUKA SHAH Supplies. (01:46:02) PRAMOD SHAH Yes.Yes. (01:46:02) BRODY So what types of things were needed for the Indian weddings? (01:46:07) RENUKA SHAH Starting from any ceremony, any wedding ceremony, smaller ceremony to the end till the bride and groom gets married. All the supplies. We used to carry those, most of those things. (01:46:19) PRAMOD SHAH Then lots of Brahmin here, they do this all the wedding, yeah, (speaks Gujurati) ceremony. Wedding ceremony. This, they did do now, now, here everything. (01:46:34) BRODY They need all the supplies. (01:46:36) PRAMOD SHAH Yes, yes. And so many things. They bring it their own now and they charge for doing. (01:46:44) BRODY Yes. Yeah, most. So you were really central, it sounds like, to all the kind of key moments of your customers lives, right? From weddings to teaching their children to the various festivals and so on. So. Well, thank you very much for sharing your story. It' ; s been really interesting to hear about and I appreciate your time. (01:47:08) RENUKA SHAH Last thing I would like to add is like all the customers, they were enjoying the festivities at Taj Mahal Imports premises rather than at home. They will, whenever the festivity comes, they will come to Taj Mahal to feel and experience that festivity and because that' ; s how we were getting all the supplies. Besides that, there was a whole environment, you know, ambiance was like that and they were experiencing that, enjoying that festival there. (01:47:40) BRODY With other people. (01:47:42) RENUKA SHAH With other people. (01:47:44) PRAMOD SHAH In that the Ganesh Chaturthi. Big area being the Ganesh display. You know, you had a nice Ganesh display come with their kids and their kids do like this (Gestures). (01:47:57) BRODY They pray? (01:48:00) RENUKA SHAH And yeah, Diwali especially. (01:48:03) BRODY Especially. Did people dress up and come in? (01:48:08) RENUKA SHAH Yes, yes. (01:48:08) BRODY Yeah. And then they could have their snacks and sweets and everything. Well, again, thank you so much, and I really have appreciated learning more about your experiences and your story, and I' ; m glad to be able to record this for the archive. (01:48:26) RENUKA SHAH Thank you for finding us and letting us share memories of our business. (01:48:34) BRODY Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Pramod Shah, December 6, 2021
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2021oh002_di_002
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking, Indian
Asian American grocers
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2021-12-06
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audio
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890f1d44d384e04b8cb00e6f2abdfa44
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Betsy Brody
Interviewee
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Renuka Shah
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5.4 Interview with Renuka Shah, December 9, 2021 2021oh002_di_003 01:09:20 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Indian Grocers, Asian American Asian American grocers Renuka Shah Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_shah_renuka_20211209.m4a 1:|17(11)|41(9)|61(7)|82(8)|108(14)|125(13)|145(16)|171(14)|189(6)|209(11)|225(2)|243(2)|257(13)|276(13)|290(1)|305(12)|325(5)|348(3)|365(12)|385(6)|408(8)|432(10)|445(13)|463(4)|488(6)|501(4)|517(12)|548(12)|575(5)|592(8)|605(10)|622(4)|647(1)|669(9)|696(6)|716(11)|733(8)|743(11)|762(11)|780(15)|794(8)|809(11)|825(12)|848(7)|868(9)|880(7)|900(3)|915(10)|930(11)|951(2)|967(5)|987(3)|998(12)|1008(11)|1035(10)|1054(14)|1066(9)|1091(17)|1115(6)|1134(1)|1145(10)|1164(5)|1185(1)|1204(3)|1217(12)|1232(2)|1248(2)|1263(11)|1292(5) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/164466 Aviary audio 7 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Indian cooking ; Texas--History 39 Coming to Texas from India Asian grocery ; Baroda ; Dallas ; groceries ; Gujurat ; Houston ; India ; Indian community ; Indian grocery store ; New York ; Richardson ; Taj Mahal Imports ; Texas 308 Opening Taj Mahal Imports in Richardson advertising ; Asian grocery ; community hub ; Indian community ; Indian grocery store ; labor ; marketing ; Taj Mahal Imports ; White Pages 32.95475579890853, -96.73798630392501 17 491 Stocking the Taj Mahal Imports/ Relationship with neighboring businesses beans ; competition ; cooking ; customers ; groceries ; Indian grocery store ; meat ; neioghbors ; pickles ; rice ; spices ; sweets ; vegetarian 672 Adding products at customer request and expanding the store Asian grocery ; cooking ; customers ; expand ; expansion ; growth ; Indian groceries ; kitchen utensils ; products ; shamposs ; soaps ; vegetables 758 Transition to importing products directly from India business ; City of Richardson ; English ; expansion ; fax ; FDA ; growth ; health department ; health inspection ; import ; importing ; language ; manufacturers ; telephone ; warehouse ; wholesaler 1127 Advertising for the Taj Mahal Imports advertising ; customers ; flyers ; mailers ; markting ; telephone ; White Pages 1319 Impact of H1 visa holders on business and customer base bridge ; Britain ; British ; British products ; connect ; connections ; customers ; diversity ; England ; friendship ; H1 visa ; Indian food ; IT ; products 1479 Local interest in cooking Indian food beans ; biriyani ; cookbooks ; cooking class ; Indian food ; ingredients ; recipes ; rice ; spice ; vegetables ; vegetarian 1666 Expansion of Taj Mahal Imports ayurvedic ; British prodicts ; chaat ; expand ; expansion ; fast food ; growth ; Indian grocery store ; kitchen utensils ; products ; soft drinks ; sweets 1784 Atmosphere of the store/ Taj Mahal Imports as a community hub community center ; decorations ; festival ; festivas ; football ; Holi ; hub ; Indian festivals ; Kite Festival ; Taj Mahal Imports 2019 Diwali Festival and rangoli display 9/11 ; art ; bridge ; community ; Diwali ; educate ; education ; festivals ; Ganesha ; hub ; Kalpana Chawla ; rangoli ; sweets ; themes 2386 Taj Mahal Imports as a hub for the Indian community in Dallas ATM ; business ; customers ; flyers ; hub ; information ; kulfi ; networking wall ; phone cards ; Taj Mahal Imports ; VHS ; video rental ; videos 2596 Video rentals of popular Indian films VHS ; video rentals ; videos 2703 Growth of the Indian community in Dallas/ Establishment of the India Association connect ; connecting ; fundraising ; growth ; hub ; India Association ; Indian community ; information ; network ; religion 3124 Hosting tournaments for the US Carrom Association carrom ; tournaments ; US Carrom Association 3344 Organizing the Guinness Book of World Records " ; longest Carrom game" ; Carrom ; Guinness Book of World Records 3566 Religious, cultural, and language products carried for customers books ; dances ; festivals ; jewelry ; language ; religion ; wedding 3843 Reflections on changes in the landscape of Indian stores and products connection ; customer service ; hub ; Indian grocery stores ; products (00:00:07) Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is December 9th, 2021. I am interviewing for the first time, Mrs. Renuka Shah. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship, and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; Hi, Mrs. Shah. How are you? (00:00:37) Renuka Shah I' ; m doing fine, thank you, Betsy. (00:00:39) Brody To get started, why don' ; t you just tell me where and when you were born? (00:00:44) Renuka Shah I was born in India, in the state called Gujarat in city Baroda. (00:00:53) Brody How did you get to Texas? (00:00:56) Renuka Shah I migrated. My sister sponsored me on immigration, and I migrated to New York, and then we had a kind of job already given to us in Houston, so we moved to Houston. (00:01:15) Brody What kind of work were you doing in Houston? (00:01:17) Renuka Shah I was doing the accounting work. (00:01:21) Brody About what year was that that you got to Houston? (00:01:25) Renuka Shah We came to Houston in 1981. (00:01:28) Brody You and your husband? (00:01:30) Renuka Shah Yes. (00:01:31) Brody And your family stayed in New York, your sister. (00:01:35) Renuka Shah Yes. They are still in New York. Yes, they will stay. (00:01:38) Brody Excellent. So here in Dallas, when you got to Dallas, you were- you and your husband started a grocery store. Can you tell me a little bit about the path that led you to that store? (00:01:55) Renuka Shah Yes, I was working in Houston. And so I quit my job and my husband got the offer to start the business in Dallas. And so we both moved here and I, initially, we started from ground up, so we both started settling the business, starting the business. And so I was with him for like the first year, and then I started going back to work for the bank in my accounting field. (00:02:28) Brody Had you ever done anything like a grocery store before? (00:02:31) Renuka Shah No, not really. Not before that. (00:02:35) Brody So what was the store called? (00:02:38) Renuka Shah Store was called Taj Mahal Imports. (00:02:41) Brody Great. And what type of store was it? (00:02:44) Renuka Shah It was mainly...It started with the Indian grocery store. For the first few years, and then we started adding the wide variety of stuff that Indians would need. (00:03:00) Brody At that time in Dallas, were there a lot of Indians? (00:03:04) Renuka Shah Yes. There were a lot of Indians. (00:03:05) Brody Yeah, tell me about what the community and what Dallas was like when you got here. And about what year was that? (00:03:11) Renuka Shah It was 1983? 83. We started the business, so there were lots of Indians who were in mainly motel businesses. Motel owners and the- there was another people. Some other people, they were in a working professional jobs and stuff. (00:03:37) Brody So were there any other Indian grocery stores or restaurants in Dallas at that time? (00:03:42) Renuka Shah Yes. There was only one small grocery store and one Indian restaurant. (00:03:50) Brody Great. Do you remember what the restaurant was called? (00:03:52) Renuka Shah It was called India Palace. And yeah, there was one small...Another restaurant there was called Kebab N Kurry. That was in Richardson, too. Yeah. (00:04:03) Brody Got it. So the store was in in Richardson. (00:04:06) Renuka Shah Oh yes. (00:04:06) Brody Yes. Where? Where was it located in Richardson? (00:04:10) Renuka Shah It was located at the southwest corner of Beltline and Highway 75. (00:04:17) Brody How did you decide on that location? (00:04:23) Renuka Shah Me, I mean, both of us and our partner who- from Houston, we all came here. He had done some research and some homework, and then we had a couple friends here in Dallas. So we kind of took their opinion also, and they said, " ; No, that would be the good location." ; So that' ; s how we could finalize. (00:04:44) Brody Great. So did it turn out to be a good location? Was it attractive to customers? Were you able to reach people? (00:04:51) Renuka Shah Yes, it was. It turned out to be a really good location. (00:04:54) Brody Yeah. Tell me about what it was like to start. (00:04:57) Renuka Shah So yeah, and the location was like very in and out, easy in and out to the highways and the other roads. Yeah. (00:05:04) Brody Was that? Yes, that' ; s that makes a big difference. Tell me about the process of starting a grocery store at that time. (00:05:14) Renuka Shah It was like good old days. Like there was no cell phones, no GPS. Nothing. So it was like starting from ground up, buying anything, calling the construction people, or calling the prospective customers. Everything was just like with the landline and the maps. You would drive around there to buy something. It was really a good experience, of course, but a lot of hard work. (00:05:41) Brody Yes. So speaking of reaching customers, how did you let people know that you were starting this new store? (00:05:49) Renuka Shah We started using the White Pages and started calling the some of the common last names that we know that Indian would, Indians have. And so we started calling them first. And we gathered the addresses and some of them would say, and luckily somebody would say, " ; Oh, I' ; m a president of this association, so I will give you more and more information for the people." ; That' ; s how we could get more and more people' ; s addresses. (00:06:23) Brody And you mailed them? (00:06:25) Renuka Shah We mailed them the grand opening information where we are and all that. (00:06:29) Brody What do you remember about the day of the grand opening? What was it like for you? (00:06:34) Renuka Shah It was really, really exciting. Very nice. And we had announced the grand opening. What do you call the draw- the first few customers and then we had announced the prize also, right? Oh yeah. What was the prize like? I forgot. (00:06:52) Pramod Shah Few customers used to come there and says, " ; OK. We are opening a...we want to have a grand opening within a few days. So we have we are going to give TV, TV, right? (00:07:11) Renuka Shah It has one TV. I guess, we... (00:07:14) Pramod Shah Whoever wins and so many people give us their name, address everything. (00:07:18) Renuka Shah Yeah. (00:07:19) Pramod Shah Then we took out a name. (00:07:20) Renuka Shah So, whoever came, we were taking their, having them drop their name and addresses in the box, and then we would announce, we would draw a name. And that' ; s how we gave out to the one TV and some other small prizes to the other people. (00:07:37) Brody And in return, you got the addresses of the customers. So do you remember? Did a lot of people come for the grand opening? (00:07:47) Renuka Shah Yes. Yes. A lot of people came. (00:07:49) Brody Yeah. Do you have a sense of how many people and? (00:07:53) Pramod Shah Grand opening... (00:07:54) Renuka Shah I really don' ; t. But, the store would be busy all day. It was nice. (00:08:01) Pramod Shah Though, and the employee, very few at that time. We were not knowing how many employees we needed. (00:08:09) Renuka Shah Yes. (00:08:10) Brody So at the time that you opened the store, what were the things that you were stocking in the store? (00:08:19) Renuka Shah Mainly the Indian groceries, the spices and the beans and rice and oil and all that stuff. Besides that, some sweets and stuff. And then we had what else, some like cookies and crackers and all that Indian, all the Indian stuff. Pickles. Pickles. Yeah. So basically daily, any Indian lady would need to make their own complete meal. Yeah, all the ingredients of that. (00:08:54) Brody And your customers, how did they react to having an opportunity to purchase all those things that they would need to cook an Indian meal? (00:09:03) Renuka Shah They were very, very happy. Very, very happy because lot of stuff that was not available before then, also... (00:09:11) Pramod Shah (Inaudible) (00:09:13) Renuka Shah And then the quality and the service they noticed. They were really, really happy. (00:09:19) Brody That' ; s great. What were your biggest sellers? Do you remember? (00:09:24) Renuka Shah During that time? What was the biggest seller? Grocery, definitely groceries. Yes. (00:09:32) Brody So your store itself, you had neighbors around the store, other types of shops? What type of relationship did you have with those neighbors in Richardson? (00:09:46) Renuka Shah Yes, we do. When we started, there was only as an Indian business, we were the only ones in the shopping center. But one mile away, the next exit, there were other Indian businesses like travel agency, restaurants, and sari store and stuff. Clothing store. They all then moved into our shopping center, so it was like a big hub for Indians. Jewelry store. Everything came. And, so I guess what was your other part of the question? (00:10:20) Brody What was your relationship with? (00:10:22) Renuka Shah Oh yeah, we were having a very good, healthy relationship. And before that, there was one grocery store and we would even...When we pick- somebody comes and ask us something in the beginning, and if we don' ; t have something or if they are looking for something specific, where is the clothing store or something, we will point them and we will call that owner also, and like, " ; I' ; m sending this customer to you." ; And then to the other grocery store also, we were having a very healthy relationship. We would say, (00:10:56) Pramod Shah For meat, you know, we say " ; This is OK. We don' ; t do that. Sorry. But, if you go there, they sell the meat." ; (00:11:06) Brody Right? So your store did not sell meat? (00:11:08) Renuka Shah No, never. Yeah. (00:11:13) Brody So it sounds like you really were priding yourselves on customer service and providing what your customers needed, even if you didn' ; t carry it in your store. Tell me about how you found out about other products that there was a demand for and what types of products those might have been? (00:11:36) Renuka Shah Sometimes customers would request us. And the other thing was like we were adding more as we had more and more space occupied, we were adding more stuff, right? (00:11:52) Brody What types of things were you adding gradually? (00:11:55) Renuka Shah Oh OK. Gradually, we were adding, for example, let' ; s say in people are used to Indian soaps or shampoos and stuff. Or hair oils and stuff. So we started adding all that line. Then we also added after that, like in your kitchen utensils, because they would need for cooking and stuff. So this was the top of the line quality. We started importing that. And so they were very happy about that. And of course, vegetables, we started from the beginning, right? Fresh vegetables we were selling from the beginning, though. (00:12:33) Pramod Shah Yeah, yeah. (00:12:35) Brody Great. So these new products and the old products that you were carrying in the store...Walk me through the process of how you, their journey to get to the store. How did you source them? You know, what were your sort of your process of getting them supplied and their journey to your store? (00:12:57) Renuka Shah Oh, OK. As far as the products. We were initially, we were buying it from the wholesalers within United States and then eventually we started importing. We were like direct importers to retail in our stores because we had expanded by the time and created two more stores. Right? (00:13:22) Brody OK, really? Where were the other stores? (00:13:25) Renuka Shah One we started the first one, we started was in Denver, Colorado. OK? And then a couple years later, yes, we started in Atlanta, Georgia. (00:13:35) Brody Do those stores still exist? (00:13:37) Renuka Shah No. Everything is final. (00:13:39) Brody So when you were importing from directly from India, you know, again, like you said before, no cell phones, no anything. Tell me about how you handled that and what was the sort of nuts and bolts day to day of running a business like that? (00:13:57) Renuka Shah And after the store, we used to come at night at home. We had like a landline and then the wire and the fax machine and stuff. And so he talks to the Indian exporters and the manufacturers over the phone, writes everything manually, handwritten. Then we fax over to the manufacturer the order and the exporter. And then again, they start talking every day. This was the process like. And then because of that and the time difference between India and US, we were awake till like 2:00 a.m. Yeah. (00:14:39) Brody And India is such a large country with so many different languages. When you were making these phone calls, was business primarily conducted in English, then? (00:14:49) Renuka Shah Yes, but then depends on the which area and which people we are talking to. If we are talking to someone who is also speaking of our own mother language or something, we can always communicate better and explain them what we want and whatnot. So we would speak like that sometime and the rest of the time it was all national language, Hindi or English. Yeah. (00:15:16) Brody It' ; s interesting. So, back to the manufacturers... So you would find out about products that either you thought were interesting or that were popular, or that your customers asked for and then, tell me how you sort of got them to the store. You called directly to the manufacturers? (00:15:39) Renuka Shah Yes. We did place the order to the manufacturers. (00:15:43) Pramod Shah And manufacturers. Usually they gave us the distributor name and telephone number and everything. (00:15:50) Renuka Shah So then they supply to the our exporters. And then they would ship it to us. And then we have to go through the process of like a health, FDA inspection and health department inspections, right? (00:16:09) Brody Yeah, that reminds me. Yes. Tell me more about that process. (00:16:13) Renuka Shah City Health Department. (00:16:14) Brody Yeah. From the new Customs aspect of it, of getting it into the country to the even the local level, the city, city health. Tell me all of the sort of interactions that you had as store owners with levels of government. (00:16:34) Renuka Shah Mostly. (00:16:35) Pramod Shah And then we put, before we started importing, we got one warehouse also, because we cannot do it, we cannot because it' ; s a huge _________ . (00:16:46) Renuka Shah Because it comes in a huge container. Container load. And so we have to have a warehouse to first unload over there and then (00:16:56) Pramod Shah It has to go to the warehouse. Then my people working in the warehouse, they sort out, and then the FDA people also come to check. And they know that the warehouses is and they go there and do whatever they want to sampling to check it out. They take the samples from there. And then they come to the store. They give me the list also. These are the things we are taking for, you know, sample. (00:17:25) Brody Interesting. So and what about the City Health? (00:17:29) Pramod Shah City health comes in the store. (00:17:31) Renuka Shah They will come into the store only. (00:17:33) Pramod Shah And leave the warehouse. (00:17:33) Brody OK, not the warehouse. (00:17:35) Renuka Shah And they will come unannounced. So that' ; s good for us because we have to be ready with, you know, health compliance? Everything, all the time. (00:17:46) Brody Then in a similar vein, the sort of process of opening this store. Tell me about the, you know, once you decided you wanted to be in Richardson, what was the, you know, the interaction in terms of what did you have to do to be able to open that store? (00:18:03) Renuka Shah Oh, OK. We had to first apply for the- actually register the name of the business (00:18:12) Pramod Shah And anybody has given that name, we don' ; t... (00:18:15) Then they will not say, no, you cannot have that name. So name of the business and DBA, the corporation name also. And then be able once we load the store and stuff, then the health department comes, right? And of course, everybody is involved then. The building inspection and Fire Department, Business Department, building, local health. (00:18:41) Pramod Shah City of Richardson' ; s health department people. (00:18:47) Brody OK, and let' ; s now talk about advertising. What was the process? I know, at the beginning, you sought out the names from the White Pages and sent out mailers. Then you had the grand opening and gathered more names. Going forward, you know, you' ; re the only Indian grocery store in town. What did you do to keep your name out there? (00:19:11) Pramod Shah The very first advertisement, you know, after we started the store, there' ; s so many people, you know, they don' ; t know. Again, she called everybody, you know who has, you know... (00:19:21) Renuka Shah Not received the sale flyer. But then after we started with this mailing, manual mailing list, that we had, the addresses we got from people and all. So we started mailing the flier like maybe quarterly or every month or some one page at least. (00:19:40) Pramod Shah They said, " ; We are not getting the, your sale paper." ; (00:19:46) Renuka Shah OK, give us your address. So we started adding the addresses like that. (00:19:50) Pramod Shah We don' ; t have to ask anyone. They, they come and say OK. Because, you know, all the friends talking in and out, " ; Oh we got it, we got it." ; So we got a lot, a huge, huge. (00:20:02) Brody Mailing list. (00:20:05) Pramod Shah First five years, first four or five years, there were 6000 addresses. (00:20:12) Renuka Shah Or more. (00:20:14) Pramod Shah That covers, we didn' ; t even know. That there are, besides the south area, Dallas south, up to Waco. Waco' ; s too...has population at that time also Indian. So from Waco, to Amarillo. (00:20:35) Renuka Shah We had people coming from (00:20:37) Pramod Shah 300 mile radius, people used to come, because they have... (00:20:44) Renuka Shah They never had the store. (00:20:45) Pramod Shah Owner of the- there are motels in all of those stops. They need food. So they come too slowly, slowly. Lubbock, Amarillo, everywhere, people started coming. (00:20:59) Brody People were coming to your store from all over. (00:21:02) Pramod Shah And the same people must be driving 200 miles more and go to Houston. (00:21:08) Brody Yeah, but they got to the- I bet they were happy that they had a store here in Dallas and didn' ; t have to drive as far. That' ; s great. So you had a robust customer base from all over Texas, really? Were your customers mostly Indian at the beginning? (00:21:30) Renuka Shah Yes. (00:21:31) Brody Did that change over time? (00:21:34) Renuka Shah Yes, it changed over time. (00:21:37) Pramod Shah Go down, but how we realize is, OK, he must have moved to somewhere else or something, you know, yeah, but... (00:21:43) Renuka Shah No meaning besides Indians. Do did you get other customers? Did that change over the time? (00:21:50) Pramod Shah You say the that thing started from the year 1998. 98? (00:21:59) Renuka Shah Yeah. Before that, it was like very few other customers other than Indians. (00:22:03) Brody Yeah. Tell me about that. The, when you saw that change in 1998, what do you think was- what do you think led to that change? (00:22:14) Renuka Shah The major, major role that played is on the people who came from India on H1 visa to work on the- IT people, especially IT professionals. They came and they were working in this area, in these big companies around us. And so they were working with the other, their coworkers with like other ethnicity, other nationality, local or everybody else. So then they have they become friends and go out for lunch together or dinner together? So that' ; s how they started bringing some, you know, their friends over to the store and they came to know about our products and some ready-to-eat stuff, like samosa and stuff. They loved it. Yeah. (00:23:05) Brody So you then that led to a whole different clientele. And then did that change sort of how you- the types of things that you carry, did that bring in some different, different lines? (00:23:20) Renuka Shah Oh yes. But mainly the British items, specially. Because some people, it started with the Indian asking for it, who moved from Britain to here. So with that request, we started importing some British stuff- cookies, candies, jams, all kind of stuff. So then eventually the local white British people who needed that grocery also...that stuff. So they came to know. So they started coming to buy those. (00:23:54) Brody And I' ; m sure they were happy to see those products. (00:23:58) Renuka Shah Yes. They were very happy. (00:23:59) Brody So. So over the years, then, your business reached not just Indians, but also, you know, like you said, that British people who were living in this area and also, do you feel other communities came in as well? (00:24:22) Renuka Shah Local natives? Yes. (00:24:25) Pramod Shah The British community, they must be having a friend, also. Local friend. (00:24:30) Renuka Shah Local. Americans. (00:24:33) Pramod Shah You cannot get these candies, like these candies, anywhere in the United States. (00:24:39) Brody So not just the candy, though, but did you also find that there were people who were not Indian who were learning or trying to cook Indian food? (00:24:51) Renuka Shah Yes. (00:24:51) Brody Tell me about that. (00:24:53) Renuka Shah Yeah. (00:24:54) Pramod Shah We have lots of books also. Cooking books. (00:25:00) Renuka Shah So yeah, they, they started in. They got interested into that, starting to cook something and learn how to cook Indian vegetarian stuff. (00:25:11) Brody Yes. I' ; m glad that you brought that up. So, you know, during this time period there, you know, people started to, you know, Americans and, you know, just people in general started to be more interested in cooking different foods from different parts of the world and also different, you know, more healthy approaches to food. You know, what impact did you see of those types of trends on the customers in your store? (00:25:45) Renuka Shah The people they used to go to...there were...when they go online classes, online recipes, they got sometimes printed or something, or they go to some classes? That time I think somebody was running a class, but there was a very small group. But that' ; s how they found out that they can get the ingredients here in this store, so they will come with that list and the recipe. And so I would personally walk with them and then show them, " ; Hey, you would need this for like mustard seeds, for example, this oil, this spice for this, this kind of vegetables are needed in this." ; And so that' ; s how I would show them everything and they will try to make it at home. Yeah. (00:26:31) Brody In your store, did you ever have cooking classes? (00:26:34) Renuka Shah Yes, we did. Yeah. (00:26:35) Brody Yeah, tell me about that. (00:26:38) Renuka Shah Then there was a lady who did this cooking class right in our store. We provided them the area. A little corner, too, for the class and for the week...In the weekend, though. And we announced actually that there will be a cooking class for whoever is interested in learning Indian cooking. So there were other people coming other than Indians, more coming. (00:27:06) Brody What types of things did they cook in that class? (00:27:10) Renuka Shah It was like mainly of vegetables and rice and stuff... (00:27:16) Pramod Shah Biriyani. (00:27:18) Renuka Shah Biryani and vegetables. And then the chapati, the homemade bread, like a tortilla, (00:27:26) Pramod Shah then sprouted... (00:27:30) Renuka Shah Sprout beans. (00:27:31) Pramod Shah Sprout, make mung beans, and sprout these, all this kind of stuff also. (00:27:35) Brody Types of things. And they so in the store, you had enough room for a cooking class, as well as the weekend traffic for shopping. (00:27:45) Renuka Shah Yeah. Yes. (00:27:46) Brody How big was the store? (00:27:48) Renuka Shah Big? I think it was about... (00:27:51) Pramod Shah Three thousand. (00:27:52) Renuka Shah In the very beginning. When we started, it was like 3000 square feet. And then we kept on adding. We kept on adding the store size to like the next door right there. It was another 3000. So 6000 right there in the same spot. And then we moved out in 1996 to the open area in the same shopping center. And it was like about 10000 square feet. (00:28:20) Pramod Shah And between... (00:28:21) Renuka Shah Eight thousand square feet. And then in a couple of years, we got another 8000 very next door. So by the time we had 16000 square feet. (00:28:31) Brody That is a very large grocery store, isn' ; t it? (00:28:34) Renuka Shah Yes. It was. Yeah, it was the biggest one during that time. (00:28:37) Brody The biggest Indian grocery store in the state? (00:28:41) Renuka Shah In the, in US I would say. (00:28:43) Brody In the US? (00:28:44) Renuka Shah With a wide variety of the- it was like a whole departmental store for Indians. (00:28:50) Brody Tell me about the different departments that ultimately, by the time you were at the largest, what were the, the all the departments that you had in that store? (00:28:59) Renuka Shah We had, of course, the groceries. Then we had this British stuff. We had kitchen utensils. (00:29:08) Pramod Shah Fast food. (00:29:09) Renuka Shah We had fast food corner and then we had sweet, candies corner, sweets. We had ayurvedic products, which is a herbal supplements, that was a wide range of products we used to carry. But that also. (00:29:30) Pramod Shah Even soft drink... (00:29:31) Renuka Shah And then soft drinks from India and lots of frozen stuff, ready to eat, or you can cook. Everything was there. (00:29:45) Brody So on a typical weekend at your store, what was the environment like at the peak of the business? What did it feel like to you on a weekend? (00:29:59) Renuka Shah Well, it was like very, very crowded. But at the same time, people who came in the store, they were enjoying more because they used to meet people on the floor right there, so they will start talking to each other and mingle around and still do the shopping and enjoy the food and everything. So it was really a nice thing for them. And so they felt it like home, you know. Even during the festivities, as the festivals comes, they would come to enjoy the festival, it' ; s like to go to the store rather than staying at home. (00:30:33) Brody Tell me about the festivals. What types of things did you involve yourselves in with the store, in terms of festivals? (00:30:42) Renuka Shah Oh, we would display the products and decorate stuff, decorate a little bit in the store also. According to the festival, starting from whichever month. In January, then there' ; s one big festival, then comes later, like in March, there is another festival. So all the Indian festivals, we used to carry all the products for that and then we used to decorate. So it was like a whole new ambiance every time. (00:31:15) Brody Yeah. Did you do that yourself? (00:31:18) Renuka Shah All of us together. Yeah. (00:31:20) Brody So starting in January, what, for example, what festival is in January and what types of products would you have carried for that? (00:31:31) Renuka Shah January. We have, in the middle of January, there' ; s a Kite Festival. Traditionally it' ; s two days 14th and 15th, but here they celebrate it over the weekend or, looking at the weather, you know how? So normally they celebrate in March or so, right? When there' ; s a good weather out there. So we carry those kites, kites and the threads. There' ; s a special thread to fly the kite. So we used to carry all that. (00:32:02) Brody Right. What were, are there some other examples of other festivals that you had big, you know, big events for? (00:32:11) Renuka Shah Holi. (00:32:12) Pramod Shah Festival or when there is a football tournament here. (00:32:19) Renuka Shah Talking about festivals (00:32:20) Pramod Shah University football tournament. (00:32:22) Renuka Shah We' ; re talking about festivals right now. (00:32:26) Pramod Shah University football tournaments also help us so much because when there tournament between Oklahoma and in Dallas, so that is (inaudible) (00:32:38) Brody The Texas- OU weekend? (00:32:39) Pramod Shah Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many people, Indian people, comes to, you know, from Oklahoma also. So they, when going back, they take so much of grocery, for three months, four months. (00:32:53) Brody Well, that' ; s interesting. That is interesting. So other Indian festivals that you... (00:33:03) Renuka Shah Lots of them. Some of the main ones are like in sometime in March. It falls in March. It' ; s called Holi. It' ; s like a festival of colors, I would say. It' ; s like people enjoy using colored sand, you know, and the water and they celebrate that, right? There' ; s a whole story behind that, but that' ; s a Holi. It' ; s called Holi. (00:33:32) Brody And so you would carry the sand? (00:33:35) Renuka Shah All the colors everything. (00:33:36) Pramod Shah All the Holi colors. Yes, yeah. (00:33:39) Brody And then, the what was the biggest event that you would host at the store in terms of festivals? (00:33:47) Renuka Shah Biggest would be the Diwali. (00:33:51) Brody Yes. Tell me about that. (00:33:52) Renuka Shah Oh, that would be like during that time, we used to import fresh sweets from India. Specialty sweets that different regions of the, of India, people from different regions would be liking to eat or something because they would be missing that. So we used to import that and then used import the rangoli, which is again colored sand. (00:34:19) Pramod Shah The other thing is it was in the very beginning. And then after that they change it of, you know, from the flower, you know, it' ; s like (speaks in Gujurati to Renuka Shah) (00:34:35) Renuka Shah (Inaudible) (00:34:36) Pramod Shah (Speaks in Gujurati). (00:34:37) Renuka Shah Yeah. But. (00:34:37) Pramod Shah In the beginning, yes. (00:34:39) Renuka Shah First describe this. (00:34:41) Brody What is the rangoli? (00:34:42) Renuka Shah Rangoli. Rangoli is the....by using the, you make different designs or different artwork using the colored sand. (00:34:53) Brody How big would these be? (00:34:55) Renuka Shah It depends. I mean, people, when they do at home it will be according to what' ; s it, whatever size they want to do. But in our store, when we started this trend was the it was a huge, big- maybe I would say, 30 feet by 20, 15 or so. (00:35:14) Brody That' ; s very big. (00:35:15) Pramod Shah Yeah. It was huge. (00:35:16) Brody How long would it take to set that up? (00:35:20) Renuka Shah The initially, was like unexpectedly, we got actually, not unexpectedly, we had very short time left before the Diwali comes. So it was like a few days left. So we called all the friends. So we worked like two nights, late night until late nights, maybe 15, 20 people together. That' ; s how we could finish it. Otherwise it would have taken longer. (00:35:44) Brody Do you have to be artistic to have the plan? Was there somebody that was sort of in charge of designing it? (00:35:52) Renuka Shah Yes. Initially, we did. Later on when we really kept this trend, doing it every year. We used to have a theme. On which theme we want to do this year. So that part we would decide. And then we had a couple local artist friends. They will say, " ; Yeah, we would. We wouldn' ; t mind coming and helping you guys out." ; So once we decide on the theme, we would tell those friends and out of that. But a couple of them were like, good in drawing and stuff, so they would come out and do the outline. And then we all jointly fill in the colors and everything. (00:36:30) Brody What were some? I' ; m sorry. (00:36:32) Pramod Shah She guide us also- in what color to go here? Like that. So we mix the color and then we tried to do it. And then, start. (00:36:42) Brody What were some examples of themes that you used over the years? (00:36:47) Renuka Shah Like we started with like this Diwali- and then we started the first one, it was, the theme was that the Diwali theme. Like a lady, would go to the temple with the light, light and then all the prayer stuff. The second, from second year, it was different every year we would take...second year it was like Ganesha, which is a very common thing for Indians. Common idol and lord for everybody. So we used that, Ganesha. (00:37:24) Pramod Shah In India. They have a Ganesh Chaturthi. During the Ganesh Chaturthi, they have a big...(speaks Gujurati) (00:37:39) Renuka Shah Yeah, the procession. Yeah, yeah. And then one time, when 9/11 happened, we had the theme like, know, " ; Salute to the Heroes" ; all the heroes- like a firefighter, a dog even, a policeman, and all that. Nurses and doctors. During that time, whoever had, during that time in New York... (00:38:09) Brody and so you depicted that in the.. (00:38:10) Renuka Shah We yeah, the depicted the whole thing. Yeah. (00:38:12) Brody In the rangoli. Yeah, saluting those heroes. Yeah. (00:38:16) Pramod Shah You know, one time, an Indian lady astronaut, when she died... (00:38:22) Renuka Shah And the...yeah....one time we did that, the lady who went, was an astronaut and she died after that. Called...Her name was Kalpana Chawla. So we to had the theme on that- on her, yeah, tribute to her. One time it was a " ; Peace on Earth." ; So we had all the countries' ; people depicted on that and then holding their hands and all that stuff. (00:38:55) Pramod Shah In the attic. (00:38:58) Renuka Shah 911, no. That' ; s what I told her first. (00:39:02) Brody So this is very big and all of these wonderful themes. Did it draw lots of people into the store to see it? (00:39:11) Renuka Shah Lots of them. They were looking forward. Then the habit became to the customers was like, you know what, " ; When are you finishing the rangoli? When can we come? When can we come to see?" ; So it was really excitement for them. Yeah, to come and view that. (00:39:27) Brody Did people bring their families, bring their children? (00:39:30) Renuka Shah The children. And the children would bring their like next door neighbors' ; children, their friends and stuff, no matter they are white Americans or whoever they are or, you know, Asian or whoever they' ; ll all come and see. (00:39:46) Brody That' ; s really that' ; s a nice piece of education that they could get from coming to the store with their friends. That' ; s great. Did you see other aspects of the people who are coming to your store, your customers, what were some other ways that you mentioned that there- it was a hub and people enjoyed coming to the store and being in there. Were there other things that, that you were selling or doing that provided that sort of sense of community or a taste of home for, for those customers? (00:40:23) Renuka Shah Yes. At that time was there was no like, for example, for any information, if somebody is a newcomer in the town or something. So we had people, we, who can...Local people who want, whoever wants to advertise their own thing or their....They need something like any...For example, they require a cook or babysitter or something. They will put their flyers there and if they are looking for an employee or something, there is a help wanted flyers and stuff. Some business people, they will put their business cards. We would allow everybody to put that on that wall. So it was like our network wall, networking wall. So people would come in and get that info from there. Yeah. (00:41:10) Brody Did you have an ATM or phone, phone cards, videos, things like that as well? (00:41:19) Renuka Shah Yes. We didn' ; t have ATM. Though, we had people telling us to keep it. And there were people, businesses who were coming in to keep it, but we didn' ; t keep it. And we had videos and that time was like those VHS videos and Indian film videos. And then we had what else? (00:41:46) Brody The phone cards? (00:41:47) Renuka Shah Phone cards, yes, we did have phone cards. Because in those days to talk to India or internationally, London or wherever, it was like very expensive to call, pick up the landline and call directly will be very expensive. So it was... (00:42:03) Pramod Shah Customers there. They told us about this, they know how to make ice cream and cake and eat it. (Speaks Gujurati to Renuka Shah.) (00:42:16) Renuka Shah Kulfi. And that' ; s that goes into the product spot, you know? Hmm. So, yeah, we had phone cards, prepaid phone cards and the videos. (00:42:26) Brody Yeah. So the phone cards- tell me about... You, you were starting to say that it was expensive to just pick up a phone, call India or call overseas. How did these phone cards work? What was the sort of the business model there for that? (00:42:45) Renuka Shah As far as the phone cards? It would be like starting from different denomination phone cards, $5, $10, you know, and then they had certain, certain minutes that you get out of that $5 phone card, and that' ; s how people would buy and use it. (00:43:04) Brody And it would be much less expensive than just calling from home? (00:43:07) Renuka Shah Less expensive. (00:43:09) Brody And that would allow them to be able to call overseas, and talk to their families. Now back to the videos. So these would be- were they popular films that were currently in India, popular in India? (00:43:24) Renuka Shah Yes, we used to carry the latest popular, latest films and we used to carry all the old time favorite films also. And what else? And the audio? Audio cassettes also. (00:43:41) Brody Oh, really? (00:43:43) Renuka Shah Yes, it' ; s a... (00:43:44) Brody Popular music. And from a customer perspective, so what did that feel like for a customer? If they wanted to see a certain movie, they would come to the store? And what would what would a customer do to be able to access it? (00:43:58) Renuka Shah We had displayed it in the racks on the wall and like alphabetically, and then they would come out and sometimes they would say, oh, and they will name the latest movie or something. If they are looking for that. And mostly, we get, we used to get those also. So we would pick out, take out, and give it to them. And it was like all manual system to rent out. So we would take down their name and number and everything. And then there was a certain set rate how they would rent. (00:44:32) Brody Depending on the popularity of the movie. (00:44:35) Renuka Shah Yes. Yes. Yeah. (00:44:37) Brody The price would be different. And so again, was this like in a computer or, you know, did you keep track of it in a... (00:44:45) Renuka Shah In a notebook. All manual. (00:44:48) Brody So and it did it work out pretty well? Was that a good system? (00:44:53) Renuka Shah It worked out really well because everybody' ; s honest. It' ; s just hardly you lose any movie. Yeah. So. (00:45:01) Brody That' ; s great. So in the larger sort of growth of the Indian American community in Dallas, what role did your store play and what interactions did you all have with sort of the, you know, from the time that you got here to, you know, when the store closed, we saw a huge growth in this area in the Indian community. What were your points of interaction? (00:45:31) Renuka Shah At that time? Actually, in front of our eyes, actually, the different associations started, actually their own association. For example, India Association. That was there, but in a very, very small scale. And then so it was a big thing for them also, to get to know people and get them involved in the Indian, India Association. Then different religious organizations started. Separate, depending on their own religion. And so they grew, they started. They found a lot of things from us. Right? Lot of information from us. (00:46:16) Brody So did you play a role in connecting people with each other? (00:46:22) Renuka Shah Yes. (00:46:24) Brody How so? (00:46:24) Renuka Shah In different aspects, different, different, ways, right? In connecting people. (00:46:33) Pramod Shah (Speaks Gujurati to Renuka Shah) (00:46:41) Renuka Shah Connecting people- meaning like different- (00:46:44) Brody I guess it sounds like- because your store was so big and it was the place where people came together. And, you know, like you mentioned, the networking wall and things like that. I was wondering if, as these associations are forming, sometimes maybe you knew somebody was doing something that somebody else might be interested in. I wondered if you connected those types of people with each other. (00:47:11) Renuka Shah Oh yes. As far as the information? It was the whole information place for people at Taj Mahal. Yeah, even newcomers or this networking. Somebody comes in ask, " ; Hey, who can I get the insurance from?" ; We would give them the names of people who are...Who has started that business or something. And so they were like, yeah, local networking. (00:47:40) Brody And yes. And so the India Association became quite large in this area. And tell me about your observations of that and your experience of the India Association. (00:47:52) Renuka Shah Observations. They even, they even opened an office, right at Spring Valley, very, very close to us. And they started getting more and more membership and they did different activities where we supported a lot also. As well as by physically helping with our staff or something or by the display of certain items if they want to borrow some things, if they need any physical help from us or any other way, we were helping them. (00:48:28) Brody For their different events? (00:48:29) Renuka Shah Even in different events like fundraising or something. Anything happens, they would, we would tell them to come out and put a box there so that we can raise the funds at our, in our premises also. Yeah. (00:48:44) Brody For example, what types of things would their fundraising be for? (00:48:49) Renuka Shah Oh, in it would be any, I would say calamities like within US, like 9/11, for example. And there was a later, there was one big earthquake in India. (00:49:04) Pramod Shah (Inaudible) and West Bengal side (00:49:08) Renuka Shah West Bengal. (00:49:09) Pramod Shah Yeah. (Inaudible). (00:49:11) Renuka Shah Yeah. So we used to put the box there and collect the funds and India Association people would take care of that. (00:49:22) Brody Yeah, that' ; s great. Speaking of 9/11, I know some people have mentioned and it' ; s been documented that there was, in the wake of 9/11, you know, some racism directed at people of color, particularly people from, you know, the Middle East or even India. Did you have any experiences like that? (00:49:48) Renuka Shah No, not really. No. We didn' ; t have any discrimination or hate crime or anything like that. (00:49:54) Brody No, that' ; s good. That' ; s fortunate. It sounds like the, what you' ; re saying is that your store was a really central to the connections between Indian Americans and people, you know, who were settled here from India or even England. What- did you have any issues with sort of connecting with different communities? (00:50:30) Renuka Shah Connecting with different communities...Only the- nothing except the language barrier, probably. (00:50:39) Brody Right. (00:50:44) Renuka Shah Different communities of India? Any communities. Yeah, we didn' ; t have any specific connecting... (00:50:55) Pramod Shah Mexico only. They were working for us. (00:50:57) Renuka Shah Mexican people. (00:51:01) Pramod Shah And sometimes, you know, there' ; s an extra food, yes, and Mexican people has not taken their break, lunch. We offer this. " ; OK, yeah, yeah, sure." ; But it' ; s not much. Not really. (00:51:15) Brody That' ; s interesting. So. And yeah, speaking of the staff, right? Were you primarily staffed by Indian people? (00:51:26) Renuka Shah Indians. Definitely. Because they have to know the products also, right? (00:51:30) Brody Oh, excuse me. (00:51:33) Renuka Shah Yes, so use Indian people. And then we also had some people in the warehouse, but they not necessarily have to have knowledge of every single thing? But some hard work or something, then we can have anybody, you know? (00:51:51) Brody And where was the warehouse? (00:51:53) Renuka Shah It was also in Richardson around the Texas Instruments. Around that area? Yeah. (00:52:04) Brody So you mentioned the India Association and they' ; re there events and things like that. I know also that you all were involved with the Carrom Association. Tell me about your background with carrom, the game and tell me what carrom is. (00:52:21) Renuka Shah Excuse me. Carrom is like a table game, and it' ; s played by either two players or four players. And it' ; s like using, it' ; s pretty much like using the angles and stuff like, like a pool table, but this is like a family game. Very interesting. And I used to play in India where I used to work- in a bank- for a very short, short time, like a halftime, you know, lunchtime and on. But then I guess I was playing good or whatever it was, somebody noticed and they pulled me in for the tournaments, and that' ; s how I ended up playing the national tournaments in India. And after we came back and came to here in US, it was a whole long pause because we didn' ; t have time to think about even other stuff. So we were in business, and while we were in business, we were carrying carrom boards also to sell. And later we found out that there was an association here also- US Carrom Association. So they even told us about the tournament to come over and represent. So that' ; s how we started really actively, we took part in everything, and we were helping wholeheartedly everything with the supplies, including the supplies and the physical help to US Carrom Association. (00:54:01) Brody So did you host a tournament? (00:54:03) Renuka Shah Oh yes. In Dallas, we hosted about three times national tournaments. Yeah. (00:54:10) Pramod Shah And two, two times. (00:54:13) Renuka Shah Out of that, out of the three times, I think it was one or two times, World Cup. So other country people, players used to come also. (00:54:23) Brody Wow. So an international tournament here in Dallas that you helped to host? (00:54:28) Renuka Shah Yes. (00:54:29) Brody What? What did that entail? Hosting the tournament? What did you need to do? (00:54:32) Renuka Shah Oh, it' ; s a lot of work, a lot and a lot of work. It was, besides the supplies, it' ; s like you have to rent a place where you can have the space to display all those boards. That' ; s required depending on the entries . (00:54:52) Pramod Shah And everybody, stayed. (00:54:53) Renuka Shah Everybody stays in that motel. So for two to three days. And so it was a big thing. And then you have to think about breakfast, lunch, dinner during that tournament, those tournament days. And a lot of work, a lot of, lot of work. (00:55:12) Brody And. You ended up having prizes and so on? (00:55:20) Pramod Shah US Carrom Association. (00:55:22) Brody They took care of that. (00:55:23) Pramod Shah Because they take that. And they take some money, actually. (00:55:28) Renuka Shah Yeah, whoever comes to play, they have to have some entry fees and to pay some entry fees to US Carrom Association so that- with that money- US Carrom Association used to buy the trophies. (00:55:44) Brody And I understand also that you had an interaction with the Guinness Organization as well. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? (00:55:56) Renuka Shah Yes. Yeah, there were, there was a guy who, a player. I would not say " ; guy," ; an elderly person, player, very good player. All time. He had an ambition to do this: set the record of carrom in the Guinness book. (00:56:15) Pramod Shah (Inaudible) (00:56:18) Renuka Shah Everybody can see that. So he found us as the best people who can really organize this kind of, at this level. It' ; s a lot of work for, to set that Guinness Book Record. So he found us, and he said, " ; Only you can do. And that, also, you have to do in Dallas. Nobody else will do here in north or something." ; So we said, " ; OK, we can try." ; And then they applied for the, this event and we got the whole, big bible of guidelines and stuff. So it was a big, big job to do that. But any smallest mistake would not have approved it. So we had to do everything really perfect and thank God we could do it. (00:57:09) Pramod Shah And according to Guinness Book of World Records, each and every seconds has to be recorded (00:57:16) Renuka Shah Video recorded. Every second of it. (00:57:20) Brody How long did it last? (00:57:21) Renuka Shah This lasted for about 33 hours. (00:57:27) Brody So you recorded the entire thing? (00:57:28) Renuka Shah The entire event. Yes. (00:57:30) Pramod Shah And as for their law, there are so many things that there are... Maybe some photographs also then some pictures of, you know. What was that? (Speaks Gujurati) Oh my God. (00:57:50) Renuka Shah Gujurati. (00:57:51) Pramod Shah So what our people has... (00:57:54) Renuka Shah There has to be- there were the guidelines was like there has to be the witnesses all the time. There has to be a nurse all the time. There has to be a doctor all the time there. And there has to be an audience all the time. Even overnight. So we had to manage all that. And then when the audience is there, we had to sell some, some snacks or some refreshments. So everything I mean together was a big, big project. (00:58:22) Brody And you organized this? (00:58:23) Renuka Shah Organized? Yes. (00:58:25) Brody So there were the- record is four people for thirty three hours? (00:58:31) Renuka Shah Thirty two hours and seventy- and forty five minutes. Thirty two hours and 45 minutes, I think. (00:58:37) Brody How did you decide on the four people? (00:58:41) Renuka Shah The definitely the person who really had and... (00:58:46) Pramod Shah Who started this. (00:58:47) Renuka Shah Who wanted to do this and him and him (Gestures to Pramod Shah), and then they were supposed to pick two more players. So there was another person from Dallas and then, that we knew as a player, because we used to go for the tournaments together. And there was the other person from Ohio who initiated this, thought about this thing. He had another friend there up in north, so he picked him. So that' ; s how four people... (00:59:15) Brody The four people. And you were successful in getting the record. (00:59:19) Renuka Shah Very successful. Yeah. (00:59:21) Brody Well, that' ; s wonderful. Congratulations on that. (00:59:24) Renuka Shah Thank you. (00:59:26) Brody Earlier, we were talking about the different festivals and things like that, and you alluded to religion. What you know again, India is a country that has, you know, several religions. How, in, in running your store, did you sort of, what role did religion play in either the products that you carried or didn' ; t carry? (00:59:56) Renuka Shah People would... Slowly, slowly we started knowing and learning by either customers telling us, or we would research, we used and then find out, hey, Andhra people, certain religion people uses this during their, this festival. So then we would make sure that we have those products for them ready here in the store during that time. And... (01:00:26) Pramod Shah What, what like Kerala, there, some. Whatever the things they needed, they literally come, they say us how to get it and everything. And we used to get it and, give it to them. (01:00:42) Renuka Shah Yeah. And then we used to carry some books also in their own languages for the religious ceremonies and stuff, you know, religion stuff. Yeah. Their festivals and stuff. Traditionally, the South Indians and of course, now everybody, all in India, they are more into like dancing and stuff, Indian dances, so they need those ghungroo, those you know, in the ankle. (01:01:16) Brody Bells. (01:01:17) Renuka Shah The bells and stuff, so we used to carry everything for them. (01:01:20) Brody That' ; s pretty specialized... (01:01:22) Renuka Shah Specialized things. (01:01:23) Brody Things for dancers. Were there other specialized areas that you carried? You ended up carrying things, for example? (01:01:35) Renuka Shah We carried even those special type of ornaments they wear during those for those dances. We used to carry that- whole, complete sets of it and we were renting them out also for them, so they don' ; t have to buy the whole thing just for one event. So that and then we had some artificial jewelry all the time. And then bangles. (01:02:01) Pramod Shah (Speaking Gujurati to Renukah Shah) (01:02:05) Renuka Shah Arangetram. That' ; s why I said those. (01:02:09) Pramod Shah (Speaking Gujurati to Renuka Shah) (01:02:10) Renuka Shah (Inaudible) (01:02:13) Brody What about for weddings? Was there, were there special things that you carried that were used for weddings? (01:02:20) Renuka Shah For weddings, also, we were carrying some of the stuff that' ; s required for their ceremonies, like different types of trays and boxes and stuff and the decorative stuff, especially. And the garlands with artificial flowers, of course. And yeah, yeah. So lots of stuff. (01:02:41) Brody Yeah, there' ; s a lot of special needs for each of these festivals or ceremonies or rituals. So it sounds like you mentioned books earlier. What types of books, are you talking about? Were they like things for children or? (01:03:02) Renuka Shah Yes, for everybody, actually. For children, we had those popular books from India that there would be. And it was all in English. So that' ; s good. And the...We had cooking books. We had religious books. We had, for example, yoga books. Language learning books. (01:03:29) Brody For English or for? (01:03:32) Renuka Shah Language learning, meaning the kids born in US or abroad, out of India, they would know only English. So they would not know their own language, right? Their own region mother language. So this is English to their language. (01:03:50) Brody So they could, while living in America, learn the language of their parents. (01:03:55) Renuka Shah Yes. (01:03:56) Renuka Shah And the parents could communicate that to them as well. That' ; s really interesting. When you look back at your experience for all those years running the store and being sort of the hub for Indian, the Indian community in, in really North Texas, what, what are some of your key reflections or things that you would want somebody to know about your experience? You know, far into the future. (01:04:34) Pramod Shah Kids up to 6, 7 years, they do, and they do that when they go to when they start going to school, high school, they are American. (01:04:47) Renuka Shah And the question...(Inaudible) the question. And would you say the question? (01:04:52) Brody Of course, of course. Just, you know, for a very long time, your store was the, you know, the largest store in the area for Indian supplies and Indian culture. When you look back at that experience and everything that you, you know that you did and that you learned, what are some key lessons or points that you would want people to know about your experience? (01:05:22) Renuka Shah Key lessons and points. Once, but then, once we are out from the business, you know, the connection, the connection is not there, so it' ; s, it' ; s only actually the other way around, right, now that the customers, when they see us, they come out and they will pinpoint our qualities and they were like, " ; We are missing because of this, right?" ; (01:05:48) Brody What kind of things do they miss? (01:05:50) Renuka Shah And they are missing definitely us because it was always like a personal service and it was like a family or a home for them. Our place was like a, they feel like their own place. And so, and the variety, quality, cleanliness, and the service. (01:06:10) Pramod Shah They say everything. They' ; re still not getting anywhere all the stuff, so they when they meet, Oh my God, say " ; Why' ; d you sell it, why' ; d you close?" ; (01:06:22) Brody So, that makes me wonder. So, today there are a lot of a variety of Indian grocery stores and all sorts of places where you can get, you know, Indian food, Indian supplies. What are some of the key differences between what' ; s available today and what you were doing when you were the only ones in town? (01:06:47) Renuka Shah Nowadays, as far as the variety-wise or the product-wise, mostly, everything' ; s available because they started getting everything after us. (01:06:57) Pramod Shah Customers. They are not getting anything. So they must be and talking also. We used to get it from here and there. (01:07:05) Renuka Shah So they get all the stuff. But they' ; re still missing our probably the mainly the quality and the service. Service, the personalized service. (01:07:17) Brody Right? Nowadays, do people who you know, who live here in Dallas and want various supplies, do they are they more likely to, in your view, go into a store or order simply online? Is it possible to do that? (01:07:36) Renuka Shah It' ; s not possible everywhere. All the stores are not doing it, especially the " ; mom and pop" ; stores. They would not be able to afford it. But here in Dallas, at least, there are big, big stores, so most of them have that kind of online ordering services and stuff. Yeah, yeah. (01:07:54) Brody Or even outside of Dallas, right? Like, would it be possible today to get a lot of the, you know, the very specialty things from, you know, straight from India even? (01:08:05) Renuka Shah Yes, that' ; s true. (01:08:06) Brody Yeah. (01:08:08) Pramod Shah Even saris also. Also available online. (01:08:10) Renuka Shah Everybody buys the dresses and stuff. (01:08:12) Pramod Shah Now. Because this big company, they are very big in India also now. So they know everything now, that company. So they also start that thing? Sari and lots of things are available. (01:08:29) Brody Yeah, it' ; s a different... (01:08:31) Pramod Shah People used to go to India to get the saris and all this stuff for marriage. (01:08:37) Renuka Shah Now, they don' ; t for shopping, they do online. (01:08:40) Brody You can do that here. So are there any other questions or any other points that I haven' ; t asked you about today that we should talk about? (01:08:56) Renuka Shah Not really. Pretty much. (01:08:59) Pramod Shah Yeah. (01:09:00) Renuka Shah Whatever we could recall. (01:09:02) Brody I really appreciate your time and your participation in this project. Really interesting stories and important stories as well. So I really appreciate you. Thank you so much. (01:09:15) Renuka Shah Thank you for having us. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Renuka Shah, December 9, 2021
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
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Cooking, Indian
Grocers, Asian American
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Betsy Brody
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Brian Reinhart
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5.4 Interview with Brian Reinhart, December 20, 2021 2021oh002_di_004 01:35:34 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Food writing Brian Reinhart Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_reinhart_brian20211220.m4a 1:|18(11)|41(12)|52(14)|68(3)|80(2)|93(3)|106(5)|121(14)|135(10)|146(11)|160(15)|175(7)|188(11)|200(9)|212(8)|231(5)|241(6)|254(5)|269(8)|286(10)|302(14)|313(2)|327(1)|336(5)|347(8)|358(4)|368(13)|394(3)|410(1)|423(1)|440(8)|458(12)|470(15)|478(7)|499(6)|510(3)|520(15)|534(12)|546(11)|556(2)|566(1)|578(5)|593(8)|605(13)|624(7)|635(5)|654(7)|664(14)|674(8)|688(4)|700(1)|714(2)|727(2)|738(6)|751(2)|761(13)|774(7)|787(9)|798(6)|818(4)|831(8)|844(2)|856(4)|874(9)|889(8)|903(6)|913(13)|926(1)|939(11)|953(2)|964(1)|974(1)|994(5)|1005(14)|1019(6)|1029(11)|1039(6)|1052(11)|1063(11)|1088(14)|1106(8)|1120(8)|1133(5)|1147(10)|1160(3)|1172(11)|1184(1)|1198(15)|1210(11)|1223(7)|1233(6)|1247(10)|1257(7)|1271(7)|1298(6) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/162877 Aviary audio 8 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Food writing ; Texas--History 40 Moving to Texas from Indiana Dallas ; Texas 97 Food writing at the Dallas Observer and the Dallas Morning News Dallas Morning News ; Dallas Observer ; food writing ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews 353 Food landscape in Dallas Anthony Bourdain ; burgers ; chain ; chicken fried steak ; corporate ; culture ; Dallas ; Dean Fearing ; diverse ; food landscape ; Food Network ; food scene ; James Beard Award ; Southwestern ; steaks ; Stephan Pyles 703 Dallas named " ; Restaurant City of the Year" ; in 2019/ Role of food media Bon Appetit ; food media ; media ; responsibility ; Restaurant City of the Year 827 Impact of tornado, COVID, labor shortages on the food industry in Dallas alcohol ; corporate ; COVID ; family style ; Korean barbecue ; Koryo ; labor shortage ; lease ; pandemic ; shutdown ; supply chain ; tornado 1235 Trends in Dallas food landscape today Asian restaurant ; barbecue ; Dallas ; design ; diverse ; ethnic food ; fine dining ; interior design ; middle class ; plating ; working class 1325 Restaurants as community hubs Asian community ; community ; Dallas Cowboys ; grocery store ; hubs ; Lao ; Laos ; Nalinh Market ; Plano ; restaurants ; Richardson ; Southeast Asian 1449 Restaurants serving as bridges between communities/ Protest dinner at Bilad Bakery Bilad Bakery ; bridge ; community organizing ; connect ; connection ; Iraq ; politics ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; travel ban 1698 Thai food as a bridge to Cambodian and Lao food Apsara ; bridge ; Cambodia ; competition ; competitor ; Donny Sirisavath ; Khao Noodle Shop ; Lao ; Laos ; Nalinh Market ; Nam Khao ; Sikhay ; Thai ; Thai food 1921 Reinhart's philosophy around food writing/ Goals of restaurant reviews culture ; Dallas ; food ; Garland ; law ; neighborhood ; Plano ; politics ; restaurant critic ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; spicy ; suburbs ; Vietnamese 2319 Qualities that make a good restaurant critic Carrollton ; chef ; cookbook ; negative reviews ; restaurant critic ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; Too Thai Street Eats 2562 Impact of social media on food writing Asian Grub in DFDub ; Dallas ; Dallas Halal Restaurant Reviews ; dumb down ; Facebook ; food industry ; industry ; photography ; recipe ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; salty ; spicy ; star ; Yelp 2798 Process around restaurant reviewing Black owned restaurants ; diverse ; diversity ; East Dallas ; Facebook ; Hispanic ; hole in the wall ; internet ; Oak Cliff ; PR ; price points ; public relations ; representation ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; social media ; Yelp 3158 Reflections on the concept of " ; authenticity" ; and " ; appropriation" ; American ; Americanized ; appropriation ; Asian restaurant ; authentic ; authenticity ; Baton Rouge ; Beaumont ; Brandon Jiu ; Chef DAT ; Chinatown ; culture ; culture wars ; food ; income inequality ; Manhattan Project Beer ; Mister Jiu's ; mom and pop ; New Orleans ; palate ; political ; politics ; respect ; restaurant business ; Roots Southern Table ; San Francisco ; spring rolls ; Tiffany Derry ; tradition ; western palate 4149 Spectrum of the Dallas food landscape Abacus ; Asian flavors ; chef ; family run restaurant ; fine dining ; food truck ; Kent Rathbun ; mom and pop ; steak ; sushi ; sushi chef ; upscale 4369 Asian restaurants in Dallas- trends and patterns airport ; Asian restaurant ; brand ; cricket ; design ; DFW airport ; Donny Sirisavath ; Everest ; Halal ; interior design ; Irving ; Japanese ; Khao Noodle Shop ; Korean community ; millenials ; Minerva ; momo ; Mr. Sushi ; Nepal ; Nepalese ; ras malai ; remodel ; saku dumplings ; seafood ; supply chain ; Teiichi Sakurai ; Texas Instruments ; tradition ; Tres Leches cake 4877 Reflections on " ; fusion" ; in the food industry banh mi ; Bishop Arts ; culture ; dumplings ; French ; fusion ; Indian ; Indian food ; Kent Rathbun ; Korean freid chicken ; Pad Thai ; sushi ; tandoori chicken 5002 Impact of " ; mom and pop" ; restaurants passing to the next generation aesthetics ; biriyani ; Chip and Joanna Gaines ; cleanliness ; creativity ; Dallas Morning News ; Desi District ; design ; ethnic ; ethnic food ; food critics ; generation ; gulab jamun ; health inspection ; Indian restaurants ; interior design ; labor ; lower class ; Magnolia ; mom and pop ; negative reviews ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; stereotypes 5329 Future of Asian food in Dallas Asian restaurant ; Carrollton ; chef ; Dallas ; downtown ; growth ; H Mart ; Han Gil Hotel Town ; hotel ; immigrant ; J.C. Penney ; Korean barbecue ; Koreatown ; landlord ; Michelin ; NGON ; Nuri Grill ; Old Denton Road ; real estate ; restaurants ; segregation ; Seoul ; South Korea ; suburbs ; Toyota ; Troy Gardner ; Uptown ; Vietnamese ; West Dallas |00:00:08| BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is December 20th, 2021. I am interviewing for the first time, Mr. Brian Reinhart. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and as part of the project entitled Digging In: How Food Culture and Class Shaped the Story of [Asian] Dallas. Hi, Brian, how are you? Thank you for coming today. |00:00:38| REINHART Thank you. Thank you. |00:00:39| BRODY Just to start out with, would you tell me briefly where and when you were born? |00:00:45| REINHART I was born in 1989 in Columbus, Indiana. |00:00:48| BRODY Great. What brought you to Texas? |00:00:50| REINHART I moved with my family when I- the week I turned 16. We came down for employment reasons and settled outside of San Antonio. And then I... so I' ; ve lived in actually three major Texas cities because I went to college in Houston and then moved to Dallas in 2012. |00:01:12| BRODY What brought you to Dallas? |00:01:14| REINHART My first full time job out of college was here in Dallas. |00:01:19| BRODY What were you doing? |00:01:21| REINHART I work and I worked and still work. I' ; ll start over. I worked and still work at a community college in the Dallas area, doing marketing materials and website updates and writing of various kinds. |00:01:37| BRODY Fantastic, well, what is your current position in terms of food writing? |00:01:43| REINHART I' ; m the restaurant critic for the Dallas Morning News and from 2016 until earlier this year held that position for the Dallas Observer newspaper. [After this interview was completed, Mr. Reinhart was named Dining Critic for D Magazine.] |00:01:53| BRODY What led you into that line of work? |00:01:58| REINHART I became a food writer more or less by mistake. My friend and I applied to do blogging for the Dallas Observer. Together...Observer. Together. We started off as coauthors. She' ; s from Singapore, and she wanted to go to places that reminded her of home and have the foods that she missed from Singapore that aren' ; t over here or aren' ; t as common. And then I did the writing part. And so she would more or less we would go together and she would tell me how good it was. And then I would do the massaging of the words, basically. At the time that was 2015, and at the time we were splitting the author fee. So we were making a whole twelve dollars and fifty cents per person per article, which we spent while we were at the restaurant more or less. |00:02:55| BRODY I would imagine. How did you decide on which restaurants to go to? What was your method? |00:03:02| REINHART Initially, she had a list of places that she wanted to try, that she wanted to, you know, investigate for nostalgic purposes. So we stuck to that. Eventually, we started branching out, and I ever since have followed my own interests more or less. I initially- I' ; m half Turkish, my mother is from Istanbul, so I started writing about Turkish pizzas and baklava and things like that. And then, you know, if I heard about a place that sounded interesting to me, I would cover that. Fortunately, have only been asked or assigned to review a restaurant. Once, maybe twice. Everything else since then has just been purely curiosity driven. |00:03:48| BRODY Yeah, that' ; s fantastic. What types of things interest you? What types of foods and what types of restaurants excite you? |00:04:05| REINHART I didn' ; t grow up with a lot of fine dining or European continental, traditional western restaurants and my background, it wasn' ; t really something that we went to. There weren' ; t a lot of, you know, four star type restaurants in southern Indiana by the conventional measures that people use at the time. So I didn' ; t have a lot of experience with that. I didn' ; t know a lot about French cooking. I first had caviar on the job for the Dallas Observer. |00:04:40| BRODY What did you think of it? |00:04:42| REINHART It' ; s fine. It' ; s salty, but it' ; s nice. I. You know, it' ; s it doesn' ; t live up to their reputation in anything other than the difficulty of sourcing it, I guess. Right. Like, I also first had truffles the year before, and they' ; re fine. They kind of taste like potato chips, but so always, always drove us... I' ; m going to start over. What always drove us was a curiosity about different cultures and different cuisines. We moved to Detroit and we immersed ourselves in eating all of the Lebanese food that we could. We spent, you know, weeks and weeks going to various different shawarma places and shish kebab places. And whenever we traveled, we' ; d find like, " ; Oh, there' ; s a Polish restaurant, oh, there' ; s a Hungarian restaurant." ; We weren' ; t really looking for, " ; Oh, there is a place with white tablecloths and a fixed price menu and that kind of thing." ; |00:05:48| BRODY Great those sound like great memories as well. What did you know about Dallas and particularly the restaurant scene in Dallas before you got here? |00:06:02| REINHART I think I knew almost nothing about food in Dallas before I got here. Before I moved, I' ; d had one meal in Dallas, which was a Hunky' ; s Burgers in Oak Cliff in Bishop Arts Neighborhood. Oh, and I visited a friend and had another burger at another place, Twisted Root, so everything I knew about Dallas was burgers. I didn' ; t, you know, there was a bit of a reputation about Southwestern food, cowboy type food and, you know, steaks and so forth, but at the time, being 22, I didn' ; t have the budget for steaks and didn' ; t really know a lot to didn' ; t know what to expect, didn' ; t know a lot about it at all. |00:06:47| BRODY So then your impressions when you got here were fresh and not full of preconceived ideas that were being overturned, what were your initial impressions? |00:06:56| REINHART Yeah, actually, you know, even to this day, there are lists that people produce of like the iconic Dallas restaurants that you have to go to before you can say that you' ; re a Dallasite. And I' ; ve been to maybe half of them. |00:07:06| BRODY That' ; s really interesting. |00:07:08| REINHART Because a lot of them are very old school and very, you know, traditional American and especially white American food. Chicken fried steaks or ice cream sundaes or whatnot. And I just haven' ; t had the chance. |00:07:28| BRODY And it sounds like because you' ; re driven by curiosity and what' ; s interesting to you, that maybe you' ; ve been doing some- exploring some other things. So today, how would you characterize the food landscape in Dallas? |00:07:44| REINHART I tell other people in the business there' ; s probably there' ; s almost no other city that I' ; d rather be in and write about the food in. Dallas is an extraordinarily rich and diverse city for its food. We have all kinds of- we have more or less everything you could want. And we also don' ; t have a lot of people covering it. We don' ; t have the reputation for it. So it' ; s kind of free rein. I have the ability to cover all these things that nobody else is talking about and talk about them as much as they want to. It' ; s-it' ; s a treat, you know, I could, I' ; m sure, go to New York or Los Angeles and enjoy, you know, the superior offerings that they may have, but they also know about it, they know that they have great food, they have many, many writers who are covering it. They have television programs about it. They have documentaries. And we don' ; t have any of that. So it' ; s kind of like, it' ; s like exploring. It' ; s really fun. |00:08:47| BRODY Why do you think Dallas doesn' ; t have that reputation? |00:08:51| REINHART We' ; ve- our food scene has been dominated by corporate run concepts for a long time. And it is known nationally as- for two things, one of them is the creation of chain restaurants, you know, we originated Chili' ; s, we have the headquarters for that' ; s I think Brinker, the Olive Garden people. I might be getting that wrong. It might be the Red Lobster people or- no, the Red Lobster and Olive Garden are the same people. Anyway, the first thing, we' ; re dominant. We have a national reputation for chains and producing and distributing chains. Oh, Fuddruckers, that was us too. Now it' ; s headquartered out of Houston. But the second thing is, I think also that kind of cowboy steak thing is what established our reputation nationally. Our only two James Beard Award winners for Best Chef in the United States |Southwest| have been Stephan Pyles and Dean Fearing, who are boomer generation men who became famous for steaks and, you know, southwestern food and big, hearty portions of really big, rich meals with lots of, you know, peppers and vegetables and slabs of meat. And I think that' ; s affected our reputation ever since. I don' ; t think really it' ; s...I don' ; t think that the changes that have happened in the last 20, 30 years have been noticed outside of Dallas until pretty recently. |00:10:22| BRODY Yeah, why do you think so? Why do you think that' ; s the case? Any theories? |00:10:27| REINHART We' ; re not America' ; s favorite city to start with. I think. We fly under the radar because we are kind of ugly. We don' ; t really have tourist attractions. You know, when people are talking about where should we go? You know, you can say, Oh, let' ; s go to Dallas to see where JFK was assassinated, right? You know, when my family visits, I have a hard time finding places to take them. And you know, people know us for the airport. People know us for being a stop on the journey to somewhere nicer. People know us for economic opportunity, but not necessarily culture or having beaches or mountains or any of those things. So it' ; s been pretty easy for us to slip by under the radar. I think actually the same thing happened down in Houston until about 2010, when people like Anthony Bourdain and the Food Network started finally noticing that Houston was really, really exciting and diverse and full of different people doing different things and pursuing their own crazy ideas. We' ; re very similar. We' ; re just five to 10 years behind in the perception. |00:11:42| BRODY Do you think that same pattern will hold? And do you think Dallas is about to be discovered? |00:11:48| REINHART I think so. I think our time is coming. I think it helped that the magazine Bon Appetit called us the Restaurant City of the Year in 2019. Now, their previous winner was Portland, Maine. So, you know, there is a little bit of arbitrariness to that. But we had a lot of momentum. And of course, the pandemic has affected that momentum pretty significantly. But I think that the people here, the restaurateurs here, the chefs here, are ready to take that momentum right back. I think they' ; re ready to keep going. So, you know, in the media, I think we feel a sense of purpose to help them keep that going and help keep us in the spotlight. |00:12:34| BRODY Yeah, that' ; s a good point. The sort of the relationship between food media and the people who own and run restaurants...What do you- how would you characterize that relationship and even the responsibilities? |00:12:53| REINHART Yeah, it' ; s a two part relationship. I see us as being consumer advocates first, so we act in the same way that, you know, Consumer Reports would or any other, any other group that' ; s standing up for the customer. But then I also see us as standing up for the restaurant owners and restaurant industry in the national context, in the statewide context, and, you know, in the marketplace. So it' ; s a challenge. It' ; s a balance to be kind of an encouraging and a cheerleader, but also to make sure that people are accountable and they' ; re not, you know, outrageously bilking customers or stealing recipes or exploiting labor, et cetera. |00:13:40| BRODY Right? That' ; s really interesting. That kind of.. I' ; m going to ask you...In Dallas in particular in the past few years and you alluded to COVID already. People in the food industry have faced a number of challenges, starting with the tornado in 2019. That hit a lot of a lot of people in Dallas, but certainly some restaurants as well. Then COVID shortly thereafter and then the labor shortages and challenges that with supply chain that have come since then. What are, you know, in light of all that, are there any anecdotes or observations or reflections that you have about this, those patterns? |00:14:24| REINHART I' ; m amazed people are still serving food. I' ; m amazed that people are still walking into this industry, but I' ; m more so, I' ; m impressed that it hasn' ; t turned into corporate big business like I expected at the start of the pandemic, we were very afraid that everybody would kind of fail on their lease and then all the big chains and big investment companies would take up all of the leases and all those little guys and convert them into the next, you know, Applebee' ; s or whatnot. And it turns out everybody has been suffering more or less equally. And in fact, a lot of those big chains have been suffering more so than the little independent restaurants, which is not something that we expected. |00:15:09| BRODY Interesting. |00:15:10| REINHART Yeah. |00:15:10| BRODY Why? Why do you think that it turned out that way? |00:15:14| REINHART I' ; m not sure. I mean, I could have theories, but I could also be completely wrong, right? I know restaurant owners have told me that after the shutdowns happened, when people were able to come back, they thought people wanted to come back for a real experience that you couldn' ; t have at home. Right? So Korean barbecue is booming right now. I think it' ; s probably Korean barbecue and Chinese hotpot are probably two of the most successful sectors in the food industry right now, and they' ; re opening very, very regularly. You know, Haidilao in Frisco is a Chinese chain. My father has been to locations in China, several of them, and he was very excited about it because apparently it' ; s very high end and posh hotpot. But they were having two hour waits in line and people were waiting in line for two hours. The first few months when they opened, he, my father, came and I said, " ; Oh, I' ; ll take you there." ; And I looked it up. And you know, it had been open for several months already and people were saying, You really need to call, put your name on a list because they' ; re overrun. And then our Korean barbecue scene has probably doubled just this year and last year. I was talking to the owners of Koryo... |I' ; m going to take a little break and start over.| Koryo was previously known as Koryo Kalbi, and that restaurant then had a previous name in a previous ownership, and it existed since at least the mid 1990s. It' ; s one of the oldest Korean restaurant institutions in the Dallas area and. I believe, but I can' ; t be certain that the previous owner died of non-COVID reasons during the pandemic. |00:17:11| BRODY Oh no. |00:17:13| REINHART And at the time was apparently in the middle of the sale to the new ownership, which is really unfortunate. He apparently had plans to sell and then they would reopen pretty much immediately. But a lot of legal hassle and legal trouble ensued over the estate, and they were recently able to reopen. And now I need to remember where I was going with this. But they recently reopened, and they changed the format kind of from a traditional Korean restaurant with all sorts of like- all the soups and the noodles and so forth to being more of a steak house. They actually dry aged meat. They got one of those really fancy dry aging fridges where they can store meat for up to 120 days before they serve it for the barbecue. Yeah, they' ; re putting in a wine list and a wine cellar. They' ; re doing happy hours with oysters. It' ; s a very upscale experience, and they told me that they thought people really wanted to come out and have that shared experience of a night that' ; s really an event, not just, you know, well I can sit at home and order a pizza, or I can go out with all of my friends and we could grill fancy dry aged meat that we don' ; t have access to at home. And we could drink a bunch of wine and have a bunch of oysters shucked for us and so on. |00:18:38| BRODY And have that communal experience. And so it sounds like what you' ; re saying is that that one effect of COVID and some of these other challenges is that people are looking for something different in their night out. |00:18:54| REINHART Yeah, I think there' ; s definitely a changed expectation for the experience. They also put in at Koryo, dimmer switches for all the lights in the private dining rooms, which there are six or seven of and dimmer switches for the music. So if you think it' ; s too loud, you can go up to the doorway and turn the volume down. |00:19:17| BRODY And these are private rooms that you could just have your own group. |00:19:20| REINHART Yeah, you can have a table for four or six in there. |00:19:22| BRODY Yeah, yeah, that seems like it' ; s a balance between, you know, being with other people in a restaurant setting, but also just being with your own intimate party as well. It' ; s really interesting. |00:19:35| REINHART I talked to another restaurant owner. Sorry. Now this is this is more of a corporate group. This is not a small or even Asian owned property. But he told me that during the pandemic, their pizza place did record business and never died down and never had a problem. But everything else did, of course. And now they' ; re kind of...They are also trying to capture that experiential feel. They' ; re doing, it' ; s a, like a yacht, marina, San Diego themed restaurant where they have TVs, but the TV' ; s don' ; t show sports, the TV shows like pictures of beaches and sea anemones and all these are like cute, vibrant coral type colors. And you know, the cocktails are themed and everything is themed. |00:20:27| BRODY So to feel like you' ; ve transported yourself somewhere else,. |00:20:30| REINHART You' ; re no longer in your home office. |00:20:33| BRODY That' ; s really interesting. So how would you characterize the food landscape in Dallas today? |00:20:40| REINHART I think we have one of the best and most diverse food landscapes in the country. I think probably top 10. What I usually tell people is six or seventh. I think that we are- we have grown in certain ways in the past five to 10 years. We' ; ve grown in the middle class sector, especially. I think that there' ; s always been a very healthy scene for people who have a lot of money to spend and a lot of prestige to acquire through their dining, so to speak. And I think we' ; ve always done fairly well down at the more working class end with barbecue and burgers and various nationalities expressing themselves. Tacos. But we' ; ve really seen a stronger development of kind of the middle class areas, places where you might go for a date night or also we' ; re starting to see the second generation of a lot of immigrant families who are opening places that have a little more style or a consistent, like a design aesthetic, or they pay attention to plating or something like that. And that' ; s become. Very apparent in a lot of Southeast Asian and South Asian cuisines, I think especially so that' ; s a very interesting development. |00:22:02| BRODY Really interesting. And some people say that restaurants, especially restaurants that represent a particular nationality or a different culture, can serve as a hub for the communities. Has that been your observation of restaurants in Dallas, whether Asian or not. |00:22:22| REINHART Oh, absolutely. In my neighborhood, we have a Mexican restaurant in Oak Cliff, where everybody comes for Cowboys games. If you go Sunday at 12 noon, nobody will be eating lunch. The restaurant will be empty. And then if you come Sunday at 2:00 p.m. when the game starts, every single table is full. Everybody has brought a case of very cheap beer and you know, the restaurant has become absolutely a center for community togetherness over the Dallas Cowboys. And that' ; s true I know in a lot of cultures. I think that a lot of, for example, Nalinh Market started out as a grocery store for Southeast Asian and especially Lao people and became a Lao community hub. They started to ask the owner, " ; Well, can' ; t we stay? Can' ; t you make us some food? And then we can stay here and talk to you?" ; And she started off with a Bunsen burner and she would cook meals over a Bunsen burner so that people could stay and chat and have that sense of togetherness, togetherness...Yeah. I mean, there are many more examples. I think that a lot of Middle Eastern restaurants do a remarkable job of that because they also have charitable sides. If you' ; re. Not able to afford a meal. You can still come and eat, and you don' ; t have to worry about paying. Bilad Bakery in Richardson does that. I think, I think there are quite a few others in Richardson and Plano who do that. |00:24:08| BRODY And what about also we' ; ve just talked about restaurant serving as hubs for their own communities, but also as bridges. And maybe your Dallas Cowboys story is an indication of that. But are there ways that you' ; ve observed that that restaurants serve as bridges between different communities or different cultures here in Dallas? |00:24:34| REINHART OK, that' ; s a good one. And just that bridges that I wasn' ; t able to think about it. Well, I have one example that I immediately think of. In...it was, let' ; s see, in December 2016. I was thinking about what restaurants to review in the new year and particularly what restaurants to review after the beginning of the new presidential term at that time. And I chose to do, I think it was 10 in a row immigrant run restaurants that were not- Western Europe, it didn' ; t count. It couldn' ; t be French. That couldn' ; t be Italian, they couldn' ; t be Spanish. And one of them was Bilad Bakery, the Iraqi restaurant in Richardson. And I became concerned because then the travel ban started where people from Iraq could not travel to the U.S. and I started thinking, " ; Well, if maybe if I publish this, something bad will happen to them," ; or somebody will mark them out and say, " ; Look, that' ; s where the Iraqi people are." ; You know that there might be some harm that might come to them of that in that political climate that was prevailing at the time. But instead, it became our most read restaurant review ever at the time. And a community organizer came from New York to do sort of a protest dinner to raise awareness about the travel ban and about communities from travel banned countries. And they arranged for the dinner to happen at that restaurant, and they arranged it was going to be basically like there was going to be one dinner on a....whichever night it was...Thursday night and you know, they were going to seat 40 people and because that was the restaurant' ; s capacity. And that would be the whole thing, that was it. It sold out so quickly that they added a second seating. They had dinners at six and eight and then further they had to go out and rent a bunch of tables and chairs. They rented plastic, you know, bulk. I think it' ; s Lifetime brand tables and chairs. And that night, you know, that was that was the most customers they' ; d ever had. Obviously, it was, you know, they seated more than their capacity twice. Almost all those people had never been there before. I think I was probably one of two to three people who' ; d ever been there before at all. And, you know, I think almost everybody became a regular. That' ; s still the number one place that people ask me about or tell me about. Like somebody stopped me in a grocery store line and said, I still go to that place in Richardson. And that was- that came from that dinner. You know, nobody there was in that community at all. |00:27:38| BRODY Right. So that built a whole new clientele and a whole new set of connections. |00:27:42| REINHART Right. |00:27:43| BRODY And I know they still have your review hanging above the cash register. |00:27:47| REINHART It' ; s kind of enormous. |00:27:49| BRODY It' ; s very big. |00:27:51| REINHART One of their friends did that. For them, that was a their friend owns a print shop and they did that for free and gave it to them as a gift. |00:27:57| BRODY It' ; s really nice and it' ; s a great review as well. |00:28:00| REINHART Yeah, so you can' ; t you can' ; t blame them for how huge it is. |00:28:03| BRODY No, not at all. And that' ; s a really. That' ; s a great story and a great. |00:28:11| REINHART Oh, I have another. |00:28:11| BRODY Connection between this, you know, the community organizing and the restaurant review. Go ahead. |00:28:18| REINHART Yeah. Well, I was talking to Joseph Be, I think is his name from Apsara- a-p-s-a-r-a, which is a new or newish- its a year old- Cambodian food court stall in Grand Prairie. And he was talking about how he wanted to use the restaurant as that bridge to make those connections to bring more kind of awareness of Cambodian food community. And he used the example of the way that Khao Noodle Shop and Nalinh Market have been able to do that for Lao food in Dallas. He said, You know, five years ago, nobody knew what Laos was, where it was anything about the food outside of the immediate community, outside of actual, you know, Southeast Asian people in the area. And now they do. And now they' ; ll go to Khao and they' ; ll eat the bowl, and now they' ; ll go to the Nalinh and get the Nam Khao or something like that. So he said, Well, I' ; m planning to do the same thing for Cambodia. There' ; s no reason that Cambodia can' ; t have that same success that Laos had. And because our food is delicious, too, was essentially his feeling. So he started off and it is called, I think it is called " ; Thai and Cambodian." ; And he said, Well, you have to put the " ; Thai" ; in there because people know Thai food is. And that' ; s the same story that has happened with a lot of the Lao restaurants. They all say, like Sikhay in Fort Worth, they all say " ; Lao" ; and " ; Thai" ; in the title. And he said, " ; Well, someday maybe we' ; ll be able to drop the Thai and people will know and they' ; ll be coming for the Cambodian food, but we' ; re not there yet," ; but he said, " ; maybe in a couple of years. We will be. And maybe there will be competition and people will learn from the competition and they' ; ll see, oh, there, you know, six or seven different Cambodian restaurants now and become more familiar that way." ; |00:30:14| BRODY Right. And using that, the Thai as an entry and entry way for people to sort of know it' ; s kind of like this... |00:30:22| REINHART A really common thread that I' ; ve observed in immigrant communities like that is that they really, really want competition. And they' ; re always very happy to have competition because they always tell me a rising tide lifts all boats, right? The more people know what Lao food is, the more people will go out and order it, and they don' ; t care if you' ; re ordering it from their restaurant or somebody else' ; s restaurant. The more they you know what larb is, the more that you know what all these other dishes are, the more that you' ; re going to want them. Right, right? And that was their thinking. You know, they want to be like Italian food. They don' ; t want to be the only one. |00:30:58| BRODY Right? And also, you know, to communicate with each other and make those choices about what you know, what you' ; re putting on the menu and what you' ; re exposing other people to from your own culture and sort of share the responsibility in the work. Thank you for that. Can you describe some of your most memorable experiences as a food writer in Dallas? |00:31:24| REINHART OK? |00:31:25| BRODY You' ; ve described a few really great stories on |00:31:27| REINHART Done a few already. I feel like it would be very easy to like go down the negative road of times that crazy things have happened, but... |00:31:42| BRODY Whichever, whichever direction you' ; d like to go in. |00:31:44| REINHART Let' ; s see. I don' ; t know, I mean, I think I' ; ll probably come up with a really good answer 20 minutes from now. |00:31:56| BRODY That' ; s OK. Well, we can come back to that. But let' ; s shift gears and talk about food writing in general. What is your philosophy around food writing? |00:32:08| REINHART Oh, OK. I think I' ; m more of a descriptive person than a prescriptive person, and despite the title being " ; critic" ; you know that generally is associated with the idea that you should be telling people, " ; Well, the pasta is overcooked and the you know this and that, and here is where you should be eating." ; I see it more as documenting where people go and what they' ; re having and what they want. And kind of observing things in a more, in a more neutral way? No that' ; s not right. I don' ; t know...I' ; ll have to think about that, but I see it more as approaching the city where it is rather than wishing it were a little bit more like somewhere else. And I think also I had another thought. I' ; m interested in going beyond the food also, right? Going beyond the plate, food can be used to talk about culture. It can be used to talk about politics and law. It can be used to talk about history, certainly, and those things also have a lot of interest for me. Obviously, it' ; s great that delicious food is delicious, but you can also learn about the neighborhood and the people and the culture. I think actually some of the Asian restaurants in old east Dallas are really important to that because that is a neighborhood where a lot of people were settled right after they came to the country in the 1970s, and since then, a lot of them have moved out to the suburbs and kind of gone to Garland or Plano or wherever. But there are a couple of originals still down there. And I know you' ; re going to be talking to some of them are trying to talk to. |00:34:20| BRODY Hope so. |00:34:20| REINHART But that, you know, for somebody who doesn' ; t know, they may just think, Oh, cool, it' ; s cool that we have a Vietnamese restaurant in, you know, on Ross or whichever street it is. But that is a real link to our past and that a real piece of Dallas history, you know, it' ; s something that speaks to something the way that things were going 40 years ago and the way that the neighborhood was. |00:34:43| BRODY Exactly, and sort of the story of the changing face of Dallas. |00:34:48| REINHART Mm-Hmm. |00:34:50| BRODY What is the goal of a restaurant review, in your view? |00:34:55| REINHART Oh, OK. That' ; s a really good question. I think probably traditionally the goal of a restaurant review is to tell people where to go and where not to go, right? I think that my thought is a little different. I want you to be able to come away from the restaurant review, knowing whether you want to go there, regardless of how I felt. So I think it is totally possible that I might not like a place and but you' ; re going to think it' ; s great. So I try to convey that or the opposite that, you know, maybe I' ; m getting carried away here. Just, just last week, we went to a place and it was fabulous and it was perfect and we went crazy for it. And my partner said, " ; You have to write a review of this" ; after about three bites. But we also had had a couple of beers. So we' ; re going back on Tuesday sober this time to visit because it' ; s I think it' ; s very subjective in general. And, you know, there are parts of it that always will be, you know, I could say, well, the food is really spicy. That doesn' ; t really help you at all. You know, my mother can' ; t really handle spicy food at all, and she thinks that a single jalapeno is terrifying. And then, you know, you have people on the other end of the spectrum. I have friends who will go to the Thai restaurants and they' ; ll ask for something to be level six or whatever, like, Oh, you have five levels, OK, I want the sixth level, so I don' ; t think that' ; s really... So I try to write around those issues and I try to write so that, you know, you can make your own judgment at the end. But also, I want to say I feel like going back to the very original question, which was the point of a restaurant review. I think also we' ; re painting a picture, right? I think we' ; re painting like a big group portrait of the city and its dining. It' ; s like a 1700s painting, like the painting of the Greek philosophers on the steps- or I mean, maybe even a painting of the Last Supper or whatever. Because as the critic, you' ; re deciding who gets in the frame of the picture and who gets left out of the frame of the picture and with each review, you' ; re kind of incrementally building a case, it' ; s, you know, it' ; s a one off in the sense that you' ; re telling people where to go. But cumulatively, hopefully you' ; re building a body of work and you' ; re building an argument and you' ; re painting that picture. And that' ; s kind of been my project for the last five years has been kind of reframing it and getting more people in there. |00:37:45| BRODY What would you say is your argument in a nutshell? |00:37:52| REINHART Oh, OK. I think I' ; d say my argument in nutshell is you got to come down to Dallas and try all of this amazing stuff and that you need to be looking, not necessarily in the places and neighborhoods that you would expect to be looking. You know, you can eat for a week here outstandingly without ever going downtown or to uptown. And you can eat outstandingly without ever having a meal that costs more than $70 or whatever. And there' ; s things...new things happening all the time. You know, come on down. Visit us. |00:38:35| BRODY I love hearing about your you' ; re thinking in your process. Just want to follow that up with what qualities do you think make a good restaurant critic? |00:38:44| REINHART Oh, OK. Well, I' ; ve been watching a lot of TV shows like Psych, where the restaurant critic gets murdered and then they have to solve. [Alarm goes off] And then they have to solve the case, right? I think there' ; s generally a perception, at least in trashy television murder mysteries. There' ; s a perception that restaurant critics are either on the take or just kind of mean or kind of playing a game or, you know, toying with people the way that like a cat might catch a mouse and play with it before it eats it. You know, there was there was one on the Mallorca Files where, like the restaurant critic comes in with all of his chef buddies and then like yells at the chef who works at the restaurant says, like, " ; Well, we need these 27 different accommodations and substitutions." ; And then of course, somebody poisons him. But, you know, I don' ; t think it' ; s like that at all. I think you need to have humility and basic decency and niceness, actually, because, you know, if you' ; re going to be delivering bad news and saying unkind things or saying critical things, and it needs to be coming from a place of constructive feedback and a place of empathy and a place of, you know, genuinely trying to help. There are a couple of places that may be well beyond our help. There may be, you know, genuine rip offs out there. It happens every once in a while. But other than that, you know, you have to you have to care and have heart and you have to know what a restaurant can take. I don' ; t think...I think I learned very early on it' ; s not worth it to write harshly about small mom and pops, because without you, they wouldn' ; t have a lot of publicity anyways. So they don' ; t. They don' ; t. They certainly don' ; t need negative publicity is not going to help them, you know, change or improve or. Or survive. |00:41:08| BRODY It seems like that ties back into your sort of philosophy around food writing in the first place that it' ; s not really to tell people where to go, but to paint a picture. |00:41:19| REINHART Yeah. I think also a good critic, obviously should be super curious. Right? That' ; s something that I' ; ve been--that was something I was lucky enough to start with, but also, you know, I have a research background. So for example, one time I was reviewing a restaurant and I didn' ; t understand how the dishes worked, so to speak, how you prepare them. It was Too Thai Street Eats in Carrollton, which is fabulous. They have they have like a really crispy fried pancakes with mussels in them, which are fabulous. They, the " ; fried-ness" ; is very hard to describe. It' ; s very bubbly. Like, I don' ; t even know. I mean, it' ; s not like a pancake or anything. It' ; s...very airy and light. Except when you hit a mussel. But so, I didn' ; t know how on earth do you do that? So I went out and started buying cookbooks so I could read through the book and then go to the restaurant and see like, Oh, OK, well, they followed this and that taste I was getting was this thing in the cookbook. |00:42:32| BRODY That' ; s really above and beyond. |00:42:34| REINHART Yeah, yeah. They didn' ; t pay me back for the cookbook either. |00:42:37| BRODY That' ; s a bummer. Oh, something that when I think about restaurant reviewers and food writers, I wonder what has been the impact on the way that you do your work of the internet and the advent of sort of online, crowdsourced, you know, Yelp and things like that? Has that changed how you approach restaurant reviewing? |00:43:08| REINHART Only a little bit, I think people are surprised when I say that because they expect the answer to be, well, it' ; s, you know, an existential crisis. And that' ; s true in the sense that we' ; re probably not getting paid very much anymore because the internet exists. But for me personally, when I am doing research, I use the photos that people post on Yelp and I use the photos and kind of news items that are put in Facebook groups. There are some excellent Facebook groups that are great resources in the Dallas area. " ; Asian Grub" ; of course, and then " ; Dallas Halal Restaurant Reviews," ; which is also a source of just amazing drama. They are fighting all the time. They are yelling at each other and actually related to something we' ; ve alluded to in a past conversation. They sometimes will just switch to Urdu so they can yell at each other in the comment section. It' ; s fantastic, but... |00:44:08| BRODY It sounds amazing. |00:44:09| REINHART I use photos because I think you can see, you know what you' ; re going to be getting and how much care the restaurant is putting into it. The reviews are almost worthless. You don' ; t know. I mean, some of the things that we' ; ve talked about already, you don' ; t know. What their experience level is. You don' ; t know what they know about the food they' ; re talking about. You don' ; t know how spicy they can take things or how sweet or how salty, etcetera. And a lot of times, you know, those are vengeful, one star, " ; Well, they told me to wear a mask." ; . |00:44:44| BRODY Right? |00:44:44| REINHART You know, I think that if anything. It means I' ; m more aware of the way that my work affects people in the industry because I think people in the industry are wary of those platforms, and they have a little bit of fear about, you know, what could happen if people on Yelp decide to tank us and destroy our reputation, right? But for genuine, honest, serious feedback, they' ; re looking to the professionals. They know they can' ; t really trust what people on Yelp say and in terms of like, " ; Oh, am I getting this recipe right?" ; Let me, you know, let me look on Yelp. And, you know, influencers and people on Instagram and something like that. Same story. So they look to the professionals even more, I think, for, you know, some of that genuine, honest like...Oh...some of that genuine desire to improve. Right? I did have a case where there was a restaurant that was changing the recipe. Every time somebody on Yelp, somebody said something, I went and looked at their page and you know, people, the restaurants are allowed to reply and they' ; re replying to all these reviews saying, " ; So sorry, thank you. We' ; re going to change our recipe." ; And all I could think was, you know, how on earth do they maintain any consistency from week to week because they' ; re going to have somebody coming in every single day and are going to be changing it every single day? |00:46:16| BRODY Right. |00:46:16| REINHART And, you know, a month from now, what on earth are they going to be making? They' ; re going to have no idea, right? They were only open about five months. |00:46:27| BRODY Wow. Yeah, I mean, hard to please everybody. You know, and the the loudest people are the ones that are really leaving the review. Just from a nuts and bolts sort of process perspective, what are you looking for like when you walk into a restaurant or when you decide you' ; re going to and to, you know, to review a certain place? |00:46:52| REINHART Does that include how I decide to? OK, cool. Well, because it' ; s very fluid, actually. And you know, for example, last week with the aid of those beers, we decided, Oh, we gotta, we gotta punch this one into the schedule somewhere soon, right? But generally, I think I probably spend more time deciding where to go than actually going there. I think I' ; m, you know, I look at new openings and new listings. Actually, Yelp is a little bit helpful for the " ; hot to new" ; filter, which is their filter that shows you new openings. The only problem is that they don' ; t show you new openings, or I should say they' ; re I think they' ; re pretty much customer reported. And Yelp is more popular among certain races and demographics. So, for example, Black restaurant openings in South Dallas, Black owned restaurant openings in South Dallas almost never get reported on Yelp. So that is something I have to find other ways. Anyway, I scour the internet in general, looking for new openings all across the region, and then I kind of build the schedule based on diversity. So that' ; s regional. Like, OK, I did something in Oak Cliff. Now I' ; m going to try to do something up north in Plano. And then I, you know, after I do something in Plano, maybe I' ; ll try to go to Irving or East Dallas or something like that. And then that' ; s also price points. We don' ; t want to do three expensive places in a row for either budget reasons or, you know, reader reasons. Culinary diversity also. Every year I try to do, you know, one or two Korean places. A few Hispanic places try to keep the mix resembling what I perceive to be the mix of the food in Dallas. We had to overcorrect at the beginning, I think, because, you know, everybody had talked about all of the really famous places downtown and all of the, you know, kind of good old traditional places downtown. So I overcorrected for a few years and spent all of my time in the suburbs and spent all my time eating, you know, a little hole in the wall and little lesser known places or places that were not very well known outside of their immediate community. But now I think I can try to... I can try to authentically capture some of the city' ; s diversity without forcing it, without having quotas, without having, you know, strict rules about, well, I can only do one fancy restaurant a month or whatever. |00:49:47| BRODY Right? So balancing a desire to kind of represent all different styles and types and price points with sort of the natural flow of what' ; s opening and what' ; s, you know... |00:49:59| REINHART Yeah. So that is actually that is a bit of contention is that, you know, a lot of them have to be newish, right? And just the way that it works is that the newish places that get a lot of attention and get a lot of hype are places that have professional PR people who can email all the media members. Right? So then there becomes an expectation. Oh, well, you' ; re going to review this place, right? Because everybody is talking about this place because it more or less self-generated all of that story, right? And I think for a long time, I think for a long time, restaurant critics were kind of hamstrung by that. The fact that there was this machine kind of determining notability of new openings, but perhaps fortunately, I just didn' ; t know. I didn' ; t know that was the thing, I wasn' ; t part of the system, so, you know, I thought, " ; Well, hey, I- part of the privilege of this job is I get to decide what' ; s a notable new opening." ; And it' ; s harder to find places that don' ; t have the PR backing. It' ; s harder to find places to, you know, they don' ; t really know how to get the word out. They- I' ; ve had a couple of cases where they thought that we were advertising and like, I ran a review last year and the person texted me and said, " ; Thanks for the great ad." ; And you know, there are places that only know how to use Facebook if that or, you know, right? They can' ; t, they don' ; t have a website. So it' ; s a challenge to find them. But then of course, it becomes much more rewarding to say, " ; Hey, look, here' ; s something that' ; s really important that just opened that you need to go to. And also, you don' ; t know about it yet." ; |00:51:48| BRODY Right? That' ; s yeah, that you' ; re a little bit of an explorer, pioneer in that sense. |00:51:55| REINHART I mean, yeah, and I' ; m not really a pioneer, but I think the magician, Teller has a really great quote about how a lot of the time magic is spending more time on something than anybody would reasonably expect you to spend. OK, so if you' ; re, you know, if you' ; re spending hours of your week looking for a cool new restaurant, then going and trying them, I think a lot of people are not expecting that level of intensity. |00:52:21| BRODY Right? That' ; s I mean, it' ; s true. It takes...even with the tools of the internet and all of that, it' ; s, you know, it takes work to find something new, something different, something off the beaten path. So. This kind of relates to another thing that comes up a lot when we talk about especially restaurants that are representing foods of other cultures, you know, the PR ,sort of corporate machine that you were alluding to a second ago that, you know, where a well-known, well-funded restaurant might have publicists and so on. You know, they can portray that restaurant as authentic or as this or that, whereas the, you know, mom and pop shop that, you know, may or may not be more authentic that, you know, doesn' ; t necessarily have that kind of public relations behind them. How would you just sort of describe your experience of this question of authenticity when it comes, especially to restaurants? You know, Asian restaurants or other restaurants from other parts of the world? |00:53:39| REINHART I know I just use the word in a different context, but I don' ; t really actually like the word " ; authentic" ; and I think it' ; s because, you know, everybody' ; s authentic experience is different. You know, my mother makes Turkish food one way, and all of her friends make things a little bit differently, and they' ; re always begging her for certain recipes. Her red lentil soup, they' ; re always asking what she did differently to make it so much better. And I think restaurants can probably use that too sometimes. But. And then I was talking to, just a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to somebody from New Orleans who works for chef Tiffany Derry at Roots Southern Table, which is Tiffany Derry' ; s very excellent and very acclaimed, kind of upscale or creative or imaginative southern place. And Tiffany Derry is from Beaumont, and she was telling me, well, her gumbo is different from mine. And at first she said, " ; Well, mine' ; s more authentic." ; And then I kind of I asked her to explain it a little bit differently, and she said, " ; Well, actually, you know, in New Orleans, we just make gumbo a little bit differently. And in Beaumont, they have different ways and they have a different recipe for preparation of gumbo. And then Chef DAT, David Anthony Temple, he' ; s from Baton Rouge, and they make gumbo differently there, too. And his gumbo is different from both of us. And you know, it' ; s only an hour and 15 minutes up the highway, but they' ; ve got a whole different style of gumbo there." ; And I think when you start talking about " ; authentic," ; you' ; re always going to run into that. I think I have learned to filter out a lot of the conversation, even within a community online, because when they' ; re saying, " ; Well, this is not authentic," ; they may well be saying, " ; You know, this is not the way my grandmother did it. This is the way your grandmother did it." ; Of course, the challenge is that then you run into places that genuinely may not be. They may be intentionally Americanized or otherwise playing to the crowd or not fully respectful of the rules. I think I was just reading something from a chef in San Francisco, Brandon Jiu, who' ; s in Chinatown, Mister Jiu' ; s is a very acclaimed restaurant there. And he was talking about how if you learn the culture and if you learn the rules and you respect them, then when you break them, you' ; ll be better at it. And that' ; s kind of what I come back to with the question of authenticity, I guess, is I come back to...Are you showing adequate respect? Do you really genuinely engage with the tradition, do you understand what the tradition is and then is your variation or your invention or your crazy idea- if it comes off of that- Is it delicious? |00:56:45| BRODY Bottom line. |00:56:45| REINHART Yeah. I mean, honestly, that' ; s really the best way to show respect or care for a culture is to make it be good. I think if you if you want to say, for example, you' ; re a white person and you want to make Thai food or whatever, if you' ; re not so good, maybe find something else to do. |00:57:08| BRODY Right. Well, and that kind of brings us right into this. You know, the other side of the coin, I guess, about appropriation. Right? So if you know you' ; re- what -if I' ; ve understood what you' ; ve said that the idea of authenticity to you is rooted in respect because even within a culture, there might be different versions of different foods that are equally authentic. But when? When does appropriation or what you know, what counts as appropriation to you or is that even a thing when we' ; re talking about food? |00:57:47| REINHART It is, I think, from a purely from a writer standpoint, from a rhetorical standpoint, I actually avoid using that word too, because I don' ; t want to lose any readers and because I try to reduce things, this is going to sound condescending, but I try to reduce things to a kindergarten type of level of language. So I try to reduce things down to, you know, " ; respect," ; " ; listening," ; you know, reserve your judgment or use your judgments, things like that that we all learned in school. Because I think a lot of the time issues of appropriation come back to that. You know, if I decide I' ; m going to open a restaurant and put bacon cheeseburgers into spring rolls or something, I' ; m not really doing my homework. I' ; m not really thinking too carefully about it. I' ; m probably not...If I' ; m coming from a place where I love spring rolls, I might be doing that only superficially. I might not be, you know, actually learning how to make them, you know, training with somebody or, you know, buying all of the cookbooks to study spring roll creation and figure out how to stick bacon cheeseburgers into there in a good way. This is a real example, by the way. I should point out. |00:59:08| BRODY Is it real? |00:59:08| REINHART I had a...Yeah, I' ; ve had a...so they were deep fried, but they were called spring rolls. I know. In Vietnam, spring rolls can be fried. I don' ; t necessarily have to or maybe it' ; s oh, shoot. Man, people are going to judge me if they hear that it' ; s wrong. No, but anyway, the they' ; re much smaller, right? But yes, I had a cheeseburger spring roll. |00:59:31| BRODY Incredible. Was it good? Was it delicious? |00:59:33| REINHART It was.... It was....The flavor was good, but it was very greasy and the meat dried out pretty fast. So I guess when you roll it up and fried it, and then I think they' ; d already cooked the burger patty inside. So it got very dry and then the cheese just kind of like turn into ooze. But I mean, the flavors were, you know, burgerry. But I think they had just, you know, they had the idea and they hadn' ; t really done much of the homework that you might want to put into it. And I think that, you know, showing that respect and doing the research and being willing to listen and learn. It' ; s surprising how hard... I mean. Yeah, it' ; s surprising how hard some people find it to listen. You know, so that' ; s another one that I kind of come back to that can be an example. Actually, there was a brewery, Manhattan Project Beer, so their name is Manhattan Project and all their beer can names are related to science and particularly the Oppenheimer Project and the atomic bomb. They actually have a Hoppenheimer beer, which I think is kind of funny. |01:00:43| BRODY It is kind of funny. |01:00:45| REINHART But they also had a beer called Bikini Atoll, and it was a Gose, which is kind of a tart light summer beer with a fruit flavor in it. I think it' ; s like raspberry Gose and Bikini Atoll was selling well enough that the people who used to live on the Bikini Atoll found out about it, and they said...They sent a letter like the- I think it' ; s the Marshall Islands Minister of Tourism or something- sent a letter to them saying, " ; Hey, look, you know, we used to live on the Bikini Atoll, and when they started dropping atomic bombs there, everybody had to leave and most of those people wound up getting cancer. And the cancer rates in that community are 80 percent higher than- or whatever the number was- higher than the cancer rates in normal society. And you know, there are people who are still living with the after effects of that. You know, there are children who are born with defects who are still alive today, and there are older people who have had whatever problems because they were young people at the time. Can you please change your beer name to something else? Can you please change your beer name to something that doesn' ; t seem to celebrate, you know, all the misfortunes these people?" ; And they said, " ; No, we like the name, we' ; re keeping it. It sounds tropical and the beer is tropical. So no." ; And then, you know, there was kind of an uproar locally. There were a couple of news articles and there were debates on the internet and they said, " ; Look, we' ; re not changing the name of the beer and that' ; s final the end. We will not discuss this any further at any time." ; And that was it. And I thought, " ; Well, you know, certainly that is something where appropriation is an is an apt word to use because they' ; re taking that name from those people and using it to sell beer, to sell alcohol. But on the other hand, you know, we could reduce it to something even simpler. We could just say, like, " ; Look, these are people who didn' ; t want to listen. These are people who didn' ; t want to show a little bit of respect for the wishes of these people." ; So that was an example, one where I don' ; t think I use the word " ; appropriation" ; because it seemed like they were failing at just a much more basic level of human decency. |01:03:06| BRODY Right? Yeah. And the words definitely " ; authenticity" ; and " ; appropriation" ; have taken on something of a life of their own. You know, as I think you' ; re alluding to in trying to avoid using... |01:03:19| REINHART I think it' ; s very easy for somebody to see that and decide like, " ; Oh, he' ; s a political whatever" ; and then dismiss or attack me on that basis. You know, I' ; ve gotten emails accusing me of being a communist and all sorts of things. Right? |01:03:37| BRODY Really? |01:03:38| REINHART Yeah. We just ran a thing that was talking about how American income inequality might affect the restaurant business and how, you know, the fact that there is a small group of really, really wealthy people who can eat wherever they want, and the rest of us are having to save up our money a little bit- how that would affect the restaurant business and how that' ; s affecting the bottom lines of restaurants that don' ; t serve the super wealthy people. And yeah, that got a lot of reader emails being like, " ; Oh, you' ; re super lefty, whatever, whatever, whatever." ; So part of what I' ; m thinking with words even like " ; appropriation" ; is I know there' ; s culture wars going on and I want to see if I can... I want to see if I can affect somebody' ; s mind without saying what it' ; s about, you know? And of course, it might not work. They might. They might read the article and agree with me and then turn around to the next minute and disagree with everybody else making those same arguments because they see the word " ; appropriation" ; or something like that. |01:04:42| BRODY Yeah, it sounds like you' ; re saying that it' ; s a goal to you in your reviews and in your writing to be clear and to steer clear of being characterized in a certain way...just for using particular words. |01:04:59| REINHART I don' ; t think -I don' ; t think I care what people think of me. I think what I have learned is that there are certain words that can get people to tune out of your own ideas and substitute in what they think you' ; re going to say in exchange for what you' ; re actually going to say. There are certain words. I mean, I want to say that there are triggers, but of course, the word " ; trigger" ; is another one now. Because as soon as you hear that word, you know, you think, you know, you know- how it' ; s going to go and what people are going to say and what this side thinks and what that side thinks. And I just don' ; t want people to get replaying their the stuff they saw on television when they read the article, I want them to have to think a new independent thought and think something a little differently than the way they' ; ve been thinking about it all the previous times. |01:05:55| BRODY Great. It strikes me that a lot of the things that we' ; ve talked about today and the stories that you' ; ve shared are making me think about restaurant reviewing and writing- food writing in a different way, namely that, you know, it does sound like what sounds, it seems, I think, to, you know, in popular media and so on, like a, you know, a person is going out and eating and writing about it. You know, it goes a lot deeper in that you' ; re faced with, you know, in some cases, you know, politics-adjacent choices, some maybe overtly political, you know, things that you' ; re dealing with, like with the travel ban and the Bilad Bakery, you know, things like that. You know, issues of, you know, where you fit into the larger media ecosystem in terms of, you know, language and what you know what people might be coming with you- to your articles with. So do you have any reflections on sort of the deeper context of the work that you do? |01:07:05| REINHART I think that' ; s a I think it' ; s a gradual change, which has become a very rapid change very recently. I think that for a long time it was a really fun, easy job, you know, it really was that you just got to go out and eat and be catty about it. And I think a lot of people got to enjoy that. I think kind of during the late 90s bubble, especially people got to enjoying it rather too much, right? There are whole magazines that went belly up because the expenses they were handing out to people to travel and so forth were outrageous. And I know, not to officially name names on the record, but a predecessor at the Morning News got more money for expenses for going to restaurants and eating food and drinking wine than I got for my entire salary at that time. Like in the year, whichever year I might be talking about, you can do your own guessing. |01:08:04| BRODY Will do. |01:08:05| REINHART They were? They were. Yeah, they had more money to play with for expenses than I had money, period. And that was kind of, I mean, maybe at the time that was seen as a wise use of resources. But I think now it' ; s understood that that was a waste and frivolity. And now, especially so I started officially taking the title of restaurant critic, our food critic in May 2016, which means that I had absolutely no time to have fun before things really got real. Right, right? Especially as somebody who is, you know, the child of a Muslim immigrant to the United States. Already at that time, we knew there was going to be serious trouble. So already at the time, that was at the forefront of my thinking and I knew that, you know, all sorts of real life things are going to intrude on our lovely little job of going out to eat and talking about it. |01:09:07| BRODY Right. Dallas, is as you' ; ve alluded to already, sort of famous for these, like high end upscale places and has historically been, you know, home to many of those. And yet also, today' ; s landscape, as we' ; ve talked about, has, you know, a lot of family run businesses, family run restaurants and, you know, even now food trucks and things like that. What is what are your thoughts about that? Is there a tension between those two ends of the spectrum when we' ; re thinking about food in Dallas? |01:09:46| REINHART Yeah, I think that' ; s part of why our reputation has been so strange nationally is because, you know, most people, most tourists, most media members are looking for something a little bit in the middle of that. Generally. Obviously, food trucks are having and have been having their moment for a long time, but that' ; s generally the case. I think I' ; m going to willfully ignore your questions for a second and say like in the in the context of Asian food, particularly, our high end has had a very strange feature globally since the 90s. It' ; s become very popular to for white chefs, right French, especially to use some Asian flavors in their food, right, Jean-Georges and people like that are very big on, you know, " ; Well, we' ; re going to serve something with a butter sauce, but now the butter is going to have lemongrass too." ; That' ; s actually that' ; s a dish I had a couple of weeks ago somewhere, but anyway. Dallas has a kind of odd twist to that, which is, well, at least one of them is the combination sushi-steak house? Abacus is a good example. Abacus opened in the 1990s, I think, with Kent Rathbun as the chef in Uptown, and the whole idea was that he would cook great steaks like everybody in Dallas is expected to, and there' ; d be a full sushi bar with a sushi chef making rolls, specialty rolls. And that kind of became like an accepted format of restaurant here in Dallas to have Asian food kind of imported wholesale into Dallas high end cooking. There' ; s now a place downtown. I don' ; t think I remember the name of it. It' ; s in the Exchange Hall. I think that' ; s the name of it. It' ; s actually two restaurants. It actually is... You sit in a communal area like at a mall food court, but there are two fancy restaurants on either side of it, and one of them is a sushi bar owned by a white man, and the other one is a steakhouse. And so we' ; re still kind of doing that now. That. We... I don' ; t even know how you describe it, like it' ; s almost like a decoration. |01:12:07| BRODY Yeah, is that a... I don' ; t know? Is that a thing that happens in other cities too? Or is that a particular Dallas invention? The sushi-steakhouse? |01:12:15| REINHART I think there must be other ones? I' ; m sure that there are some in New York. I don' ; t know if it' ; s just that, like the media doesn' ; t really talk about them because they' ; re seen as very 90s and very over the hill. Right? So maybe I just don' ; t know about them, but I don' ; t know about them. I feel like I should google it now. |01:12:35| BRODY Well, so many food trends and restaurant trends seem to have started in Dallas and been sort of exported to other parts of the country. I just wondered if that was one that fell into that category. |01:12:46| REINHART Maybe. |01:12:46| BRODY To look into that? Well, that' ; s a perfect segue, then, to talk about Asian restaurants in Dallas and sort of...in the time that you' ; ve been here specifically, what are the changes you' ; ve noticed or trends or patterns in the Asian restaurant landscape? |01:13:07| REINHART Yeah, OK. I think for one thing, we have had for decades an amazing Japanese food scene, right? Partly because of one man, Teiichi Sakurai, who came over here and started opening new restaurants and basically populating them with his old friends and his old coworkers. And I think a couple of high school classmates. And they have gone on to build kind of a dynasty. He only owns two of them now, but the other ones are still going and they have different ownership and they' ; re mostly his friends. And then we have Mr. Sushi is really old, I think. But anyway, the idea is, I think, partly because of the airport. We' ; ve had so much better access than a lot of other inland and middle America cities to that really fresh seafood and to employers like Texas Instruments who are hiring a lot of people from those cultures. So we' ; re almost to the level of like Seattle in that regard. I know when I talked to people in the Korean community, they told me that the airport was a big reason that the Korean community is so big here because...And that' ; s why the other big Korean community between L.A. and New York is Atlanta, because Hartsfield is another gigantic airport, right? So they were very easily able to establish business and supply chains and business and community networks basically. |01:14:46| BRODY Really interesting. |01:14:47| REINHART They could easily get back home. I think that the arrival of...I think a lot of cultures arrive first in reality, and then they start to translate into the food scene a little later, right? And then sometimes it' ; s the reverse, I think. I think a lot of I think sometimes that' ; s a bad idea. I' ; m making things up. OK, so I' ; ll go back and I' ; ll say, you know, you know, for example, the Nepalese community came to Irving in the 1990s at the beginning, and then they' ; ve been coming ever since. I think there was some rule. In 1995, Congress passed some immigration reform, which lifted the quota on Nepal, particularly or maybe it was all the countries that they' ; d forgotten to do in the previous bill or something like that. And that was when they started coming to Dallas Fort Worth, and they' ; ve been coming in a steady stream ever since. And it started with one restaurant, which I think was Everest in Irving. And now we' ; re up to past the dozen mark. There' ; s a Nepalese sports bar with wings and TV, and they play cricket games on the television. There is, there are multiple Momo places in gas stations, and those are all relatively recent developments. I worked in Irving from 2012 through 2019 and the first few years, that wasn' ; t really an option to go get lunch. It wasn' ; t a thing that, you know, it wasn' ; t something that we had on our radar. And then Cafemandu and Momo To Go and whichever one the other one was- shoot- Momo Express? Can' ; t remember. I think it' ; s on the Chevron station at Northgate and Beltline, though. I know which gas station it is, I just don' ; t know the name of it. And oh, and there was another one on MacArthur that closed recently, but they all started opening up and to in like 2016, 2017. And that became one of the coolest and most fun kind of recent trends. Of course, Lao food has been around for a long time at places like Nalinh Market, Overseas Market, a lot of kind of traditional old grocery stores. But Donny at Khao Noodle Shop has taken it to a whole new place, right, and that' ; s gotten national reputation. There have been magazines, articles about him and about them, and he' ; s kind of...You wouldn' ; t say modern, but he cares about plating and he cares about making things from scratch. He makes the saku dumplings, the tapioca dumplings from scratch by cooking the tapioca and breaking it down, and it' ; s really intense. If you get to, just ask him how to make that as one of your questions. |01:17:53| BRODY I hope so. |01:17:57| REINHART And so that' ; s become kind of a...top to bottom dining scene out of its own, almost, you could say, like they' ; ve really very quickly gone from being little mom and pops to covering every part of the every sector of the market. You know, he recently was trying to open a very high end fancy tasting restaurant and didn' ; t get off the ground, but it was a possibility and it still is a possibility in the future, for sure. So that' ; s another good sign. I think there was something else I was going to say, Oh, I just wanted to talk about millennials. Good old millennials gotta love us because in the last few years, as I think as parents have handed off restaurants to children, especially, you' ; ve seen rebrands and redesigns and rethinking of how things are going. And there' ; s a lot of really cool stuff coming out of that. A really recent example is that there was a very traditional old school Indian place in Plano called Minerva. I don' ; t know if you know you' ; ve heard of. |01:19:06| BRODY Yes. |01:19:07| REINHART Yeah. When did you go? Have you been recently? |01:19:11| BRODY No. |01:19:12| REINHART Well, they passed it to their children, I think. And the children renamed it to " ; Minerva Indian Bistro." ; So already " ; bistro" ; is kind of...that' ; s not...It' ; s a not traditional Indian word. And they' ; ve they started making like introducing their own little inventions around, like there' ; s a there' ; s a menu of mocktails, nonalcoholic cocktails, and there' ; s a dessert menu of inventive little things that are kind of spins on tradition they take ras malai, is that the name of it? |01:19:49| BRODY Yes. |01:19:50| REINHART Yeah. So they' ; re taking that and they' ; re turning into a Tres Leches cake. |01:19:53| BRODY Oh, interesting. |01:19:54| REINHART Yeah. And then they put like rose water frosting on top and little cute little swirls. And then they plate it in a little tiny bowl so that the milk, the coconut milk can kind of spill out the bottom. |01:20:05| BRODY That' ; s a really good example of a bridge, right? Between two different cultures that are both immigrant cultures. |01:20:12| REINHART And I think that' ; s happening a lot. The guys who run L.A. Burger are in there. Oh gosh. And they are no longer in their 20s, but recently were in their 20s. And they found the restaurant when they were like 24 and 22. They' ; re brothers. And yeah, they' ; re putting kimchi on cheeseburgers and putting kimchi on hot dogs and all sorts of... |01:20:33| BRODY of like sauerkraut. |01:20:34| REINHART Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it' ; s delicious. I' ; m sure there are more examples. Well, Halal Mother, Mother Truckers, the food truck? That' ; s very hard to say. Halal Mother Truckers is a youngish guy who does basically curry tacos, and he has a, I want to say it was like a butter chicken and something paneer taco. And those are his staple offerings. And he goes around, yeah. And I mean, they' ; re legitimately good and he uses. He uses Mexican tortillas, he doesn' ; t use any kind of Asian flatbread, and then he serves the traditional foods in the tortillas. |01:21:17| BRODY It' ; s reminded me of our previous conversation where we were talking about the...those words " ; authenticity" ; and " ; appropriation" ; and so on. This seems like a, you know, I mean, I guess the word that comes to mind is fusion, but that word too might mean something different. |01:21:38| REINHART Yeah, fusion has long been kind of a bad word, and it' ; s kind of meant different things over the years, I think. I think what we' ; re seeing now is fusion as well. Fusion has always happened, right? Fusion has always happened in every culture. I think the banh mi as a glorious example of culinary fusion, right? But I think what we' ; re seeing now is that the people from the non-dominant culture are getting to do the fusing. For a long time, it was, you know, it was the white guys who got to have the steak houses with sushi in them, right? Or. He' ; s actually since opened a fusion place, that gentleman, Kent Rathbun, which serves tandoori chicken and sushi and Pad Thai and Korean fried chicken and Chinese dumplings. |01:22:35| BRODY That' ; s an interesting combo. |01:22:37| REINHART Yeah. But so now what we' ; re seeing is that the people who come from those cultures are turning the tables, right? We' ; re seeing, you know, Mexican chefs get to absorb French technique into their food rather than the other way around or, you know, a Afifa Nayeb, who' ; s from Afghanistan. She' ; s got that restaurant in Bishop Arts where she uses French, French ingredients and copious amounts of butter to make Indian food. I' ; m not I haven' ; t actually been to that. I' ; m a little worried about the concept. It sounds very it' ; s....I don' ; t really understand it yet, but it' ; s an example. |01:23:19| BRODY Right? Right. Earlier, you talked about how the some of the, in that sort of changing of the guard from the parents to the younger generation, they had incorporated a lot of different design and style elements. Would you like to speak to that a little bit? |01:23:36| REINHART Yeah. I mean, I think, you know. I think there' ; s a kind of a stereotype of " ; mom and pop" ; places as having traditional music playing and having kind of a living room type feel and really soft cushy chairs or whatever or buffets, whatever you might wish to imagine, I think. You know, we' ; ve seen the younger generation go towards flashy signage and nice logos and hard tile floors and walls and kind of even some of the like " ; Chip and Joanna aesthetic" ; with the wood and shiplap and so forth. And I think, I think What The Biryani in Irving...Yes, that' ; s the actual name of it. And they have a thing on the wall that says " ; WTF" ; and then " ; OOD" ; at the end. But I think they have a very like kind of " ; Chip and Joanna aesthetic" ; going. They have lots of white painted wood and they have lots of like little fake plants everywhere. And it looks very much like a like an American hipster coffee shop type of feel. And they put their menu on those little sign boards where you push the letters down the slats, except that it' ; s all biryani. |01:24:50| BRODY Yeah, yeah, that' ; s really interesting. I mean, a lot of people. I' ; m going through all these old restaurant reviews and so on and certainly in the literature about quote unquote ethnic restaurants, there' ; s a lot of derogatory talk about smells about, you know, looks, about, you know, I guess, aesthetics, about cleanliness. Do you think some of this change in aesthetic or move toward design is a nod toward some of those stereotypes? |01:25:24| REINHART That could be. I know there are lots of restaurant owners who are very concerned or borderline obsessed with proving cleanliness, right? I actually interviewed one from a Bosnian restaurant a couple of months ago who at the end of the interview, he was like, " ; Look, I show you the kitchen." ; And he took me to the walk-in and he' ; s like, " ; Look, everything is dated and covered with Saran Wrap." ; And I was like, " ; I' ; m not the health inspector. I' ; m not looking for the dates on all of your product." ; I think that, I think also, you know...You know, that is still actually a bit of a concern at times. The Dallas Morning News ran a review of Desi District, which is a restaurant that I love in Irving and also kind of represents kind of the younger generation of thinking and creativity. They have gulab jamun cupcakes. Oh, they' ; re so rich and so good. And, and the Morning News ran a review and I think 2017 or 18, and it includes a sidebar that was like, " ; Hey, their health inspection. Score is not good, it' ; s a C." ; And the author looked it up. The author was a white woman, and she said, " ; Well, it looks like all the worst health inspection scores in Irving are Indian restaurants. So I called the head of the Irving Health Department and I said, Hey, is there anything about Indian restaurants that would make them fail?" ; And I thought, " ; Wow, you' ; re you didn' ; t acknowledge, you know...That there might be anybody out there who' ; s going to read that and come away with a prejudiced response to that." ; There was no attempt to say like, look, this is not...racially, anything. There was no attempt to address that, that was even a possibility. And I think it was, you know, kind of hopelessly naive at best. I personally wouldn' ; t have even touched it. I don' ; t know why she was looking up what all the lowest scoring restaurants were. |01:27:25| BRODY Right, and it gets back to the sort of philosophy of the food writing in general, and responsibility. |01:27:31| REINHART And what' ; s in your scope? Yeah. She had a particular fixation with health inspection scores, which I support, but it just it' ; s just an example of how food critics can have different things that they really care about, right? And I can' ; t fault anybody for, you know, having health and safety, be one of them. But yeah, so it is an ongoing thing, I guess. Still? You know, I don' ; t really think about it, but I have to keep in mind that others do. And that might be part of it. I think also, you know, young people. They have grown up with a certain expectation of restaurants, and they might want to get away from that or they' ; re on Instagram all the time or, you know, there you' ; ll talk to people who will say, " ; Well, my parents didn' ; t want me to open a restaurant because, you know, it' ; s what they did to earn a living and it was backbreaking work and it' ; s, you know, kind of lower class labor. And they were hoping I was going to become something else." ; And then as a result of that, they have to, you know, they feel like they should show like the restaurant shows that I' ; m doing something really cool and fun, right? Right. And something successful, right? |01:28:50| BRODY Finally, Dallas is not just downtown, as you mentioned earlier, anymore. And the spread into all these suburbs and you mentioned going- trying to cycle through different parts of the Metroplex. Specifically dealing with thinking about the Asian population, where do you see the most growth or the most exciting changes in terms of that? |01:29:16| REINHART Oh, that' ; s a great question. I think it' ; s important to say first to start on downbeat by saying that, you know, the reason that we have to talk about this is because Dallas is pretty significantly segregated, right? At least as a matter of fact, not a matter of law, right? But for example, a lot of the areas central close to downtown have not really been opened in recent years to restaurant owners of immigrant or black culture. There are stories from chef Troy Gardner, who tried to open a restaurant in Uptown and continually was rebuffed and finally got to open a restaurant in West Dallas because they told him like, " ; Oh, that neighborhood' ; s fine for you, right?" ; Horrible. And I think that in recent years, like when something like a NGON opens on Greenville, N-G-O-N, the Vietnamese place. That is almost like a huge victory to me, the fact that one of the prime real estate spots on Greenville is now given over to a really traditional, really fantastic Vietnamese restaurant that' ; s run by all Vietnamese women is just fabulous. We went on Sunday. We say it' ; s one of my favorite places and it' ; s ah, we went on Saturday- anyway. You know, it' ; s a really exciting sign that maybe something is finally changing down there and in the city center in general. But a lot of the most exciting stuff is still happening out in the suburbs. I think the two Koreatowns are kind of on different tracks right now. The one in Carrollton almost all has the same landlord. That whole center at like Old Denton Road and the Tollway, I think is almost entirely owned by one guy. And people are starting to fight with that guy and they' ; re starting to slowly move northwards up Old Denton Road towards whatever the next tollway is. Is that 121? |01:31:24| BRODY I think so. |01:31:24| REINHART Yeah, that goes to Frisco. Sam Rayburn Tollway. So you' ; re starting to see things move up there. And the original Koreatown is reviving itself and coming back in a really strong way. I think for a long time, it had a poor reputation and there was crime, and there remain a lot of massage parlors and things like that. And that hotel town, Han Gil Hotel Town, was torn down a couple of years ago. That was a really horrible, traumatizing place that was basically, you know, oh, I don' ; t know if you know, news reports about this, but it was a Korean run hotel where each room was basically a different drug den more or less. And the owners at the front desk, they photocopied everybody' ; s driver' ; s licenses more or less so that like they, you know, they knew who you were in case something happened from a liability standpoint. And you know, you' ; d come in and you' ; d say, like, I' ; m visiting and my friend in room 314 or whatever. Oh yeah. And I mean, they took cash payments for rooms by the, you know, short timeframes, and it was just so that' ; s been razed. And I think a lot of the old reputation that neighborhood had is not as warranted now. There are new places going in there. There' ; s a very fancy new barbecue place that opened down the street from Koryo, which is from talent who flew in from South Korea to start it, a chef who came from Seoul. I think to start it. |01:33:06| BRODY Specifically to Dallas, on purpose? |01:33:09| REINHART Specifically Dallas on purpose. I believe the owner of that, it' ; s Nuri Grill, N-U-R-I, and the owner of that is the former CEO of Smoothie King, the chain, and he is a Korean-American man and yeah, he brought the chef. And it' ; s, they' ; re calling the chef " ; a Michelin recognized chef" ; which I think means they got Honorable Mention in the Michelin guide at some point. But it' ; s still, you know, it' ; s still impressive, I suppose. And one of the strip malls there that' ; s more older and more traditional is now the land is owned by H Mart. So we think H Mart is probably planning to plant a location there sometime in the next few years. So a lot of stuff is happening there. Unfortunately for me, living in the south of Dallas, a whole lot of fun stuff keeps happening way up north by Frisco, Prosper. I keep looking and it' ; s almost every month there' ; s something especially Chinese that' ; s opening up there. Highland Noodles. 888 Cookhouse, Uncle Zhou. There' ; s all sorts of stuff I want to get to up there. Like I almost want to go get a hotel for the weekend. Just have Chinese food. |01:34:24| BRODY A staycation. |01:34:24| REINHART Yeah, yeah. And then actually up there also the old J.C. Penney headquarters, which is on like the Plano-Frisco border. Part of that is going to turn into an upscale Japanese hotel for like people visiting Toyota. |01:34:41| BRODY Oh, OK. |01:34:42| REINHART And that' ; s going to have the press release was very cryptic and said it was going to have " ; an already famous sushi restaurant." ; |01:34:51| BRODY Interesting. |01:34:51| REINHART Yeah. |01:34:52| BRODY Interesting. Something to look forward to. |01:34:53| REINHART We don' ; t know what that is going to be, but we know it' ; s going be something. |01:34:55| BRODY So there is a lot of growth up there. Yeah, in the North. Well, is there anything that I haven' ; t asked you that I should have or anything that you' ; d like to add? |01:35:05| REINHART Goodness. We' ; ve covered a lot of ground. You know, I feel like we might think of something like a week or two. |01:35:18| BRODY Well, we can we can talk again when we think of something, but thank you so much. I really appreciate all of your time and your insights. It' ; s been really, really interesting. |01:35:26| REINHART And yeah, thank you. Yeah. Well, OK, I look forward to seeing everything else. |01:35:32| BRODY Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Brian Reinhart, December 20, 2021
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2021oh002_di_004
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Food writing
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2021-12-20
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Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Linda Kao
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5.4 Interview with Linda Kao_Part 1, December 21, 2021 2021oh002_di_005 00:50:39 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Chinese Linda Kao Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_Linda_Kao_1_20211221.m4a 1:|15(2)|25(7)|36(12)|41(9)|45(11)|53(13)|63(3)|70(11)|75(1)|86(1)|100(9)|109(4)|113(7)|130(14)|139(4)|144(8)|162(9)|169(7)|173(6)|182(9)|191(3)|196(1)|204(12)|224(7)|232(14)|240(6)|244(3)|256(5)|265(8)|270(1)|274(4)|294(10)|306(5)|323(9)|329(15)|338(2)|343(2)|351(7)|372(6)|377(1)|380(12)|385(1)|394(15)|403(8)|415(2)|421(3)|428(5)|435(14)|447(4)|454(1) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/164381 Aviary audio 8 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Chinese ; Texas--History 36 Kao family moves to Texas from Taiwan and opens Royal China in Dallas Buck Kao ; chef ; Chinese restaurant ; Dallas ; hospitality ; Royal China ; Safari ; Taiwan 32.89734890959781, -96.80233741821267 17 893 Creating a menu/Authenticity adventurous ; approachable ; authentic ; authenticity ; bridge ; Chines food ; Chinese restaurant ; exotic ; menu ; palate ; western palate 1010 Celebrities Buck Kao ; Dallas Cowboys ; Korean War ; Martina Navratilova ; Ross Perot ; Royal China 1219 Supporting and mentoring new Chinese restaurants advertising ; Asian community ; Chinese restaurant ; competition ; marketing ; mentor ; Royal China ; support ; word of mouth 1433 George Kao takes over Royal China/Being part of the Preston Hollow community Dalla ; family ; family run restaurant ; George Kao ; neighborhood ; neighbors ; Preston Hollow ; rent ; Royal China 1714 Royal China as a bridge for Chinese culture Asian community ; bridge ; Catholic ; Chinatown ; Chinese Community Center ; Chinese culture ; cooking class ; culture ; Dallas ; educate ; education ; immigrant ; neighborhood ; Richardson 2031 Restaurant reviews/Innovations at Royal China Chinese restaurant ; D Magazine ; menu ; noodle bar ; noodles ; Pearl Rice meatball ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; Texa Monthly ; tornado ; Yelp 2822 Impact of COVID COVID ; labor shortage ; pandemic ; pivot ; shutdown oh_audio_dig_Linda_Kao_1-20211221.WAV |00:00:08| BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is December 21st, 2021. I am interviewing for the first time Ms. Linda Kao. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship, and it is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas. Hi, Linda, thank you for coming for this interview. Let' ; s start out just by me asking where and when were you born? |00:00:46| KAO I was born in Taipei, Taiwan. Let' ; s just say in the late fifties. How about that? |00:00:56| BRODY Perfect. Thank you. Well, how did you get to Texas? When did you arrive? |00:01:02| KAO Well, my, basically my parents...How should I even say that? I arrived with my brothers to, from Taiwan to meet my father, who was already here in 1973. And we arrived about a year later in 74, so, technically, we came, with our parents. |00:01:43| BRODY What was your dad' ; s line of work? |00:01:47| KAO My father was a career diplomat. Well then, the Chinese government, which is the Republic of China and in the early 70s he took retirement and starts exploring ways to move the family to US, where he was an attache in the early fifties. |00:02:29| BRODY So he had decided to move the family to the United States? |00:02:33| KAO That' ; s correct. |00:02:35| BRODY And he came ahead of time. And what, where did he go? |00:02:38| KAO Right. In that time, my father decided to take along two very well known chefs in Taiwan. They wanted to work with my father, exploring the possibility of opening a Chinese restaurant. So they went to West Coast and then East Coast, see all the " ; usual suspects," ; but soon they felt they are very saturated with Chinese restaurants. Just by chance, a gentleman in Dallas heard that my father is looking at opening Chinese restaurant and he brought along two chefs. So he invited them to come to Dallas and, once arrived here, my father literally fell in love with the city. He felt it' ; s a city with great potential. That was nearly 50 years ago. Now if you' ; re from Dallas back then, Preston Road literally stopped at LBJ. Beyond that, are the ranches, dirt road. So, but my father saw people are wonderful and welcoming. And this location, at Preston and LBJ, was attractive. So, they decided to join ownership. That was in 73. |00:05:20| BRODY 1973. Had he ever been involved in any kind of food related venture before? |00:05:27| KAO No, and my father, I don' ; t think he even knew how to cook. But, obviously, as a world traveler, my dad always full of curiosity. He loves people, and good food, good company. So, and he had to good chefs with him. So he dived right in. |00:06:07| BRODY Sounds like it. So you' ; re talking about his curiosity and his love for good food. What do you think his philosophy of hospitality or restaurant ownership might have been? |00:06:28| KAO Well, I think he' ; s more or less like, " ; This is my house. I' ; m opening my doors. I' ; m entertaining, with good food and good company." ; And I think this, it was never about making money. I think just the excitement of surrounded by wonderful people, conversation, and good food was a joy to him. |00:07:11| BRODY So were you there when the restaurant first opened or you came later? |00:07:17| KAO Well, when my father joined the gentleman here, the team or the partnership didn' ; t really fare too well. So both chefs ask my father if he will, now that he has a bit of knowledge in running a restaurant, if he would open a different restaurant. And so that' ; s when my father found the location in Preston Royal. It was an old " ; Safari Steakhouse" ; here with the Taj Mahal painting in the party room and incense urn by the front door. And it was a lovely space and a very good location my father felt. So they decided to start a new venture there, and my brothers and I arrived the first week of August. Royal China opened the second week. So, I' ; m proud to say " ; Yes, I was there." ; |00:09:10| BRODY What was that day like? What do you remember about it? |00:09:14| KAO Well my dad didn' ; t really make a big hoopla. No. There wasn' ; t any soft opening or formal openings. Just open. And I couldn' ; t remember much, but people were coming in, and my father was happy and that' ; s probably all I remember. |00:09:46| BRODY Right? Was it pretty crowded? |00:09:50| KAO No. It' ; s probably a slowly building up because we didn' ; t do much marketing back then. |00:10:03| BRODY Were there many Chinese restaurants in Dallas at that time? |00:10:08| KAO I believe less than, less than ten. |00:10:15| BRODY Right? |00:10:17| KAO Maybe a little bit more than a handful. |00:10:22| BRODY So tell me about growing up with the restaurant. |00:10:29| KAO Well, I had a wonderful time. And I tried to help on the weekend as hostess. And my dad always said, " ; You know, we feel like, we have all these friends, a lot of them very quickly become regulars. So we feel like we have a room full of friends coming to see us, all the time." ; And it was just very, I would say a lot of joy. |00:11:18| BRODY A lot of joy. That' ; s really nice. I know you mentioned having a lot of...I know you mentioned having a lot of regulars. What role do you feel that the restaurant played in the community, in the neighborhood? |00:11:50| KAO I feel like it' ; s literally like your neighbor' ; s house. You know, your aunts or uncle and because we, young kids coming in, they call my dad " ; Uncle Buck" ; and we have people I mean, share their joy of marriage proposals, birthday celebrations, and promotion. We just feel, you know, we are part of the community. We are close friends and family, and we go through that in their joy and sadness and we feel very honored. |00:13:01| BRODY Yeah. People share their special moments with your family. You mentioned that your dad, that people, customers called him " ; Uncle Buck" ; what was his name? |00:13:12| KAO Well, my dad actually goes by " ; Buck." ; His Chinese name is Shu-Chang. So you imagine it' ; s pretty difficult. But, I think, that " ; Buck" ; has a warmth. And you know that he just feel like a real Texan. |00:13:42| BRODY A real Texan. |00:13:43| KAO Yes. |00:13:44| BRODY What- and what about your mom? What was your mom' ; s name and what was her role in this family business? |00:13:51| KAO My mom is Shirley, and everything they run, she' ; s been my dad' ; s right hand person. My father, with his personality and his language, and communication skills. So he' ; s always out front. My mom, who knows the area ____ but, she felt the best place for her to help is in the kitchen, supervising and, you know, handling the food preparation. Not cooking, not, just there. |00:14:51| BRODY Right. Did they collaborate together to come up with the menu? What were there, would you say their priorities? |00:14:58| KAO Right. They collaborate with the chefs and come up with a menu. Again, there was I think the usual. People are, well, a lot of people here who are not really familiar with Chinese food. So, yeah, we had egg foo yung, chop suey, eggroll, and then we tried to introduce some of the, how should I say, I don' ; t want to say more " ; authentic," ; but, in a way, you know, chop suey and stuff are authentic, they are just not restaurant food. They are home cooking for some families. So my parents tried to introduce better cuisine for people to explore. |00:16:22| BRODY Right. |00:16:23| KAO And enjoy. |00:16:23| BRODY Yeah, and you' ; re right at that point, not many people here in North Texas had had the opportunity to try Chinese food. |00:16:33| KAO And back then, travel is not that common. |00:16:38| BRODY Right, right. So in going out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant really might be people' ; s... |00:16:44| KAO Exotic. |00:16:45| BRODY Yeah, right. What, what were some of the stories that you can remember from the restaurant, notable customers or notable interactions? |00:17:01| KAO Well, I remember there was a very nice gentleman who came in by himself one day. And I wasn' ; t there, but my father told us afterward that you know, when they chatted, they realized they may have met during the Korean War when my father was the, sort of a ___ chief of staff of the unit, a special unit. So they' ; ve became very close friends and they celebrate every occasion with us and we do the same. They were- Charlie Pride was a regular. Both his kids called my dad " ; Uncle Buck" ; and sometimes came to him with problems. And Martina Navratilova, when she used to live here, she came. Ross Perot. And I remember his signature was larger than life. And the Dallas Cowboys. Oh...the whole team, led by the coach. And then we had several who my dad called " ; oilmen" ; and they were lovely to my dad, generous to my family. He invited us to there during the holidays, so we have a lot of wonderful family memories of the wonderful people. |00:19:41| BRODY That' ; s a really nice story. It sounds like the restaurant was a place that people came to connect and also your family built a big connection into the life of the city. |00:19:56| KAO Right. I feel my dad was very sincere and authentic, so people were drawn to him and we' ; re just very blessed. |00:20:17| BRODY That' ; s a great story. Over time, more Asian restaurants and more Chinese restaurants appeared in, in this area. Was that, what was that like for your family, having been one of the earliest restaurants? |00:20:35| KAO Well, yes, many, many restaurants came and many, many closed. And Royal China, of course, had its ups and downs, but my family, believe it or not, on the weekend, I always remember fondly, my parents would take us to the new Chinese restaurant and try it out and support them. So I think that' ; s why they look at us as the benevolent, you know, the old Chinese restaurant, I don' ; t know how you call it and whenever we go there, the other Chinese restaurants, rolled out the red carpet for us because we' ; re so supportive and we' ; re so friendly with them. We never tried to beat them by the price. And so I would say we were a very friendly competitor. And, yeah, there are some restaurants that do wonderfully for a period when we weren' ; t so. But, you know you, we just keep on doing what we know best and what we try to serve our customers. |00:22:40| BRODY Sounds like a very supportive community among the restaurant owners that that were in Dallas. And I' ; ve, I' ; ve heard that from other communities as well, that it' ; s helpful to have other people doing the same thing. I know at the beginning, your dad, you said, didn' ; t make a big deal with marketing and so on at the very beginning. Over time, was there a change in that? Did you move to more marketing and advertising? |00:23:10| KAO I don' ; t think we ever did. |00:23:12| BRODY Right? Did you not need to? |00:23:15| KAO Well, I think it' ; s sort of word of mouth? And as I mentioned, I don' ; t think my parents were ever in it for the money. |00:23:28| BRODY Right. |00:23:30| KAO So they didn' ; t feel like that we wanted to take more than we can chew. We just tried our best and word of mouth has served us very well. |00:23:51| BRODY Great. Now you' ; re still in the same location. |00:23:56| KAO Amazes me. |00:23:57| BRODY Right? So was there ever any thought of moving or expanding? |00:24:05| KAO Well, we, as I mentioned earlier, we feel like part of the Preston Hollow community, or Dallas in general. So most of the Chinese restaurants have moved up north. We stay where we are because we feel our neighbors, our families and friends are there. And yes, the rent keeps on going up. |00:24:49| BRODY Yes, it' ; s a nice area for sure. So being part of that neighborhood for such a long time and the restaurant being run by your family the whole time, you must have multiple generations of the same families coming. Tell me what that' ; s like and how that feels for you. |00:25:11| KAO Well, but my older brother, I always tell him he' ; s the number one son. So when he came to United States, he immediately joined my father. He was a tremendous help. George was very smart. I mean, he is very smart. And he picks it up in no time. George probably was and still is the best chef we ever have. Oh. He' ; s brilliant and he' ; s fast. And so when my father had a stroke in January 1996. Literally overnight, because my father worked until he had his stroke. Overnight, my brother took over. And my mother was still around and, but he and his wife basically shouldered the responsibility and just continue on. So, and as you know, they are doing very well. They definitely made my parents, very proud. |00:27:09| BRODY Oh, that' ; s really nice. |00:27:13| KAO And we often helped out if we were called upon. |00:27:24| BRODY That' ; s great. Well, it' ; s definitely a family, a family affair. So your dad, having been a diplomat before, he traveled around and was comfortable talking to all sorts of people. How did that impact the way that he operated the restaurant? |00:27:46| KAO Well, I think he, because he' ; s so knowledgeable, he' ; s well travelled, well read. And, so, he can talk to literally anyone about anything. And his wishes is humble, and I think he really made everybody at home. Even if, even if they didn' ; t like the food, they liked my dad. |00:28:31| BRODY Sounds really nice. So kind of switching gears. A lot of restaurants that are serving food from other countries are often a place where people from that part of the world like to go to have a taste of home. Do you think Royal China was that kind of a hub for the Chinese community? |00:28:56| KAO Well, I think, yeah, Royal China is more of a bridge for Chinese culture and the local community. But on the other hand, because we arrived in Dallas in such early years when there is a not many Chinese, especially Chinese immigrants. So, my family, also served sort of as a, I guess a foster home____. And my father hired many Chinese students who needed money to continue. education, helped a lot of them with their green card application. And my mother has always been so, such a promoter for Chinese culture. So, my parents along with several families and leaders in the community, started a Chinese Community Center and my mother who was a lifelong Catholic, also helped to start and build the first Chinese Catholic Church. |00:31:03| BRODY What was the name of the church? |00:31:11| KAO Church of the Sacred Heart. |00:31:11| BRODY OK, well, that' ; s so that' ; s really interesting. So your, your parents and a group of other local Chinese leaders banded together to form the Chinese Community Center. Do you remember what year that was? Or roughly? |00:31:29| KAO I think the 80s. |00:31:31| BRODY In the 80s? Where was it? |00:31:35| KAO It' ; s in the, right in the Chinatown? In Richardson. Off Greenville between Beltline and Arapaho. |00:31:48| BRODY What were, what was your understanding of what the goals of creating the Chinese community center were? |00:31:56| KAO Well, I think its an amazing place and Chinese can gather, ask for assistance, can socialize and later on, we provide classes and different activities. And there' ; s a small library on site. |00:32:26| BRODY All right. What kind of classes were offered there? |00:32:31| KAO Nowadays. ESL. Computer. Chinese painting. Calligraphy. And think even Zumba. |00:32:47| BRODY Zumba?! |00:32:47| KAO Yeah. Chinese tai chi and I' ; m sure there are other classes I forget, but the also do Chinese youth summer camp, leadership camp. |00:33:07| BRODY Great. Were there any cooking classes? |00:33:10| KAO No, the center doesn' ; t have the kitchen facility. |00:33:17| BRODY Right. |00:33:20| KAO But, my parents, my mother with my dad as the translator, they taught cooking classes at Richland College. |00:33:37| BRODY Did they really? Chinese cooking classes at Richland College? That' ; s great, I bet their students loved that. |00:33:47| KAO Yes. |00:33:51| BRODY So when we' ; re thinking about restaurants and the role that they play in the life of a of a city, people talk about what types of foods are served. And you know, there' ; s a, you know, a culture of reviews, restaurant reviews. How has Royal China fared in the sort of the public judgments on the restaurant? |00:34:21| KAO Well, I' ; m proud to say we are consistently top 10. Not just Chinese restaurants but the restaurants in Dallas, and by prestigious magazines, such as Conde Nast, D Magazine, Texas Monthly, Good Eats, Yelp and so on. So, we are very honored, but we' ; re still trying to improve. And, you know, introducing more interesting, authentic, Chinese dishes. |00:35:23| BRODY For example, well, what are some new innovations at the restaurant? |00:35:28| KAO Well, I think, you know, since about ten years ago, I believe we' ; re the first restaurant to introduce noodle bars. And since then, many restaurants followed suit. Now, with my sister-in-law, April and she' ; s always trying to, look at the new menu, the dishes. She' ; s introducing some regional food, like Taiwanese and from northern China, southern China into the menu. So, like ______, probably makes no difference, but a lot of different and interesting regional menu, they are now included in the menu. And I know that she rotates them. But, I' ; m also very pleased that my mom' ; s favorite, her, one of her specialties from her hometown of Hubei, the Pearl Meatball, is a staple on the menu. |00:37:13| BRODY Can you tell me about that dish? What is it like? |00:37:15| KAO Yeah, Pearl Meatball basically, it' ; s a big meatball. But, juicy and savory, but covered with rice, and we steam it. So,when you bite into it, you have the juiciness of the meatball and then you have the soft, the texture of the steamed, the sweet rice that all blended in, in your mouth. |00:38:04| BRODY Sounds wonderful? Did you grow up eating those? |00:38:07| KAO I did. |00:38:07| BRODY Yeah. |00:38:08| KAO Yeah. |00:38:08| BRODY Were they always on the menu? |00:38:11| KAO It was introduced when we opened the noodle bar. |00:38:15| BRODY OK, so as part of that, the innovations. So there have been some changes. It sounds like in both the menu and sort of the layout of the restaurant. Can you tell me more about over the years the key changes that that the restaurant experienced? |00:38:36| KAO Well, I would say Preston Royal went through a huge change. And when we first opened doors...well you have to know Preston Royal to know what I' ; m talking about, that shopping center didn' ; t look like what it is now. And so the, with different ownership of the shopping center and then continue to operate, and the restaurant have to keep up with it. And we gone through a couple of fires next door. And we are forced to close because of the smoke damage. And we have gone through now, two tornadoes. About 35 years ago, a tornado also destroyed Preston Royal. And now, the biggest change is the I believe in 2009 when the shopping center went through another upgrade. And so at that time, the shopping center, was thinking of asking us to move out. So that was a very difficult time. And my father has already passed away and we are looking at, in the neighborhood, if there' ; s another suitable location, but, we negotiated, and my brother, well, literally took a leap of faith and invests a lot of money in the renovation of the restaurant. And that' ; s when we brought in the noodle bar and everything. And I think that was a very smart move and a very bold move. But, proved to be the right move. |00:42:09| BRODY So the noodle bar got added, the menu got changed, and there was a complete renovation. What' ; s it like now? What does it feel like when you' ; re in the restaurant? |00:42:22| KAO Well, it' ; s always hustling and bustling. And a lot of times, when I stop by my brother pulls me aside," ; Mr. So-and-So is here. You know, he' ; s asking about you. Or, So-and-So is there is. You know, they' ; re asking about you." ; So, I still feel like it' ; s my home. So, we have a very hard time to be separate. I think it' ; s part of my identity, part of my DNA. And whenever I can, I feel the presence...Oh my...of my parents. |00:43:29| BRODY Oh, that' ; s beautiful, that' ; s beautiful. Being in the same location and run by the family, I can see how that would be the case. It' ; s a lovely story and lovely to have those memories in that space. |00:43:44| KAO And I think our family has always been very close. But the restaurant, because we all feel like so vested emotionally. Ties to the restaurant. So, even with passing of our parents, the brothers and I, forever, we still feel like a unit, you know? |00:44:26| BRODY It' ; s a close family. |00:44:27| KAO Right? |00:44:32| BRODY So if you were thinking about going back in time and giving your, your family advice or some words of encouragement, something that you wanted to convey to them from knowing everything that you know now, what would that advice be? What lessons or reflections do you have on having this life tied so closely with Royal China? |00:45:04| KAO Well, I' ; m not sure if I could give any advice. I feel my parents were doing the best they could, and the purpose for them to move us to US was for us, for the children to have a better life better education. So, we are fortunate that the restaurant was this beautiful vehicle that brought us to where we are today. And, you know, my parents, they were in their thirties and forties when they started the restaurant, so I think they did really well, you know. And their kids, I would say, they are very proud of us because this is what they wanted for us. And the restaurant, was the means to achieve the goal. And we are so grateful. |00:46:52| BRODY Yeah. That made it possible for a lot of things to happen. Thank you for sharing that. Now, of course, you mentioned the tornado, and that was a big challenge for many, many people and many restaurants in Dallas. Also, COVID has really impacted restaurants. Can you talk a little bit about the way that the pandemic affected Royal China? |00:47:21| KAO Well, I think then, you know, obviously we had to close. And like all the restaurants, we pivot to delivery, curbside pickup. And then also, I' ; m proud to say we' ; re the first restaurant, where we recognized there was one case in house that, one of the staff, we let the public know and we immediately, closed down for two weeks. And because we did that, I think there have been a, a lot of leading restaurant in town, actually followed suit. We weren' ; t covering up. We are transparent because we are part of the community. When your health is our health. |00:48:49| BRODY Right. |00:48:50| KAO Yeah. |00:48:51| BRODY It' ; s a good example and a good lesson as well. Also, another thing that have, has affected restaurants in not just Dallas, but all over the country, possibly all over the world, as a result of COVID, is the labor shortage labor and supply chain issues. How have those affected your family? |00:49:21| KAO We are very fortunate that a lot of them- staff- they returned to work. And also we have some next generation that like my son and my daughter, chip in when they can. My other nephew. So and George and April were there. And so I think in terms of the labor shortage, we are trying very hard to make sure we are not. |00:50:36| BRODY I am going to turn off the recording for a moment. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Linda Kao_Part 1, December 21, 2021
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2021oh002_di_005
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking, Chinese
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2021-12-21
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76a21c800fcfc8ca48d9a33d44432156
Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Xay Senephoumy
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5.4 Interview with Xay Senephoumy, February 18, 2022 2021oh002_di_006 01:13:27 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking Lao Grocer, Asian American Xay Senephoumy Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_senephoumy_xay_20220218.m4a 1:|14(7)|24(12)|36(2)|50(5)|76(1)|93(8)|145(6)|157(6)|169(4)|180(7)|209(1)|237(1)|253(7)|266(7)|281(11)|290(7)|304(8)|314(9)|327(11)|344(9)|353(6)|366(7)|380(8)|411(13)|424(9)|452(4)|467(4)|477(14)|489(15)|502(1)|538(7)|551(4)|562(7)|572(9)|584(3)|598(2)|616(15)|629(7)|651(2)|666(4)|676(12)|685(11)|711(10)|723(3)|756(4)|764(5)|774(2)|787(8)|797(6)|810(12)|820(8)|828(6)|841(14)|849(14)|859(2)|876(13)|907(2)|928(4)|936(14) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/162895 Aviary audio 4 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Lao ; Texas--History 35 Moving to the United States from Laos Colorado ; Houston ; Laos ; Nebraska ; Texas 235 Arriving in Dallas in 2000/ Opening Nalinh Market Asian grocery ; business ; chewing tobacco ; community ; Dallas ; family run restaurant ; grocer store ; hub ; laab ; Lao ; Lao food ; Laotian ; Laotian community ; Laotian food ; larb ; Nalinh Market ; papaya salad ; sticky rice ; Taco Bell ; vegetables 32.81330398611661, -96.9237610554398 17 631 Lao community in Dallas culture ; diverse ; diversity ; Lao ; Lao New Year ; Lao Temple ; Laos ; Laotion community ; New Year ; Rockwall Temple ; Saginaw Temple 893 Beginning to serve food at Nalinh Market advertising ; Asian grocery ; business ; customers ; food ; grocery store ; house party ; hub ; Irving ; kitchen ; landlord ; Lao ; Lao food ; Laos ; Laotian community ; license ; permit ; racism ; social media ; sourcing ; street food ; Thai ; vegetables ; veterans ; word of mouth ; Yelp 2058 Opening Saap Saap and the impact of COVID business ; COVID ; curbside ; Lao ; Laotian food ; marketing ; Nalinh Market ; pandemic ; pivot ; Saap Saap ; shutdown ; takeout ; training 2606 Reflections on the concept of " ; authenticity" ; and ethnic food authentic ; authenticity ; ethnic food ; Hunan beef ; orange chicken ; palate ; Taco Bell ; upscale ; western palate 2888 Food as a tool to educate and connect/ Nalinh Market as a community hub bridge ; community ; connect ; connection ; culture ; curiousity ; educate ; education ; food ; hub ; Lao community ; Lao culture ; Laos ; respect ; word of mouth 3415 Future of Lao food in Dallas authentic ; authenticity ; Bon Appetit ; Dallas ; diverse ; diversity ; educate ; education ; immigrant ; Lao ; Laos ; Laotian food ; Laotian restaurants ; neighborhood ; palate ; Restaurant City of the Year ; Saap Saap ; Thai food 3886 Senephoumy's mother's background cooking ; food ; Lao ; Laos ; Laotian ; refugee ; refugee camp |00:00:04| BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is February 18, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Mr. Xay Senephoumy. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and as part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; All right, Xay, thank you so much for meeting me and sitting for this interview. Let' ; s just start out real quickly with where and when were you born? |00:00:39| SENEPHOUMY I was born 3rd of February 1979 capital city of Laos at the trail end of the, during the trail end of the Southeast Asian conflict in Vientiane, Laos. |00:00:59| BRODY What brought you to Texas? |00:01:01| SENEPHOUMY What brought me to Texas? That' ; s a long story. In short, I came to America. My parents came to America when I was about a year and a half, less than two years old. I think we landed in Houston, stayed in Houston for two or three years or whatnot, bounced around between Grand Island, Nebraska and the Greeley, Colorado area, maybe for the next couple of years. By the time I was five or kindergarten, something like that ended up going to New Britain, Connecticut, where I was raised. Until I think fifth grade. I moved out to a podunk town called Grand Island, Nebraska, graduated high school there had to get out of there as soon as possible. We moved out to the closest Metro- Denver- and stayed there for about two years and ended up here in in the Dallas area in about the year 2000. And I' ; d been here pretty much since then. Have moved a couple of places while I was here, but I always ended up back here. |00:02:25| BRODY What was your family doing that you were moving to all these places? |00:02:28| SENEPHOUMY Um, you could kind of compare them to migrant workers. They just went to, you know, they weren' ; t formally educated in the U.S. So they just went wherever the work was. And that' ; s how the Laotian community was at the time. If one family hears about one job somewhere, they... They would ask if there' ; s other positions available for the other 20 people they know and we would just follow. We' ; re like migrating herd. Any kind of work, really factory work. I remember my mom doing. She was working for an electronic or electrical coil wire manufacturing company in Connecticut. She was doing the assembly line for that. And then after that, most of the Asian communities at the time ended up going to places like Kansas and Nebraska to work the slaughterhouses- slaughter cows. |00:03:34| BRODY Right. So you mentioned your mom. How large was the family that you were, your immediate family? |00:03:40| SENEPHOUMY My immediate family was pretty small, consisted of mom, my older sister and I, and every once in a while, dad would that would pop up in and out of the picture. Yeah. So three or four of us consistently. |00:03:55| BRODY OK. So you, you all ended up in Dallas around 2000. What was going on then? What did you do then? |00:04:02| SENEPHOUMY 2000. What I did, I was, was trying to find myself. I was young. Two years in a college. I left college because I wanted to work and hang out. I wasn' ; t sure who I was. So my ah, my parents, my mom and stepdad bought a little- they purchased a little grocery store down here, a little convenience store that was owned by another Laotian family. And I wasn' ; t really doing much in Denver, so they asked me if I wanted to come and help with the family business and I came down. |00:04:39| BRODY So they bought the grocery store. And so it was all- it was- what was it called? Oh, do you remember? |00:04:46| SENEPHOUMY I don' ; t remember the name of it. |00:04:49| BRODY But they were already serving the... |00:04:51| SENEPHOUMY No, definitely not. |00:04:52| BRODY OK. |00:04:52| SENEPHOUMY Serving food? |00:04:53| BRODY No, serving the Laotian community? Or was there a Laotian community? |00:04:56| SENEPHOUMY Yes, there' ; s Dallas. At the time that my parents moved here, where Dallas was probably, probably still is the biggest Laotian community in America. |00:05:07| BRODY Oh, really? Yeah. Why do you think that is? |00:05:11| SENEPHOUMY Business opportunities, cost of living? And I think because we' ; re jungle people, you know, we can take the heat. I can' ; t, but they can. |00:05:25| BRODY That' ; s funny. So, OK, so the grocery store, they bought it. Your mom and stepdad. And...Tell me about what that was like when they first started. |00:05:34| SENEPHOUMY Oh, when they first started, it was just a little like bodega type, little grocery store- sold veggies and imported goods that that were hard to find in the bigger Vietnamese super, super grocery stores. |00:05:51| BRODY What kind of things? |00:05:55| SENEPHOUMY Maybe some clothing, some special like wicker imports that we would use to- like kitchen utensils, things to cook with and whatnot. And it' ; s funny. One of the big things that you can' ; t find at other stores that the older ladies, they, they chew this like chewing tobacco or that type of thing. And we sold that where most places wouldn' ; t. So at the time in Irving, there was a there was a older Laotian community and we were the place to serve the older generations. |00:06:40| BRODY What is that? Chewing tobacco called? |00:06:43| SENEPHOUMY In our language and you can look it up...Yeah, we call it " ; chian maak" ; which literally translates to chewing, " ; chewing plants" ; |00:06:55| BRODY Chewing plants. |00:06:56| SENEPHOUMY But it' ; s it... |00:07:00| BRODY It was a big seller. |00:07:01| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, it' ; s...I' ; m trying not to laugh because unless you' ; ve seen it before, you' ; d understand, well, why, why I' ; m giggling. 80 year old ladies chewing tobacco. Their mouths are fuller than any cowboy you' ; ve seen around here. And they don' ; t have a spitting cup, you know, they' ; re just right there. Big old...like what looks like a half a gallon coming out of their mouths. It' ; s an amazing sight. |00:07:29| BRODY That' ; s a great image. So, had your mom or stepdad ever done anything like that type of a business before? |00:07:37| SENEPHOUMY Actually, yes. When, when I was living in Connecticut as a child. One of my aunts owned a grocery store in Danbury, Connecticut. And every weekend we would drive up there- about an hour away from New Britain, where I grew up, and we would help out at her grocery store and I would just hang out there all day. And I guess that' ; s what planted the seed. |00:08:06| BRODY Right? Kind of learned the ropes there. |00:08:07| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. |00:08:08| BRODY And it seemed doable and manageable. |00:08:11| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. You know, we weren' ; t thinking about it at the time. At the time, we were just helping family members, you know, we had nothing else to do on the weekend, go help family and cook and eat and hang out. |00:08:21| BRODY Right? Tell me about Laotian food. |00:08:23| SENEPHOUMY Oh, Laotian food. And I get asked this all the time. What' ; s the difference between Laotian food and Thai food? And if people just ask me outright " ; Can you tell me about Laotian food?" ; I say, " ; Well, it' ; s just like Thai food, but more rustic, very bold flavors, unapologetic, bold flavors." ; It' ; s definitely not made or masked for, for the, for the gringo palate. And I like, I like to give this analogy to a lot of people. I tell them it' ; s like it' ; s like trying to call Uncle Julio' ; s or Taco Bell " ; real Mexican food" ; when you know it' ; s not. |00:09:14| BRODY Right. What are the like sort of signature dishes? |00:09:19| SENEPHOUMY Oh, sticky rice. Of course, sticky rice is a must have in every household. Sticky rice and steamed rice, but mainly compared to, compared to Thai households, we definitely will have sticky rice. Thai households won' ; t. Papaya salad stands out. It' ; s made with this real stinky, anchovy based sauce that' ; s fermented for anywhere between weeks to months. The stinkier, the better. That' ; s, that' ; s just how that dish goes. Some more traditional ones would be like a laab, beef laab. Its minced meat of choice dish, whether it be chicken, pork or beef. Traditionally with Laotians, it' ; s a, it' ; s mostly beef, where the meat is the showcase, and then it' ; s mixed with herbs like onions and just, just mince, and whatever fresh herbs that we would find in our backyard. |00:10:29| BRODY Sounds really good. Oh, so what was Dallas like when you got here? |00:10:35| SENEPHOUMY When I got here, when I got here in 2000, let me rewind. When I got here in 2000, it was like a second home to me because all my all, my extended family members live here- my uncles and cousins and whatnot- and they' ; re in business themselves here. But the whole time I was with...I was living in Nebraska as a teenager. We would often periodically come, come down here to visit. So it wasn' ; t a culture shock to me. So I was ready for it and I was used to it. The only thing I was shocked me was, was the summer heat, which I' ; ve been here about 20 years worth, and I still can' ; t take it. I was raised in the snow. So this isn' ; t... |00:11:22| BRODY It' ; s a whole different thing. So you mentioned that you knew a lot of, you know, family, extended family, and that the Laotian community here was established by 2000. In terms of sort of diversity. You know, were you with, I mean, coming from Nebraska, coming from Connecticut, what were what were your impressions? |00:11:46| SENEPHOUMY Diversity wise. I was, you know, Nebraska is the majority white working class, Caucasian working class. I would assume at the time all the brown people worked at the slaughterhouse with my parents. I was used to the diversity because I would travel here a lot and, you know, I was fortunate to visit another country and go to many states when I was younger, too. But if I were to take an average Nebraskan and bring them to Dallas, the first time, which I did... Brought my best friend down to the to the Houston, NASA thing on a family vacation with us, who were about 16 at the time. And he, he didn' ; t know what to do. He was scared and shocked. It was, uh, too colorful for him, to say the least, but, you know, for regular people like that, it could be a surprise, but you know, fortunately, not for us. |00:13:01| BRODY Texas was more diverse than... |00:13:03| SENEPHOUMY Oh yeah, definitely. Very, very diverse. Very. |00:13:06| Diverse. |00:13:08| BRODY How about with connecting with the larger Lao community? Were there events or more casual get togethers? |00:13:19| SENEPHOUMY Yes. |00:13:20| BRODY At that time. There are, and there still are till this day. One of the big events is Lao New Year' ; s, which happens in April. And what they do, what they do is they do a food celebration. People just come out sing, eat, drink. It' ; s a community gathering and there' ; s about four main temples in the DFW area, and they' ; ll split the weekends. Like they' ; ll do Lao New Year party at one and the other. That way, we' ; re not favoring one part of town or one side of the community or, you know, we show some love at all the all the local temples. And that' ; s a big thing. People come around from all over the country, Lao people, a lot of different Southeast Asian people, even Caucasians. Some of my Latino friends from Atlanta fly in just for that. |00:14:18| BRODY Wow. That' ; s where is it held? At the temples, physically? |00:14:22| SENEPHOUMY The yeah, the big one is the Saginaw Temple. That' ; s the big hoedown right there. That' ; s the one everybody wants to go to. The big Rockwall Temple is pretty nice, too. They do a big thing over there as well. A couple more. I can' ; t recall the name of the other two, but yeah, those are the two big ones. But the one that people travel for is the Saginaw party. |00:14:53| BRODY So tell me about the store. When you, so when, your mom and your stepdad opened it, what was it called? And what was the sort of a typical day for them? Who were their customers then |00:15:06| SENEPHOUMY Basically just the local Irving Lao community was their everyday customers. We did the same customers every day, every weekend. You know, like I said, we just pretty much catered to the local population, to the Irving population. When they opened it, it was called Nalinh Market, because my mom' ; s brother, Nalinh from Nebraska, she my mom, convinced his family to move here with us as well to start this business. So it was named after him. His name sounded better than everybody else' ; s name. It just rolled off your tongue a little better. |00:15:52| BRODY And it was in Irving where exactly.? |00:15:55| SENEPHOUMY Irving. Irving Boulevard and Loop 12...boulevard and Loop 12. It' ; s... Right next to the to the 7-11, right off the highway. |00:16:08| BRODY So initially, you said they bought it, were they renting the space or they bought it outright? |00:16:14| SENEPHOUMY They, they bought the business and equipment from the previous owner. I don' ; t know how much it was, but. And we' ; re still renting the space out from the landlord to this day. |00:16:27| BRODY Yeah. So sort of the nuts and bolts of starting and continuing a business for such a long time. You know- what goes into that? What, what has your family' ; s experience been with sourcing and maintaining the space and so on? |00:16:44| SENEPHOUMY Initially, the nuts and bolts of it were pretty simple. We were just retailing grocery items and fresh veggies. You know, my mom would just basically repackage vegetables. She would go get them from the bigger supermarkets, chop them down in smaller quantities. Made them prettier, you know, and just dressed them up and sold them in smaller, more affordable quantities. And that was pretty much it for the first. I' ; d say, like 10 years of their business |00:17:17| BRODY And then what happened? |00:17:19| SENEPHOUMY And then what changed our lives was- Different families from different states started moving to Texas. Some old friends of our family. And my mom was known back in the 80s for making food, great food at house parties. And you know, we get her old friends moving here and they' ; re asking, " ; Hey, are you still a good cook and whatnot? I miss your food from...Remember in 1984, when our kids were little rugrats and you made this special dish at the house? Can you still make it?" ; Mom' ; s..." ; You know, yeah, I think I can still make it." ; So she was unbeknownst to her, she was coerced to make a couple of dishes for sale by her old friends and just snowballed from there. |00:18:17| BRODY Really? So did she make them right there in the store? |00:18:23| SENEPHOUMY Not, not, after the first initial request, she just said, I don' ; t have those items with me right now. Let me get them. When do you want to come back? Couple of days? The weekend? So they came back on the weekend. But those dishes, they loved them and word spread |00:18:41| BRODY The rest is history. |00:18:42| SENEPHOUMY The rest is history. There' ; s a funny detail involved in that too. Where there was no kitchen in Nalinh Market. It was just a little grocery store, a little bodega. And mom was trying to think, " ; Well, I don' ; t want to cook from the house and bring my friend this food." ; So she grabs a Bunsen burner and a little frying pan and just cooks that for that individual. And as word of mouth got around, she was using the same Bunsen burner to cook food for the next....who knows how many people, right? Just, you know, and we didn' ; t...We don' ; t even have....We didn' ; t have a food permit. We' ; re not supposed to cook back then, but she' ; s doing it for these people. And then and then she hit it big time to the point where she had to upgrade to a double Bunsen burner to keep up with requests. Yeah, and months roll by, and she' ; s still cooking, and the demand increases as the popularity, word of mouth in the in the neighborhoods is spreading, and I just I have a talk with mom. I say, " ; Mom, you have to put the Bunsen burners away. It' ; s embarrassing. Why don' ; t we? Why don' ; t we build a little kitchen back here?" ; And, you know, we started with a little makeshift kitchen. And it' ; s still, if you go into Nalinh Market today, it still looks like a little makeshift kitchen because that spot was never meant to be a restaurant. And, you know. And that that' ; s where it all began with a Bunsen burner. |00:20:40| BRODY That' ; s fascinating and a really great story. Do you remember what the original food was that she was cooking? |00:20:48| SENEPHOUMY Laab. Beef laab. Which is a traditional dish, yeah. |00:20:53| BRODY And you mentioned that, you know that the demand started to grow through word of mouth. Was it mostly Lao people who were coming? |00:21:02| SENEPHOUMY Yes, it was definitely Lao people at first. It was definitely Lao people at first. And then when we got to the point where we had to have where we decided to put just two little sit down tables, four chair, sit down tables. I don' ; t know if we were even allowed or permitted by the city yet to, to cook there. But you know, it' ; s what we did until we were told differently. Yeah, so we were, we were mostly serving people we knew- friends or family. And then it would spread out to the local Laotian residents and then as we got more popular and this is when technology kind of changed the game a little bit, Yelp first started coming out and I- they, my parents still don' ; t know this to this day. I created two fake Caucasian accounts. I remember the first one, Mr. Steve Martin, and the next one was like Mr. Sam Sampson, and I created our very first reviews for Nalinh Market, and I said, " ; I' ; ve never had this type of food before. Wow, this is great. Southeast Asian food reminds me of Thailand." ; you know, because Americans are familiar with Thailand. People saw those reviews and then the other ethnicities started coming. |00:22:38| BRODY That' ; s really interesting because, well, first of all that that you created the Yelp accounts and secondly, that the way that you went about doing it. That I mean, were you thinking that this food is really great, but this is how to introduce it to a different... |00:22:58| SENEPHOUMY Not the, not the " ; really great" ; part yet because of I was an IT guy at the time. I went to school forIT. And I started doing, you know, basic IT work at any place I can. So just the fast forward, I ended up having a 20 year IT career before I opened my first restaurant, Saap Saap. So back at the time when I created those fake accounts, I was already in the IT realm. And you know, I heard of Yelp and these review apps and whatnot, and I just said, " ; Hey, I' ; m going to give us a review. The world doesn' ; t know about us. The real world does not know about us. Let' ; s, let' ; s get this out to, you know, let' ; s expand it beyond our community." ; |00:23:45| BRODY Did that happen? |00:23:46| SENEPHOUMY Immediately. |00:23:47| BRODY Yes. Tell me about that. What was the cause and effect there? |00:23:52| SENEPHOUMY Well, we would get our first Caucasian set of customers in. My parents would ask them if they were lost or if there' ; s anything particular they' ; re looking for. And they just said, " ; Hey, we heard the food is the food is good here. I have some Thai friends, you know? Is it similar to your food?" ; And we just introduced them to our food and it was all word of mouth at the time. And it still is. We don' ; t do any marketing. We didn' ; t spend a dime on marketing then. Just as I told you, the only marketing we had was me and my free fake accounts. And yeah, it just, just, just spread by word of mouth and we started getting other, other people of other ethnicities and... Yeah, yeah, we just saw that the demand was starting to grow, and I convinced, eventually convinced my mom to get legitimate licenses and go to the city and whatnot to where we could actually have a mini full kitchen in that location and convinced her to put out a third and fourth table. |00:25:20| BRODY So when those non-Lao people started coming in, did they know what they were looking for? Did they use your family as a guide to, you know-" ; What? What is this supposed to taste like? What am I looking for? What' ; s good here?" ; |00:25:39| SENEPHOUMY Initially, they played it safe for the for the most part because, you know, everybody' ; s eaten Thai food, ordered the things that they' ; re used to, the familiar dishes, Pad Thai and whatnot, egg rolls and whatnot. And then what I did, you know, I' ; m more talkative than my parents. So when I was working my IT job, I would come and help them out on the weekends. I' ; d get hungry, free food, right? And I, I would see the same Caucasian customers returning and same Mexican customers returning. I would say, " ; Hey, I see that you' ; re eating spicier. You should try this dish." ; And suggest other dishes and whatnot. And that' ; s...That' ; s how we got them to open up their palate a little bit. |00:26:29| BRODY Right? Had many of them even heard of Laos before? |00:26:32| SENEPHOUMY Most of them...No. I' ; d say like 95 percent of the people didn' ; t. The older generation did. There would be some which I later learned after they become my friends. They were...They were veterans of the war and they were stationed in Thailand, et cetera. And you know, they said this, this reminds them so much of the Thai street food, and they were versed. But for the most part, no, we had to, we had to guide them and ease them into it. |00:27:03| BRODY Did the menu expand rapidly or it sort of stay to a small number of items? |00:27:10| SENEPHOUMY I' ; d say initially very small because we didn' ; t know what we were getting ourselves into. We weren' ; t prepared for the business side of things, so we were only able to manage what we could handle. And then after we were getting more popular with, with just a general DFW population, there are more requests for certain traditional dishes, which were easy for us to do. We just, I think we just needed, needed that convincing, you know...needed that little push. Customers asked for it and we shall provide. |00:27:58| BRODY That' ; s great. So eventually, you did interact with the city and get the permits, and all of that stuff. Can you tell me more about that? |00:28:09| SENEPHOUMY It was pretty simple. We just. Well. Probably not the best. Initially, they would come in and tell us, " ; Hey, you can' ; t do this. You don' ; t have permits for it. Where your permits?" ; " ; OK, sir. So what? What do we need to do to get to that point?" ; And they, you know they walked us through it. |00:28:29| BRODY It was pretty cooperative. |00:28:30| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, yeah, it was cooperative. And there was there was no negativity at all. They saw that we, you know, they probably saw us as an asset to the community for the things that we were doing and that they help us out. |00:28:43| BRODY Yeah. Did you experience with that in that time period, any kind of racism or any difficulties or challenges that way? |00:28:54| SENEPHOUMY I would say 2007ish, you know, there was really no racism. The markets were good, everybody was making money. I think oil was, you know, the economy was great. Everybody was happy. There was no, no public tension. You know, we get a few idiots here and there, but not nothing that would stand out. Nothing bad. All that racist stuff comes later. |00:29:25| BRODY Yeah, some people who have businesses that are, you know, Asian businesses or other immigrant businesses talk about difficulties, maybe with the immediate neighbors, neighborhood difficulties over signage or things like that. Did you experience any of that? |00:29:44| SENEPHOUMY Not really, because our location in South Irving. It' ; s a minority community, to say the least, you know. So we didn' ; t we didn' ; t really have any problems and our neighbors, like our business neighbors, they...They specialized in their own businesses, so we weren' ; t stepping on anybody' ; s toes or anything like that, and we all got along well. |00:30:12| BRODY Good. That kind of raises the question of competition. At that time, was there any other business that was selling Laotian food? |00:30:22| SENEPHOUMY Not really. There were, at the time, there might have been one or two, but they were, they were located so far, like in Fort Worth and I think maybe one in Haltom City, to where we, we didn' ; t compete. |00:30:42| BRODY Right. Did you...Were you, not competing, but did you have a relationship? |00:30:47| SENEPHOUMY Oh yeah, it' ; s such a small community. I' ; d say more, more- more of my mom' ; s knowledge. The older community just knows everybody. They know everybody. The younger people like me, we have no idea whose kids are who and whatnot until we see each other events or parties. |00:31:10| BRODY So that' ; s interesting that the community is so small that, you know, if you have a similar business that you could maybe compare notes or, you know, share information. You mentioned earlier that you were just, you know, early on sort of trying to keep up with the business side of things. What were some of the challenges and factors there? |00:31:34| SENEPHOUMY Well, I would say a lot of it would have been the accounting. I, at the time, was the only first person...I wouldn' ; t say first, my sister was kind of starting too. I was the only one in our family with the real American formal education. So my mom and stepdad who were running the business, they were just...They were just running it off of muscle memory, really. They...They didn' ; t have the accounting education to handle business the right way at that time. |00:32:11| BRODY And taxes and all of that kind of stuff. |00:32:13| SENEPHOUMY Right. The, you know, even though they didn' ; t understand all the taxes and whatnot, they would just hire a local tax person to handle that for them. |00:32:25| BRODY Great. And the status of the business now? Still, still going? |00:32:28| SENEPHOUMY Now? My sister runs that location. She' ; s considering getting out of it. Prior to COVID, we were, I would say, maybe the top three most popular Lao family restaurants...Maybe, maybe in the country. In the state, for sure. You know? |00:33:04| BRODY Tell me about what your trajectory was after that period of time, what did you do after the Nalinh Market and the initial run of that, of that restaurant and turning it into a restaurant. |00:33:20| SENEPHOUMY Um, my goal was just to expand the audience and my family was fortunate that I was, I have am IT background, so I used whatever social media was available at the time, and just wanted to reach out to different audiences just to, you know, spread the word a little more. I was still very reluctant to marketing. And I think if I was more educated on that and knew more people to help, I would say, we would have actually been, been in better business than we were. Yeah, we probably would have made an even bigger impact. |00:34:17| BRODY You went on to start your own restaurant as well, right? |00:34:21| SENEPHOUMY Yes, yes. A sidebar and we can talk about this off, off camera, off the mic, but mom and I decided it was time to two separate ways from Nalinh Market, so we had a good talk. Mom said, " ; You know, use your education. You didn' ; t go to school for nothing. You' ; ve been the IT field for umpteen years, 15 years. You' ; ve held whatever government clearances for your jobs and whatnot, you know, you have a decent future doing that." ; And I said, " ; Mom, you know, if you stop the community going to be sad." ; So it made me think and it made me realize that I had to carry on the tradition. And in short, I decided to open up the restaurant. The second restaurant, which was called Saap Saap and Mom and I ran that from 2017, January of 2017, till its closing day, few, couple of months ago, I would say November of 2021. |00:35:35| BRODY So that kind of puts you smack in the middle of COVID and all of, all of that. How did COVID impact both businesses? |00:35:45| SENEPHOUMY COVID didn' ; t really impact the original location that bad, because we' ; ve already established a good customer base- about 20 years worth of work of customers- and then the location was ideal too. It' ; s right off the highway, easy to find and whatnot. We' ; ve already had a good social media following, so the fan base was there. At Saap Saap, it impacted us tremendously and horribly. So COVID really started for the public in what? January or Februaryish of twenty, right? 2020. OK, so I' ; ve already been in business there three years and the trend was that we were very slow in the winters. We' ; re basically dead in the winters. And but that year, right before COVID, my, my doors were open every night. All the seats were full. You couldn' ; t get a seat in my place. We were peak. I had, I had the perfect staff. It took me three years to cultivate a great staff. I had everything we ever needed and my staff and I were even looking at each other going, " ; Wow, this is this is January, this is February, and people are waiting for seats here. This this is amazing." ; So we' ; re peaking. We' ; re at our very best. And then....Not even a few weeks later, we, we get hit with the COVID rules, you know? Dine in is chopped down to what, a quarter? 25 percent of the time? I' ; m a dine in location at Saap Saap, so automatically, you know, 75, 75 percent of my income is affected, is taken away. So I' ; m...from the very first or second week of the COVID rules and laws, I' ; m already so, so deep, you know? |00:37:58| BRODY It hit you hard. |00:37:59| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, I' ; m just trying to trying to fight an uphill battle. |00:38:06| BRODY That' ; s really hard timing because you were hitting your momentum, |00:38:10| SENEPHOUMY Yes. |00:38:10| BRODY ...hitting your stride. |00:38:11| SENEPHOUMY Yes. And on top of that too, we emotionally it, it just it. It took its toll on us, but we had an exit plan for Mom because we built up our staff and, in that business and especially with our family' ; s food, it' ; s so hard to get the cooks to make the food the way we do it, because there are no formal recipes. It' ; s, it' ; s our family' ; s recipes, it' ; s the school was my mom' ; s kitchen, you know, and I' ; ve, I' ; ve been clinging in on her butt since I was a little kid and that' ; s how I learned to cook. It' ; s very hard to teach anybody how to make food the way we make it, and we were able to do it with our new staff or current staff at the time. So we had an exit plan for Mom. We said, we had a team meeting, " ; Hey, can we do this without Mom?" ; Yes. " ; Do you know your job?" ; Everybody knows their job. Fine. Mom' ; s going to retire in April and we' ; ll give her some retired benefits. But she' ; s out of here. She' ; s, getting old, let her go, see the world and whatnot. And once COVID hit, those plans were scrapped. Ended up losing my, my staff, my whole staff and Mom and I were left to run the business by ourselves. Just the two of us. |00:39:42| BRODY Wow. So did you...A lot of restaurants pivoted to curbside and takeout. Is that sort of the strategy? |00:39:51| SENEPHOUMY Um, we had to...we had to adapt to it. We didn' ; t have a choice. Our- what services did we use- the carry out services like what Uber Eats and whatnot? Our orders went up, but, we that just didn' ; t help because our customer base were a dine in base and most of our customer base loved the intimacy of what we provided. |00:40:29| BRODY Yeah. Can you tell me about, you know, just it' ; s a sad ending, but to go back to the happier times when you were hitting your stride, what was your vision for Saap Saap? What was what type of place was it? What was, what did you hope your customers would feel when they were there? |00:40:46| SENEPHOUMY I, um, I didn' ; t have any plans for how I hoped the customer would feel. My, my initial vision was just to use our food as a tool to educate the community and you could say the rest of the world, expose them to, to our culture and to my people. And what better way would there be to do that than to break bread with somebody, right? Feed people. They' ; re happy. You get talking. You become buddies and the word spreads around, you know? Just to educate the community about our culture and our -through, through our food, really. And business wise, I wanted to open multiple locations like maybe three or four locations. We had another location in the works at the time right before COVID. We' ; re planning that out. We' ; re strategists, we were strategizing for about, you know, two, two or three additional locations. And I think that' ; ll work, that would have worked out well. The, the vibe of our patrons just came naturally. You know, we, we grew up in Podunk, Nebraska, where everybody knows everybody and we' ; re just comfortable talking to our neighbors. You don' ; t really get that in most restaurants that you eat at nowadays. And you know, the customers at the table don' ; t get to speak with the executive chef. Call them by first name. Say hi to them every time they eat. It was like that at our place. And that' ; s what the customers liked and wanted. And that' ; s also why the, the takeout option during COVID didn' ; t work, because that wasn' ; t our customer base. You know, they wanted to be there for, for the whole atmosphere, for the whole experience as well. Not- they didn' ; t just want to grab their food and go. |00:42:55| BRODY Right. Well, it kind of ties together what you were saying earlier that- about training chefs that, you know, that it' ; s hard to teach people exactly the ins and outs of your mom' ; s cooking or your family' ; s cooking, and it sounds like the restaurant anyway was something like being in your in your home. |00:43:19| SENEPHOUMY Yes, yes. |00:43:19| BRODY Right? With you and with your, you know, with your mom. So that makes sense. That kind of leads pretty naturally into another set of questions that deal more generally with when we' ; re talking about food from immigrant communities. Did you do things with the recipes, with the food to appeal to certain groups? |00:43:55| SENEPHOUMY Well, for our Southeast Asian community, you know, we are we offered we offered party catering and whatnot, and we felt honored because, you know, a bunch of-we were, we were commissioned for, for quite a few weddings. You know, it' ; s a major important, major event in those people' ; s lives. And for us to provide a service and to be a part of that is just something special. So we were well known for that service as well. We didn' ; t really go out of our way or out of our path to, to, to formulate a special game plan to try to reach out to certain groups, you know, we just kept doing what we were doing. |00:44:51| BRODY And then as far as...A lot of times people talk about, you know, quote unquote ethnic food as being, you know, authentic. Did you feel like you...What are your feelings around that concept of " ; authenticity" ; ? |00:45:11| SENEPHOUMY When it comes to ethnic food, I myself, before I even opened up the restaurant, before we even had our first couple of tables at Nalinh Market, I would purposely go seek out places that I knew served food that didn' ; t look like a restaurant because I knew that' ; s where the real food was at. You know, the less fancier places. Most likely that' ; s where you can get the best food, the most authentic food. I, I live in, I live in the, in, in a dichotomy where our food is known to be authentic and expect it to be authentic, but at the same time, to survive in business, you know that you have to...You can' ; t follow that 100 percent if you want the dollars to come in, you know? You have to, you have to adjust your foods to the western palate and make, make-And you guys can' ; t see this, but I' ; m rolling my eyes when I' ; m thinking about it, you know, to make Taco Bell food. You know, you just have to to stay in business. But... |00:46:37| BRODY So for your menu, what did that look like? What did that look like across the board...Changing things for the western palate? Or did it mean to include certain items on the menu that were good sellers? |00:46:50| SENEPHOUMY I wouldn' ; t do it, and that might have been part of my demise. I was stubborn about it. We' ; ve even had internal meetings about this to where, " ; Hey, you know, you have customers coming in wanting orange chicken and stuff like that." ; That' ; s just not us. And I, you know, I would put my foot down and yeah, I could' ; ve made a ton of money making orange chicken and whatever Hunan beef and whatever else. But that' ; s just that' ; s not who we are. That' ; s not the food we make. We' ; ve we become- we' ; ve grown as a business in the last 15 years because of what we do, because we make authentic food from home, from when my mom was 10, 11 years old, cooking for her 11 siblings and her parents in the jungles of Laos. You know, and we just wanted to provide those same foods and we didn' ; t want to stray from it, no matter what cost. I mean, that' ; s what we became known for. So there' ; s, you know, I don' ; t want to stray from the authenticity of what we were doing. |00:48:08| BRODY Earlier you mentioned that you wanted to use food as a tool to educate people, customers about your culture and about, you know, about the food. What are the main messages that you would have, that you did and you do want to convey to the public through your menu? |00:48:28| SENEPHOUMY Um, curiosity leads to exploration. Exploration leads to education, you know, and the education is what just brings people together. You know, the more you know about your neighbor and, and your potential friends and just better off. It' ; s just, it' ; s just going to be better off for everybody, for the world, for society. And, you know, it' ; s just a simple formula. That' ; s all I ever wanted to do with my food. |00:49:03| BRODY To connect with people. |00:49:04| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes. |00:49:07| BRODY Sort of thinking about your customers, both at the Nalinh Market and at Saap Saap, did it end up being a pretty multicultural, multiethnic crowd that you were able to reach? |00:49:22| SENEPHOUMY Yes, very. Yeah, we' ; ve reached just about everybody on the spectrum. I, you know, Nalinh Market, they...It' ; s just well known. Everybody knows them, so word of mouth gets friends of friends from this ethnicity to the next ethnicity coming in. I didn' ; t spend a lot of time there, because I was busy at Saap Saap, but what I experienced at Saap Saap was I had Russian people flying in from Chicago just to eat our food. We' ; d have visitors from Peru who told us that they' ; re in America because they just want to explore the best of what America has to offer. You know, and I' ; m humbled they' ; re eating at our restaurant. Just- wow speechless, right? And, you know, you know, people from Peru, people from Russia. Thai people who are visiting California, flying into California, flying into Texas here to eat our food and Canadians. It' ; s humbling. It' ; s fantastic. It' ; s a, it' ; s a neat experience. |00:50:47| BRODY Yeah, a lot of the interviews that I' ; m doing, I' ; m finding that the restaurants have served as a bridge to other communities and other types of people, and that the food, as you said, has been a really good, you know, impetus for people connecting with each other. Do you have any stories that you want to share about examples of something like that happening? |00:51:14| SENEPHOUMY Oh. Many, many, many that I can' ; t pick out specifically. Like, for example, there' ; s one guy I can think of. He' ; s been to Thailand a couple of times and probably when he was a kid, maybe a teenager. He hasn' ; t eaten that food in forever and after we opened up Saap Saap, he would eat there pretty much on a weekly, weekly basis, sometimes a couple of times a week. It made him travel more to Southeast Asia. Every like six months or so he would, he and his lady would go to a new country in Southeast Asia and come back, tell me all about it. He gets a tattoo written in Lao or Thai. On his arm, and yeah, yeah, it' ; s amazing how, you know, food can just open those doors and touch people in those ways. |00:52:31| BRODY That' ; s a great story. Another pattern that people have noticed is of, and this may be more true of Nalinh Market maybe, of immigrant businesses becoming sort of a hub for the, their own community. Did you find that to be the case? You know, I know you mentioned that the grandmas and their chewing tobacco, but are other examples of ways in which the market itself was a hub. Other examples, you know, sharing information, fliers, community events? |00:53:12| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Whenever there would be a community event like, for example, the big old Lao New Year parties, people would drop off fliers, concert fliers, long lost friends who haven' ; t seen each other in a while, they' ; ll stop by and ask us to pass messages, messages or phone numbers to them |00:53:39| BRODY Wait, really? Like, people would come to shop and say, " ; Oh, if you see so and so..." ; . |00:53:42| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes, exactly. And I' ; m sorry (drinks water) |00:53:49| BRODY So people would come to shop and say to your mom, " ; Have you seen so-and-so in a while?" ; |00:53:56| SENEPHOUMY Because, you know, my mom' ; s older? And, she... the people, the people of her generation from the 80s, as I mentioned earlier, they just know, know everybody who came from Laos through the same situations that she did. Long lost friends, long lost family members who are seeking the other person would drop their phone number and ask my mom, " ; Hey, if you see this person, can you give it, can you give it to them?" ; |00:54:36| BRODY Obviously, before the internet and... |00:54:39| SENEPHOUMY Even during the internet because the older people of our culture, you know, they, they don' ; t know how to navigate the technology that' ; s provided today. So, so our location still to this day would be used as a hub or a meeting point or, and we' ; ve seen this a lot throughout the years, throughout the last two decades where people would be out of work, you know, and they just need a place to hang out to feel like home. And they would do that at Nalinh Market. And sometimes we would we would hire them as an extra hand put them to work. You know, we need our walls, walls painted or whatnot or, or even just outside jobs. If we knew other Asian business owners or not even Asian business owners or customers of other ethnicities. If people were hiring, you know, we could refer them to them. |00:55:42| BRODY It' ; s great. So sort of a neighborhood hub and in your, yeah, community hub as well. |00:55:46| SENEPHOUMY Definitely. And there would be times where people will just hang out there the whole day for eight to ten hours hoping to see whoever they' ; re there to meet up with or just, just for a sense of belonging to a sense of belonging sometimes. |00:56:03| BRODY That' ; s nice. Did people come on the weekends to kind of shop for the week or was it kind of a steady stream? |00:56:12| SENEPHOUMY Oh, you' ; d get more on the weekends. During the week, we would pretty much get a lunch crowd and then just a casual grocery shopper. But before we, before we started cooking food at Nalinh Market, that was like the place to be on the weekend. Like everybody just had to be there for no reason just to see each other' ; s faces and whatnot. |00:56:43| BRODY Yeah, you' ; d run into people, maybe even more so than the Temple or... |00:56:47| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. Yeah, exactly. |00:56:49| BRODY So it' ; s really interesting. So the current landscape, post-COVID, you know, Dallas has been named, you know, " ; 2019 Restaurant City of the Year" ; by Bon Appetit magazine and one of the things that the magazine cited in choosing Dallas was the large number of immigrant neighborhoods and restaurants, that diversity and in choices. Going forward, where do you think... What do you think, in Dallas, the future of Lao food is? |00:57:29| SENEPHOUMY Well, I think going forward, it' ; s going to, the future of Lao food should expand exponentially. I mean, if we go backwards a little bit, you' ; ll see that we may be about 15 years ago, we might have had three Lao restaurants and now there' ; s probably, I' ; m guessing, 20 plus owned, family owned Lao restaurants. So the demand is there and the education of the Lao food is definitely there and reaching out to other communities and in other geographical locations in DFW. So I think that demand will keep keep growing. And I think... I don' ; t know if it' ; ll ever become commonplace, but you' ; ll see more of it. |00:58:30| BRODY Well, with the popularity of Thai food and sort of the similarities. |00:58:34| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes. And. The sophistication of our food is surprisingly growing. Especially in other, other ethnic groups that are non-Laotian. You have American raised individuals who, who know the distinction now between Lao and Thai food, whereas 10 years ago we didn' ; t have that. You know, and they' ; re even, they' ; re pickier nowadays, they' ; re more precise about what kind of Lao food they want. And yeah, you would have never guessed this 10, 15 years ago. It would have blew your mind if, if you ran into this kind of aficionado from, from non Laotian people. |00:59:27| BRODY Yeah, I' ; ve read that, you know, initially people who were trying to serve Lao food would need to sort of label it " ; Thai and Lao" ; or something just to give people a reference point. It sounds like what you' ; re saying is that' ; s no longer the case. |00:59:44| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, definitely. It' ; s, it' ; s still the case to a certain extent. Like even, for example, my restaurant Saap Saap, I got flak from the Laotian community from, from a lot. Hey. So, so I had a sign that said " ; Saap Saap Lao and Thai Cuisine." ; " ; Why are you adding the word ' ; Thai' ; in your restaurant title?" ; Well, not everybody knows what and where Laos is, so I have to do that to attract the people who are familiar with what the Thai culture and Thai food. It' ; s just numbers. They have a bigger population than we do. They' ; ve been here longer than us. People know about them more. So we have to do that. But like I said, the flak I was getting, you know, " ; Hey, if you' ; re really trying to stay pure, if you' ; re really trying to stay authentic and whatnot," ; you know, and I got a lot of trouble or flak for this or a lot of negativity for this. And my response is, " ; Hey, we do this because we have to." ; People who are familiar with the Thai culture. And plus it' ; s not that I' ; m not trying to be a purist. In order to get to that level, we have to find a happy medium, you know? Yeah, we just,, we have to start somewhere. |01:01:19| BRODY Yeah, I mean, it sounds, when we put what you' ; re saying right now together with what you know, the issues of- that we talked about earlier that you could sell tons of orange beef if you know, if that' ; s what you were comfortable selling. That, you know, that walking that fine line between wanting to be authentic to the mission, you know, the vision that you have and also be a thriving business? You know how everyone' ; s line is somewhere. |01:01:49| SENEPHOUMY But then again, to the people who are giving me flak, I respond the same way to most of them " ; Hey, you go open your own Lao restaurant and you could call it and do whatever you want with it." ; |01:02:02| BRODY Oh, so looking back at both, you know, both the businesses and the experiences that you have and continue to have, what are some lessons or reflections on sort of the whole experience as well as Asian food in Dallas in particular? |01:02:23| SENEPHOUMY Well, this ties in to another question you asked me earlier what is the difference between Lao and Thai food? And I tried to explain to you technically about the ingredients, but there' ; s a there' ; s an ingredient that I didn' ; t mention-the people. My mother and I, you know, we were fortunate to spend a lot of our time in in Nebraska, in the Midwest being raised Midwest. You, you pick up on the work ethics, ethic that' ; s just there. It' ; s inherent with that, with that growing up in that part of the country. And, you know, we bring that with us and we bring our, our, just the way we communicate and feel for our neighbors and that, that is a major ingredient that people don' ; t understand in this business, you know, (inaudible). That' ; s such just what you need. And we need more of that, not just in the Lao food restaurants, but just generally speaking. And I think that' ; s where a lot of our popularity came from. You know, we provided that that sense of community and then just, just having an environment where people felt good to be a part of, to be around, and it, it understandably gets easily lost when you' ; re trying to run a business, you know, it' ; s all you' ; re thinking about is numbers and money. But one of my philosophies have always been, you know, don' ; t worry about the money, just take care of the important things first. And the money will come. If you' ; re good at what you do and you like what you do, the money will come. |01:04:34| BRODY A good spirit to have. Well, those are some really great stories and really interesting reflections. Is there anything that I didn' ; t ask you about that you' ; d like to share? |01:04:46| SENEPHOUMY Probably too much that we don' ; t have time for. A lot of...Since, since this is supposed to be archived for a for a cultural influence and whatnot, a lot of the questions that were missing would probably pertain to my mother. And, you know, she' ; s a big part of this story. The work ethic that that lady is, her work ethic is untouchable. And it' ; s just crazy. People say the same thing about her work ethic all the time, and it' ; s just a history where she came from during the war and being in the refugee camps before, before coming to America. And this is a lot of other Laotian families going through the same thing. But, the character that, that the character that was instilled in her, you know, just the history in the past of coming from Laos, the way she did and the poverty and the way she had to raise her kids here in a foreign land, not speaking the language and without the education. It just it lit a fire in her and pushed her to, you know, work with whatever God given tools that you have and just make the best of it. Yeah, so I mean, if, if, if you have some questions leading towards that, I' ; ll be happy to answer. But regarding my mother, but you know, if you' ; re open to conversation with her or details, that' ; s an available option as well. I' ; m just afraid things might get lost in translation. |01:06:57| BRODY Yeah. Tell me about her journey over here. How old was she? And she already had children at the point that she... |01:07:03| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, she had three kids to take care of at the time. I' ; m guessing she was. Let' ; s see, we came about ' ; 80, ' ; 81. 63. What' ; s that... Born in ' ; 61, ' ; 81, 20 years. |01:07:24| BRODY Oh, yeah, yeah. |01:07:26| SENEPHOUMY Twenty years old. You know, in a refugee camp... |01:07:33| BRODY Where was the refugee camp? |01:07:35| SENEPHOUMY Somewhere in Thailand. On the border of Laos and Thailand? Yeah. |01:07:39| BRODY So was she separated from her parents at that point? |01:07:43| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes. So her parents stayed in Laos. She, when she was in the refugee camp, her- some of the family got split up as well. I think I think we got separated from my older brother. He ended up going to Australia because I think at the time there' ; s about like six or eight options where you could get deported to right or imported to go to and... My dad' ; s side of the family ended up going to Australia. My mom and our were immediate family came here to America. I think my older brother got lost in the mix somehow, and he ended up staying with my dad' ; s side of the family in Australia. You know, tough life. He had to struggle with that growing up without his real family over there. And...So currently, they' ; re there, the Australia side of the family there... They also own four restaurants in the Sydney area. |01:09:02| BRODY Oh, really? |01:09:02| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. |01:09:03| BRODY All Laotian? |01:09:05| SENEPHOUMY Yes. But they' ; re more, they' ; re more of a Thai restaurant because they have to be. They' ; re in Sydney. So, you know, they have to, they have to cater to that crowd. But I' ; ve seen their menu and they do authentic Lao foods as well. Yeah, but they' ; re very busy over there and... |01:09:30| BRODY So your brother is involved with those restaurants? |01:09:32| SENEPHOUMY Oh, no, no, he isn' ; t. But my dad' ; s side of the family is my dad' ; s brothers and sisters are in Sydney. |01:09:43| BRODY So your mom sounds like a pretty remarkable woman, so |01:09:48| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, yeah. And I' ; ve been told, you know, I don' ; t. I don' ; t realize it myself until I step back a little bit, you know? See things from a third person perspective, but it' ; s like mostly everybody I run into, says, " ; Xay. She' ; s the hardest working I' ; ve ever seen." ; From teenagers to adults, you know senior adults in their 80s. They just man, you just got to be around her for at least an hour or two. It' ; s, it' ; s, you know, you have people like that anymore nowadays. |01:10:29| BRODY She sounds amazing. How long was she in the refugee camp there in Thailand? |01:10:35| SENEPHOUMY I' ; m not sure,. |01:10:35| BRODY Roughly. |01:10:36| SENEPHOUMY I' ; m not sure exactly. Maybe anywhere between six months to a year. |01:10:40| BRODY And then the time came for it, and then she came directly to Houston. In your understanding? |01:10:46| SENEPHOUMY Yes. But before that, if we were rewind a little. I later learned in life that when she was in Laos, prior to going to the refugee camp, she was actually working as a nurse under the UN, under the UN umbrella. So she was patching up soldiers and civilians and whatnot, and she couldn' ; t have been any more than what, 17 through 20 at the time. And I think one of the one of the major factors that got her into that position was a sponsor family here in the Houston area. There was a, there was a doctor and his wife, and I think she was in the medical field as well. But they, there was like some educational child sponsorship program back then. You know, they' ; re probably like the UNICEF commercials that you see on TV nowadays. My mom happened to fortunately be the recipient of one of those programs. And, you know, she' ; s always kept in touch with that family and I to this day have never met him. I wish I could have. He' ; s already passed. You know, I know, I think I think she felt like she really owed it to their family to keep pushing. You know, it' ; s probably what is a part of that fire, you know. |01:12:27| BRODY So, they sponsored her to come here? |01:12:31| SENEPHOUMY I, I' ; m assuming they probably through, that program, helped her become a nurse. And then since she was working under the U.N. umbrella, made it easier for us to get to America through the refugee camps. |01:12:55| BRODY That' ; s an incredible story and thank you so much for sharing all of that. Well, I really appreciate your time today and look forward to learning more about your family' ; s experiences. Thank you so much. |01:13:09| SENEPHOUMY It was my pleasure. I hope I got whatever information, you know. I just hope I answered most of your questions as best as I was able to. |01:13:22| BRODY It was wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you. |01:13:25| SENEPHOUMY The pleasure' ; s mine. Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Xay Senephoumy, February 18, 2022
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking Lao
Grocer, Asian American
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2022-02-18
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Betsy Brody
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Kim Pierce
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5.4 Interview with Kim Pierce, April 5, 2022 2021oh002_di_007 01:29:13 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Food writing Kim Pierce Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_pierce_kim20220405.m4a 1:|16(5)|41(11)|54(7)|67(2)|76(13)|86(1)|99(5)|108(10)|116(12)|129(1)|137(14)|147(13)|156(13)|167(1)|174(13)|186(16)|203(1)|216(8)|225(2)|236(3)|251(8)|263(13)|276(5)|289(2)|308(4)|317(3)|333(6)|340(9)|351(6)|366(4)|375(12)|385(1)|394(8)|403(5)|412(10)|427(13)|436(5)|444(12)|451(4)|459(14)|475(7)|492(3)|504(9)|514(13)|527(3)|541(11)|552(9)|567(2)|578(4)|586(8)|601(12)|615(1)|628(2)|637(12)|652(1)|670(3)|682(14)|692(2)|703(9)|716(11)|725(2)|734(3)|747(6)|756(10)|766(2)|774(6)|785(9)|796(8)|805(9)|820(6)|834(9)|845(7)|854(4)|863(4)|874(15)|886(16)|903(7)|911(10)|928(7)|944(11)|954(15)|967(2)|980(8)|998(8)|1007(5)|1015(1)|1030(7)|1045(8)|1055(15) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/162894 Aviary audio 0 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, ; Cooking, American ; Food writing ; Texas--History 32 Moving to Texas from California assassination ; California ; Dallas ; IBM ; JFK ; Texas 110 Career as a writer for the Dallas Morning News Dallas Morning News ; Derro Evans ; fine dining ; food ; food writing ; Guide ; health ; nutrition ; Old Warsaw ; olive oil ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; Routh Street Cafe ; Stephan Pyles ; Tex-Mex ; Victor Wdowiak ; wine ; writing 572 Routh Street Cafe and cooking with Texas ingredients Agnew's ; Alice Waters ; American ; California cuisine ; celebrity chef ; Chez Panisse ; Dean Fearing ; educate ; education ; fine dining ; flavor ; French ; local ingredients ; Mansion on Turtle Creek ; menu ; nouvelle cuisine ; Routh Street Cafe ; service ; Stephan Pyles 1029 Memories of the Dallas restaurant scene in the 1970s barbecue ; Brink's ; Campisis ; Chateaubriand ; China Clipper ; Chinese restaurant ; Dallas ; Dickey's Barbecue ; fried rice ; Hong Kong Cafe ; Lakewood ; Lim Yee ; noodles ; Old Warsaw ; pizza ; Steak and Ale 1227 Getting started in food writing Brian Reinhart ; bridge ; D Magazine ; Dallas ; Dallas Morning News ; Dallas Times Herald ; El Centro ; ethnic food ; ethnic markets ; food landscape ; Food Section ; food writing ; grocery stores ; Guide ; middle class ; Nancy Nichols ; negative reviews ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; restaurants ; reviews 1578 Qualities that make a good restaurant critic/ Thoughts about " ; authenticity" ; in food Americanized ; authentic ; authenticity ; bridge ; culture ; curiousity ; dumb down ; education ; food ; palate ; respect ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; Southern cooking ; Taco Bell ; tomatoes ; western palate 2147 Asian food landscape in Dallas Arlington ; Asian community ; Asian grocery ; Asian restaurant ; Chinese community ; crab ; East Dallas Community Garden ; gardens ; immigration ; Indian community ; Indian food ; ingredients ; IT ; Korean community ; Muslim ; Ramadan ; rice ; Richardson ; Taj Mahal Imports ; telecom corridor ; Vietnamese 2533 Food as door into other cultures culture ; dashi ; food ; Japanese ; PBS ; sake ; soy sauce ; television ; tofu ; wine 2785 Dallas as a restaurant city brunch ; Dallas ; food ; restaurants 3098 Restaurant reviewing and the impact of social media dumb down ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; social media ; star ; Yelp 3409 Asian food businesses communicating Asian culture Asian community ; Asian Mint ; Buddhist Temple ; business ; Central Market ; cooking classes ; culture ; curiousity ; fried rice ; Hare Krishnas ; Kalachandji ; Nikky Phinyawatana 3757 Challenges faced by Dallas restaurants COVID ; crab ; expensive ; fast casual ; Jon Alexis ; labor shortage ; supply chain ; Taiwan ; tornado ; Wu Wei Din 4058 Future of high end dining in Dallas expensive ; fine dining 4583 Changes in the Dallas diner Anatole ; Cafe Royal ; celebrity chef ; Chez Panisse ; Dallas ; Dean Fearing ; Fairmont ; fine dining ; Gus Katsigris ; hospitality ; hotels ; Mansion on Turtle Creek ; nouvelle cuisine ; Plum Blossom ; Pyramid Room ; Ritz Carlton ; Routh Street Cafe ; sophisticated ; Stephan Pyles |00:00:00| BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is April 5th, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Ms. Kim Pierce. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and as part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; Hi Kim, thank you so much for joining me. |00:00:28| PIERCE Hello. |00:00:30| BRODY I' ; ve been looking forward to this. Well, just to start out, let' ; s get a little bit of background on you. Where and when were you born? |00:00:38| PIERCE I was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1950. I grew up there. And in- when I was 18, I moved with my young husband back to Texas. We were looking for job opportunities. In a way, it was also a return to my roots because I am descended from the whole Hill Country German community that we know so much about in this state. So even though I grew up in Southern California, I also had these very deep Texas roots. |00:01:13| BRODY Where did you come when you first came back to Texas? |00:01:17| PIERCE We came to Dallas. |00:01:17| BRODY To Dallas. |00:01:18| PIERCE Yes, we moved in with my sister and her husband in Garland. |00:01:23| BRODY Were you working at that time? |00:01:24| PIERCE No, I did not. It was my. My husband was working. He came. He was hired at IBM, which again, it was a, it was a great time for coming here for commerce. We don' ; t, we weren' ; t even thinking about things like the assassination and the associations with the city. We just wanted to get our little family going. |00:01:48| BRODY What is your current position? |00:01:52| PIERCE I am retired. Happily retired. |00:01:53| BRODY What did you retire from? |00:01:56| PIERCE I retired from writing, from basically from writing. I' ; ve been at the Dallas Morning News for...I had been at the Dallas Morning News probably 35 years before I went freelance and still continued to write for the news. Gosh, I mean, I could...If I had an idea tomorrow, I could sit down and write a story because I have that kind of currency with the editors, but I' ; m glad to not be doing it. So I am retired from food journalism primarily. |00:02:30| BRODY So were you writing exclusively food related articles or were there other areas that you wrote about as well? |00:02:39| PIERCE I wrote about health and food and health. I was always very interested in nutrition, and so food and nutrition was sort of a natural pairing. And from that, I evolved into doing more of the restaurant writing. It' ; s, it...It was not a straight line by any means, but I really enjoyed writing about food. |00:03:07| BRODY What is it that you liked the most about, about focusing on food and nutrition and those types of things? |00:03:14| PIERCE I really loved being able, on the one hand to tell people to clarify information as best we could within the scientific context of the times. And I say that because- it' ; s ever-changing. The information is ever changing. When I began writing about health and food, people who are heart patients were discouraged from using olive oil because it was a fat. And it was because the research had not yet caught up to breaking down the facts to the point of understanding that monounsaturated fats were different in the body than the than the polyunsaturated fats. So there was always this evolution of information, and I really enjoyed being able to clarify when changes came, when information changed, when we started using food labels, how to read them, what they said. One time we did a page...I was so proud of this. It was a whole newspaper page and it was simply called " ; The Bone Clock" ; . And it showed you the development of your bones and what happens to them over the course of a lifetime. And it was an easy to- forgive me- easy to digest form of information where people could go, " ; Oh, OK, so that' ; s why this is important." ; And from that, we segued into restaurants because the executive editor, I' ; ll never forget, I got a... I was the editor of the Guide at the time and I got a note. I actually did the health and nutrition writing a little later than that. But while I was editor of the Guide, the executive editor sent me a note with a single star drawn on it. And because I' ; m a very linear thinker and I' ; m like going, " ; What does he want?" ; And he said, " ; We think we need to do a star rating system for our restaurants. Tell us how we would go about doing that." ; And this was when Dallas had a much more manageable number of restaurants. So we developed a system. My staff and I and our food critic, our restaurant critic at the time, his name was Derro Evans. D-E-R-R-O Evans. He has passed. He took us to, I want to say, five different styles, types of restaurants like Tex-Mex, fine dining, a couple of others where to just sort of introduce us to the genre and what you look for and how things are different in the different areas of concentration. And then we also took a wine course. In fact, what' ; s interesting is in the whole telling of Old Warsaw' ; s story at our conference, and I can' ; t. What was the name of our conference? (Reference to the Legacies Dallas History Conference in 2022) |00:06:29| BRODY Legacies Dallas. |00:06:30| PIERCE Legacies Dallas conference. Thank you. They left out Victor Wdowiak, who was and will have to spell that for you. But we left out Victor Wdowiak, who was one of those Polish merchant marines who went to work at Old Warsaw, and he was one of the, you might say, founding fathers of wine education in Dallas. And he really took it upon himself to help again to help people understand the difference between Chablis and Burgundy from California and the real Chablis and the real Burgundy. And essentially the wines of the world. So armed with that, Derro would do the main restaurant reviews, and then we and the staff would do the smaller ones that you saw the mini reviews. Where we would go, we would evaluate the restaurant, we would write it up, and that was that. And then he was he was followed by another great restaurant reviewer, and that was Liz Logan. She is still about, but she keeps very much to herself. She, I think she' ; s up in New York at this point and this this just became a very popular thing. And there was a short period of time in the early 80s when I did the main restaurant review for a while and I...My greatest claim to fame, if there were any is that I was the first critic to review Routh Street Cafe, Stephan Pyles' ; first restaurant. Stephan Pyles, who was essentially a nobody on the Dallas food scene, even though he had some very good background working with, I want to say, the Mondavi Winery. Oh, he-you should ask him because I' ; m not going to get this right. But he was not unknowledgeable, but he had no fine dining credentials we' ; ll say up to that point. And Routh Street Cafe, which opened in 1983...What I lacked in knowledge, I made up for in having pretty good instincts about what was happening. And I knew that that restaurant was- I say I knew, and then I' ; m going to say " ; was probably" ; - a game changer. And I, and I it' ; s the one and only time that the News has ever given five stars on the first review. And I at the time, I' ; ve shared this with Stephan many years since I said, " ; You know, we were just either going to sink or swim together." ; If the restaurant closed in a month, well, you know, my reputation was diminished too. |00:09:31| BRODY What was it that you saw in the restaurant that that made you get that special feeling? |00:09:38| PIERCE Well, the first thing was the warmth of the setting. It was up until that time most fine dining was very formalized. I won' ; t say everybody. All the waiters wore tuxedos and bow ties, but it was that sort of rigid, upscale, very accommodating service. But yet there was an evolution to it at Routh Street. You had the same level of service, the same cosseting we' ; ll say. But it was very warm. It was very personal. It was like the waiter might lean down a little, literally next to the table and talk to you at this level about something about the food that was very good. So it was a, it was a different feel. So there was that and the other piece was the food was following on a trend that had begun earlier, first with nouvelle French cuisine and then with what we like to call the California cuisine movement of using fresh local ingredients. And it' ; s funny we...You could look back at one of these menus now and you' ; d go, " ; Whoa, what was the big deal?" ; And it was a big deal because it was using...there were things like cilantro on the menu, which, which, as Stephan will even tell you, we, he said, " ; We had to ask our Mexican cooks in the kitchen how to use it because we didn' ; t understand that the flavor was in the stems." ; It was a whole new frontier of dining, and Stephan had an extraordinary sense of putting flavors together. And so you had the ambiance, you had the relaxed approach to the service. And yet and you also had this really simple but elegant food, and it felt like it was a game-changer right out of the gate. |00:11:55| BRODY Good instinct, since it was. How much of the success of, of Stephan Pyles' ; empire was also, you know, tied in to the time period and celebrity chefs and sort of the personality of the, of the person... do you think ?|00:12:15| PIERCE It was all, it was all of the time and of a movement. What Alice Waters and, now she wasn' ; t the only one, but she almost certainly gets credit, a credit deserved. This, the French nouvelle cuisine movement was about using fresh local French ingredients and absurdly- you talk about your airport story- Dallas restaurants, the finest, the ones that were doing French nouvelle, would fly the fresh ingredients over from France. And it was- I know we laugh now, but this is what you did because all fine dining emanated from Europe. So it, in the context of the times, that wasn' ; t absurd. Well, then you have Alice Waters and Chez Panisse coming on the scene and going, " ; You know what? We have this incredible agricultural richness in California, Northern California. Why don' ; t we start using these fresh ingredients?" ; Because the flavors pop, there' ; s so many things you can do with fresh ingredients that you can' ; t do with ones that you know, fly over on a jet. Plus the expense. So there was that. And so there began to be and I' ; m getting...I know we don' ; t want to make this the whole interview. But I' ; m going to take you back to- this is a- and you may take a picture of this when the time comes, when you need it. This is a menu from Dean Fearing' ; s, one of his dinners at Agnew' ; s, which is where he was prior to The Mansion on Turtle Creek. And it (the menu) was positively innovative because it had all these local, this is American, not Southwestern, but it was all of these. There was an all U.S.-product menu coupled with an all-California wine list. Yeah, and this was it. I won' ; t say it was heresy, but it was really revolutionary. And this actually precedes by about a year. I think I' ; ve got the date on here. Well, we' ; ll take a look real quick. We' ; ll take a look. Yes, this was this was 1982, and Stephan' ; s restaurant opened in 1983, and it very...This whole idea of using the fresh ingredients very quickly caught on. We called it. And over the course of my career, this is probably the most important development in food. Not...The celebrity chef trend, we' ; ll call it, calling out the personalities, coupled with " ; what can we do with local indigenous ingredients?" ; Which was actually a lot more complicated than it sounds because you' ; ve got to find somebody to grow them. So that that was the revolution in dining, and it really swept Dallas up at the time. |00:15:38| BRODY And you can really see that, you know, to tie together a lot of what we' ; ve talked about already, you know, in, you know, in your interest in talking about health and nutrition and science, that you' ; re-what you were doing- and food, what you were doing was really translating science on a practical level for people who are going to eat and try, you know, try to live right and live more healthy. And in the case of, you know, sort of the transformation of fine dining. Right? To not have it be about just French techniques and French ingredients... |00:16:18| PIERCE Very much in French, Italian, Continental. Correct. |00:16:22| BRODY Right. To translate that into an American context and, and even more localized a California or a Texas context, depending on what grows. |00:16:33| PIERCE And it was happening everywhere. It was happening in New York. It was happening in Minnesota. I mean, these each of these areas was doing it with their own products. |00:16:44| BRODY With what they could grow or farm or fish. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, so it' ; s it' ; s really a lot of your enterprise is, and what you' ; ve been doing is educating people and translating things, it seems. So just to sort of jump off of looking at this fascinating menu from what looks to be a very fancy dinner... |00:17:07| PIERCE It was! |00:17:09| BRODY What was the restaurant scene like in Dallas- when- before you arrived? What did you know about it or what was it like when you got here? |00:17:18| PIERCE Zip. Nothing. I mean, not literally. There were... There were there were some very, very high end restaurants like Old Warsaw, like Chateaubriand was another one. But those were not places that I was going to in 1968. My most memorable restaurant experience was eating barbecue at one of the original Dickey' ; s satellites. It' ; s, it is not the same food today that it was then, but it was quite eye-opening how good it was. There were I think three Chinese restaurants was the extent of the Asian scene. There was Hong Kong Cafe on Garland Road, which everybody misses. It' ; s still in business. It' ; s the only continuously operating Chinese restaurant that I know of in this area. Dreadful menu. Because much of it is some of it is still the same food, you know, with three you get pork fried rice with four you get noodles, whatever. And then the other one was, let' ; s see, there was another one, I think it was called the China Clipper. And then there was Lim Yee in Lakewood. That was Chinese. I knew I was in trouble. I had...I grew up in a neighborhood in Southern California, where there were some interesting restaurants, good restaurants, like a very good Jewish deli, a very good Italian pizza spaghetti restaurant that I would only later come to understand that these actually were good places to learn about food. But where was I going with this? I was going somewhere, the train was going somewhere. Oh well, shoot. We' ; ll just have to pick it up. |00:19:26| BRODY Well, we were talking about what Dallas was like when you got here. |00:19:30| PIERCE Oh, I know what it was. I knew I was in trouble when I got here, and I think Shakey' ; s was the predominant pizza restaurant. And oh, and Campisi' ; s. And I mean, this was... God forgive me, Campisi fans, but this was like pizza hell compared to what I had been eating. So it was...There were some home cooking restaurants, but I tell you, it was pretty slim pickings. |00:20:04| BRODY So you have that fine dining and then, you know, some Shakey' ; s, maybe a handful of Chinese restaurants and... |00:20:12| PIERCE There was Steak and Ale. There was Brink' ; s, which was a coffee shop. But just not much of a restaurant scene. |00:20:27| BRODY Had you already known that you wanted to write about food? How did you how did you get into it in the first place? |00:20:35| PIERCE Well, I wanted to. I can' ; t take too long with these stories. I...I wanted to go to school and get a degree, which I did. I was working at one of the community colleges, El Centro, at the time in the Admissions Office, and I missed a job promotion for not having a degree. So I made it my first of all, made it my goal to get a degree. And then when I was, I was at University of Texas at Arlington. My final semester, I had a choice to make between taking a course that would put me on track for graduate sociology or take a journalism course to try and see what my writing was like. Well, I took the latter. Out of four classes, I did more, I produced more inches than any other student. I loved it. It came, writing came so naturally to me and had all my life. And I published my first freelance story the following fall in the Chicago Sun-Times. |00:21:41| BRODY That' ; s incredible. |00:21:42| PIERCE So it was a very well. It was- it was a bumpier road after that. But then I sort of fell into the food writing. First, I was the editor of the Guide, which meant a lot of discovery of places for people. I, it was our...We really saw it as our job to tell people what was out there in their world that they could do. And of course, restaurants and shopping at, we called them " ; ethnic markets" ; because our...I finally realized that we did this because we were writing to our readership, which was a predominantly white upper middle class readership. And so that was where we fell into using that terminology, which is almost politically incorrect today. |00:22:39| BRODY But at the time, it seemed like it was descriptive. |00:22:42| PIERCE Yes. Yes. Because this was unusual to our readership. So from there, of course, we trans... We, we moved toward doing the restaurants. And eventually, when I left the Guide, I went to the Food Section, which is why I started writing more food stories. But I never stopped writing restaurant reviews all through that time. In fact, I was I was writing them even in the, probably as recently as five or ten years ago. I was still writing restaurant reviews because they wanted me to, so... |00:23:17| BRODY That' ; s great. What is your philosophy around food writing? |00:23:23| PIERCE You know, I consider it. I started out as a rock and roll critic for a year at the Dallas Times Herald, and I consider the mission somewhat the same in that you want, you want to tell people. You want to bring people to the experience, you want them to taste the food you- just like, you want them to hear the music- you want them to taste the food based on what your words say and then you, you do want to use that space to educate them about what it is they' ; re eating. And you know, you bring up the sticky point of authenticity, which we' ; ll get into later. But we... but you really just want them to know more about what they' ; re eating. Whose, whose restaurant is this? What' ; s, what is the, what is the food like? How reflective is it of their culture or system? And then does it taste good? Does it work? Does it not work? |00:24:32| BRODY Right? How does it feel? Kind of what you were saying about the ambiance that Routh Street and so on, how does it feel to be there? |00:24:38| PIERCE I want to take them there. I want them to... And I think Brian does this too. We' ; re talking Brian. |00:24:45| BRODY Reinhart. |00:24:45| PIERCE Reinhart. I think he does that as well. He takes you into the experience. So I think that' ; s all part and parcel of what you do. |00:24:55| BRODY What would you say the main goals of a restaurant review are? |00:24:59| PIERCE To tell people what' ; s out there in their community. We used to- it was funny- at one point the only time we ever did negative reviews. I use those terms and I use that advisedly, that' ; s kind of a hot point word. The only time we did those (negative reviews) was when we were reviewing a restaurant that was associated with a well-known chef. And you had to continue the story. But most of the time, the prevailing philosophy was if there is no reason to send people here, we probably shouldn' ; t take the space, the precious space we have, to write about that. Even if why you send them, there is something very small. But if it' ; s going to be a straight pan, this is and we had those. We had God awful experiences. |00:26:02| BRODY And just chose to not go to print with it. |00:26:04| PIERCE Well, we just we didn' ; t write the review. We came back. We expensed it. We talked about it and said " ; Nah. This one' ; s probably not one." ; Or, " ; Let' ; s give him six months and see if anything changes." ; |00:26:16| BRODY Revisit. What qualities make a good restaurant critic, in your opinion? |00:26:21| PIERCE Well, you have to love to eat. You have to have a very good digestive system. And I say that' ; s not a joke. Both Nancy Nichols and I, Nancy, being the former D Magazine reviewer, she and I both have intestinal issues at this point in our lives and we can' ; t eat that way anymore. I can' ; t eat anything that you put in front of me. I got to be fairly...I have to be fairly careful about just what I eat. So maybe that' ; s the karma for me. But you do have to have a pretty strong gut. I think you have to have an intellectual curiosity about what you' ; re eating. I think it' ; s great if you have education in the cuisine. There' ; s a fine line there because I' ; d rather read a review by somebody who is enthusiastic and interested than somebody who knows the cuisine chapter and verse and talks down to me about it. To me, that' ; s not enticing. And boy, the whole- tell me, when do you want to go down the rabbit hole of authenticity? But because there were times when we would get into a cuisine that was new to us. Let' ; s say, Ethiopian...because we didn' ; t have Ethiopian restaurants in this city for many, many years. So what we would try to do is hook up with somebody from that community who would go with us and help us understand what we were eating. That was that was the only way to, I think, be fair, because some of these cuisines were strictly for the community. They weren' ; t for- just, just as the very first the Mexican food in the early 20th century, in Mexican kitchens, kitchens was different from what was served in the Mexican restaurants for an Anglo audience. So you got into authenticity issues right away? |00:28:48| BRODY Yeah. I mean, what do you think about that? I mean, it is a tricky, sticky kind of topic when you' ; re talking about food. And I would imagine in particular when you' ; re reviewing restaurants and, and, as you say, trying food that you may never have tried before and be very unfamiliar with, |00:29:09| PIERCE You have no benchmark. |00:29:11| BRODY Yeah. So but yet, you know, it comes up more often than you would think. Whether a particular restaurant is " ; authentic" ; to whatever its purported roots are right, whether even if it' ; s a, you know, Southern style, you know, restaurant, you know, making chicken-fried steak, is it authentic? Even, you know, going into our later topic of, you know, of Asian restaurants, you know what is authentic? What does, what does that term sort of mean to you or, you know, how is it, how does it play out when you' ; re doing the work that you do? |00:29:53| PIERCE Well, you' ; ll notice that I just grimaced. It' ; s because there have been whole conferences in, around the world, on the concept of authenticity. And you know, my favorite thing to sort of illustrate what a rabbit hole this is, is to talk about tomatoes in Italian cuisine. You know, before there was trade with the free world, I mean, the Western world. What am I saying? The New World, before there was trade with the Americas, there were no tomatoes in Italy. And so are they Italian? Are they authentic Italian food ingredients? One would certainly say so now, but five hundred years ago you would not. So I think there' ; s a real balance between authenticity and evolution. There' ; s, there' ; s evolution in fine dining where you have an authentic foundation and you try to just like a chef does in any cuisine, where you try to push the boundaries and do things that are exciting and innovative. And then there' ; s the cultural appropriation or of dumbing down concepts like Taco Bell. We shouldn' ; t always pick on Taco Bell, but any of these restaurants like that where they' ; ve sort of co-opted a concept and taken it to its lowest common denominator. |00:31:37| BRODY Yeah, that' ; s really interesting, I mean, it' ; s just. There' ; s so many layers to that that whole topic, right? I mean, like you talked earlier about fine dining and there' ; s, you know, that whole area can be fraught as well, like if especially when we' ; re talking about fine dining restaurants using and learning from the techniques of other cultures. Yes. Where, I mean, what are some of your observations there? Sort of that nexus between learning from other cultures,... Adopting the techniques, whether they be French or Japanese or whatever? And also, you know, creating something new, like you said, pushing the envelope on the types of food that you' ; re serving. |00:32:29| PIERCE I think when a chef sets out to do something like that, I...I don' ; t look at it as so much as cultural appropriation as I do....This is...It' ; s, it' ; s like a color palette in art. This is the palette that the chef is chosen, and if he wants to do things creatively with that cuisine, I don' ; t have an objection to that because this is what he stated. He didn' ; t come in and say, " ; I' ; m going to do an authentic such and such restaurant." ; He said, " ; I am...I' ; m a Brazilian chef and I' ; m going to take my Brazilian cuisine and now I' ; m going to put my creative mark on it." ; I' ; m fine with that. The ones, the ones that grate are the ones that say they are authentic, but then they' ; re basically Americanized. I think this happens nowhere more frequently than Italian. If you' ; ve ever been to Italy and eaten Italian food in Italy, you know that there' ; s a certain, I use the French " ; je ne sais quoi" ; that makes it so delicious, so simple, so fresh. It, it, it' ; s very hard to replicate that in America. I can' ; t really think of anyone right now who does. And you. Would you? Let' ; s see, what am I going off on here? You also have American expectations, and I' ; m going to come to the Asian in just a moment. You, if you remember the movie, " ; The Big Night?" ; The great scene where the couple ordered risotto and then the wife wanted to know if she could have a side of spaghetti because that' ; s what other Italian restaurants gave you. And the waiter and the chef who were brothers had this big fight back in the kitchen and he says, you know, the chef is going, " ; You don' ; t, you don' ; t put pasta with risotto, can' ; t you tell her that?" ; And the poor waiter is going, " ; But this is what she wants. She' ; s paying for the meal." ; And that particular conundrum is one I think Asian restaurants definitely come up against. All I have to do is, say, " ; Pad Thai" ; or " ; Tandoori chicken." ; And it' ; s like if you' ; re a Thai restaurant without Pad Thai or you' ; re an Indian restaurant without tandoori chicken, you know you' ; ve just canceled probably 25 percent of your profits because that' ; s what your American audience wants. So what do you do? |00:35:36| BRODY Right? It' ; s a business. |00:35:37| PIERCE It' ; s a business. And if you want to make money, you' ; re going to have those on the menu. But hopefully you can have other things as well that are more representative of your culture. |00:35:47| BRODY Yeah. So it sounds like when you first got here, there weren' ; t that many Asian restaurants, but that obviously changed. Can you tell me about your observations of, not just in terms of Asian restaurants, but the changes in the Dallas food scene over the time that you were involved in paying attention and writing about it? |00:36:09| PIERCE It was many, many years. And, I think there has been an uptick in interest in cooking that has helped to fuel this, an ability to get ingredients, which I think was brought on by the immigration of people to the area. I mean, it' ; s not one thing. I remember when in the post-Saigon era, in the late ' ; 70s, while you were still in kindergarten, I remember the little Asian stores in East Dallas. And if you wanted certain ingredients, you could go there to get them. I would get black rice to make black rice pudding because I love that. People...I remember there were live blue crabs, you know, in a little pan that people could buy. I remember the gardens where you could go and, well, I don' ; t know if you could buy things from the garden. But anyway, I remember the little stores. And then you did the story on Taj Mahal, which was part of the Indian influx. Now I get a little hazy on dates, but what I remember is the real flourishing of Indian food came with the advent of the telecom corridor in Richardson, where you, you drew and you began to have a population that could support a grocery store. You saw that. I don' ; t know what the jobs were that drew Koreans to Dallas, but you saw the whole Koreatown develop at Royal and I-35. There were, I remember there being communities, of course. Richardson, then the Greenville-Beltline area was very early, primarily Chinese, but also other groups. There was South Arlington was another community. They were, there were just slowly began to be clusters of shops. I think, for example, in the Royal-35 corridor, that' ; s stayed fairly Korean. But then you go somewhere like Richardson. And within a few blocks, you' ; ve got Mediterranean cultures. You know, it' ; s so funny. We went to a restaurant last Saturday. My, my partner and I. It was a Mediterranean buffet that we' ; ve been to before that we really liked and we walked in and they had all their pastries in the pastry case. But the buffet was closed, and I looked around and I thought, " ; Oh, this is the first day of Ramadan." ; And so this was a Muslim-run buffet. But then we could go up the road to Afrah, which is Lebanese, same, similar food culture, but different. And we could, and we had a wonderful meal there. And then that same little area there, Sara' ; s which... |00:40:04| BRODY Grocery store? |00:40:05| PIERCE Pardon me. |00:40:05| BRODY The grocery store. |00:40:06| PIERCE The grocery store. And you can go in there and you can find, oh, you could find zaatar the spice. Let me get this right, the spice. But you could find the Lebanese version. Yeah, the Persian version. I mean, you just you get, you get it down to very fine levels in the store. And again, this is all within probably a square mile. So it' ; s odd the way things have landed, but I and then you go...The other big development that I saw was the movement to the supermarkets, not just grocery stores, of which we had so many, but then we suddenly had Super H-Mart, which is Korean-owned but really caters....I mean, they definitely have. You definitely see that with the kimchi and the different various products. But then it was so much more. And it also the signs were in English as well as other languages, so they were clearly looking for an American audience. And then up on Legacy, you have Mitsui, which I think is Japanese, and then you' ; ve got another really big store. |00:41:33| BRODY Ranch 99. |00:41:34| PIERCE Well, there' ; s Ranch 99. I haven' ; t even been in Ranch 99. We go straight to Mitsui where we buy everything for our sashimi. We make sashimi at home and... |00:41:45| BRODY I' ; ll be right over. |00:41:46| PIERCE You know, it' ; s wonderful. So, you know and again, but Super H-Mart came first and it it was just a revelation of products and the availability of what you could get. Now we didn' ; t always...I don' ; t think Americans necessarily know what to do with some of those things. We would probably make them cringe if they... |00:42:13| BRODY But on the other hand, I mean, that' ; s sort of what we' ; re talking about here in, you know, in all these different ways, the, the way that food can educate people about other cultures. And serve as sort of a, you know, a point of entry. |00:42:33| PIERCE It' ; s a door. Absolutely. It' ; s because once you have the food. I don' ; t know. I just, there' ; s something so primal about sharing food. And it does create a door like you. And a very tiny example is...I, I have a lot of wine knowledge in my background. And out of that, as we got more Japanese restaurants, I became more interested in sake and then began, and again, this is on a very small scale, but it' ; s, but it' ; s how food leads you in to I, I I. There was a wonderful documentary a few years ago and it' ; s got the word " ; sake" ; in it. But it was just such a beautiful story of how this drink is made, the love, the care that goes into it, and you relate to it because it' ; s an artisan product. And what we know artisan from this food over here are this food that we make. And so, yes, I think it' ; s absolutely a door. A door, a window, an entry point, whatever you want to call it. And it leads to more understanding. |00:43:57| BRODY And it kind of what you said earlier that people were during this time period and the sort of the 80s especially starting to be, I guess, quote unquote adventurous with their own cooking, you know, exploring different cultures, learning about different cultures from the food section of the newspaper or from television, you know, various chefs on, you know, and PBS channels and things like that, introducing them to different ways of cooking things from other parts of the world. |00:44:32| PIERCE So, you know, we still get that today. I don' ; t know if you ever watch Christopher Kimball' ; s " ; Milk Street" ; but " ; Milk Street" ; and " ; America' ; s Test Kitchen" ; was really a split in philosophies where Jack Bishop with " ; America' ; s Test Kitchen" ; wanted to keep going deeper and deeper and deeper into what is the very best version of lemon meringue pie that you can make versus Christopher Kimball, who wanted to push those international boundaries in international cuisines. And we still, we, we still watch the shows. It' ; s, I think it' ; s on (channel) thirteen point three in our market today. We watch the shows and we still get the recipes and we still make those foods. I' ; m, I' ; m....One of my favorite things to do is I make a mushroom stock, a pork mushroom stock and I do fried tofu. You do a little bit of dashi in it (the stock), a little bit of soy sauce, and I hope that doesn' ; t offend anybody. But we do that, then we throw in our fried tofu, and it' ; s just, it' ; s a fabulous comfort soup. |00:45:46| BRODY Sounds wonderful. And again, you know, you have access to all of those ingredients. |00:45:52| PIERCE Yes, and they' ; re good. They' ; re good ingredients. They haven' ; t suffered in transit. And you can, you know, you can buy the artisan soy sauces, you can buy the artisan sakes, you can buy all of that now, where it was not available, I' ; m going to say even 20 years ago. This this has really been an explosion of interest, but you know, at home, at restaurants. And I mean, I think it' ; s great. |00:46:25| BRODY Well, Dallas is really known now as a restaurant city, a place where there' ; s a culture of eating out and plentiful choices at this point of, you know, as you said, all different types of foods, you know, Middle Eastern, fine dining, all different types of Asian foods, African foods and so on. What would you say are some of the characteristics of, of Dallas that, you know, that sort of made it possible for it to become this? I mean, it was at the time that you came, not something you would have predicted. Right? So how did it happen? What were the factors that led to Dallas just sort of bursting out as a food town? |00:47:18| PIERCE Brunch. |00:47:19| BRODY Really? |00:47:23| PIERCE That' ; s not the only thing, but I think Dallas has definitely become a brunch-crazy city and brunches were always...I mean, I remember we would review brunches back then because people again, people wanted this. People like to go out to eat in this city. What? I don' ; t know for sure what goes into that. Maybe it' ; s not wanting to cook so much. Well, it' ; s both. Some people love to cook at home. People like to go out. There' ; s a certain convivialness when you go out. I, you know, I don' ; t know other than we' ; ve just had so many people come into the area and they like to go out to eat. |00:48:15| BRODY How would you characterize in a, in a few words, in a few words, how would you characterize the food landscape in Dallas today if you were, you know, representing Dallas at a convention or something like that and had to tell someone who' ; d never been here? What' ; s the what' ; s the food scene here? |00:48:34| PIERCE Wonderful variety. Depth in some cuisines. Not so much in others. If you want to eat Tex-Mex or Mexican...Because of our proximity to Mexico and the commingling of the cultures, you know, that is a cuisine that you can go very deep. I was sitting here, I was thinking of Mexican regional cooking, some of the some of the things that I know Brian has written about. And then even more of beyond Mexican, Central American, you even a little bit of South American? Not very much yet, though. And then really good fine dining. We do have good fine dining in this city. You don' ; t have to have a lot of those restaurants. One of the weakest links in the chain continues to be Italian. If I want great Italian food, I' ; m probably going to go to Houston. Or but more specifically, I probably (would) more likely go to San Francisco or New York or Providence, Rhode Island. There are places where Italian food is...This is the wrong way to use the word....Where it' ; s more, indigenous, the development. But here in Dallas, you have a lot of variety, a few gaps. And there' ; s, I mean, I could take you to...I could take you somewhere like. Oh, and I' ; m I just had that memory thing happen. I' ; ll think of it. The young female chef who has the little place down east of Dallas, it' ; s very quirky. Oh, why can' ; t I think of it? I know it, I know it will, but I can' ; t remember... |00:50:47| BRODY Not York Street? |00:50:48| PIERCE What? |00:50:48| BRODY York Street that closed a while back, but |00:50:51| PIERCE No...this is the little...She' ; s a young chef. She puts crazy things together and they' ; re so good. But it' ; s a, it' ; s very...I know we' ; ll think of it. In fact, I should look it up on my phone right now. But from something like that experience to the fine dining, super fine dining for something like Monarch to the exciting, the one that' ; s the Brazilian chef. I can where does my mind go? There' ; s just a lot there' ; s a lot of places to go and enjoy good food. Yeah. |00:51:39| BRODY So just going back to the restaurant reviewing. |00:51:43| PIERCE Yes. |00:51:43| BRODY I don' ; t know if this was as big of a factor at the point that you' ; re retired, but with the internet and a lot of these crowd sourcing and, you know, customer created review sites like Yelp and so on, did those have an impact on your work? |00:52:01| PIERCE Hate them. |00:52:04| BRODY Tell me about your feelings there. |00:52:08| PIERCE Yeah, I hate them because they have cheapened the value. My...You know, the review by my next-door neighbor does not have the weight of experience and understanding that a professional restaurant reviewer has. And I' ; m sorry that those (professional)reviews have become harder to find, even though they' ; re probably going to be a lot more accurate, detailed, written. They' ; re not going to just be, " ; Wow, this was so good." ; And it' ; s like, that doesn' ; t really tell anybody what they' ; re about to eat. So I think it' ; s really cheapened and made it harder to get, and that' ; s true. It' ; s not just true of restaurant reviews. It' ; s true of photography. For example, it' ; s you know, " ; Oh, look, I can do this with my, my phone. Look what a good picture I took?" ; And it' ; s like, it' ; s not nearly as good as what a professional would have done. And you can see the difference if they' ; re side by side. And I think you get that same thing with the restaurant review as I am just now. I am obsessed with figuring out what this restaurant is. OK, so I' ; m going to do East Dallas. Restaurant. I do like that I can look things up on my phone like this... Petra and the Beast! That' ; s the one I was thinking of. Super quirky, super quirky place, super quirky food. You could go all the way from that to something very formal. I. OK. In defense of the internet, now that I' ; ve slammed the reviews, I love that I can walk into an Asian restaurant where I don' ; t know the food, where the menu descriptions are usually not...They don' ; t really tell you a lot like, you know, green curry, bell pepper dot dot dot dot dot. Just like doesn' ; t tell me a lot so I can go up and I can look at my phone and I can very quickly access a recipe and see, " ; OK, here' ; s what this dish has in it." ; And I can surmise from that how it' ; ll probably taste. So kind of a good news, bad news tool. |00:54:44| BRODY The internet, anyway empowers all of us customers and reviewers alike. But yes, those the reviews themselves sound like they are, in your view... |00:54:54| PIERCE Dumbed down. |00:54:55| BRODY Yeah. And kind of take away the role of expertise. Because when you were describing your early, you know, the early days of the, the star reviews in the Dallas Morning News, I mean, it sounded like you all underwent a certain amount of training to sort of create a benchmark of, you know, what are you expecting, what you know, what is a good restaurant, what makes a good experience and so on. |00:55:23| PIERCE At that period of time, I also I traveled to New York and New Orleans to go to key restaurants again just to have the perspective. |00:55:33| BRODY Was that part of the onboarding in the Food Section? |00:55:37| PIERCE Definitely. |00:55:39| BRODY And what restaurants in New York do you remember? |00:55:43| PIERCE I knew you would (ask me that). It' ; s not. It' ; s OK. It' ; s not open anymore. But of course, Commander' ; s Palace in New Orleans and in the, you know, the mind goes, I can' ; t remember the...Lutece was one of the important ones in New York. We went to one of the Italians in New York that wasn' ; t that great. Maybe the original El Molino and...Oh, I just I can' ; t quite remember the others in New Orleans. I just remember, though, one of the things I had for the very first time and this was probably 20 years ago, 30 years ago, it was a salad made with tomato and watermelon, which we see on menus today. But at the time, it was like, " ; How can you put these things together?" ; And it was fabulous. |00:56:41| BRODY Bottom line. It tasted good. |00:56:43| PIERCE Yes. Yes. |00:56:45| BRODY Interesting. Well. Just kind of thinking about specifically, Dallas has now after, you know, after the immigration law changed in 1965, after the so many Vietnamese refugees resettled in Dallas, after the Vietnam War, a very large Asian population and that, you know, population is reflected, as we talked about earlier in a lot of the stores, grocery stores, markets as well as restaurants, both, you know, " ; mom and pop" ; and, and more, you know, mid-market and then even some high-end or upscale Asian dining. Right? What role do you see those types of businesses playing in communicating culture to, you know, not just sort of native Texans, but all of us who now live here in the Metroplex? |00:57:54| PIERCE That' ; s a good question, and I' ; m not sure. I' ; m not sure I know the answer. Other than, you almost have to rely on people' ; s natural curiosity because you can' ; t really take the culture to them. They' ; ve got to be adventurous enough. What popped in my brain was the outdoor food fair every Sunday at the Buddhist temple, which is all...Is it all Thai street food? |00:58:33| BRODY I think it' ; s all Thai. |00:58:34| PIERCE Yeah, that' ; s...Which is just a fabulous way to sort of eat your way through the cuisine in a very friendly way. You know, I can take the stick and I can chew the meat off of it. But you have to be willing. You have to know about it. You have to get up and you have to go to the Buddhist temple. You have to be open to the to the different experience. The same thing is true with Kalachandji, which I don' ; t...Have you been to Kalachandji? |00:59:09| BRODY Long time ago? Yes. |00:59:10| PIERCE If I don' ; t, if you go back, you' ; ll find at least I think it' ; s still there. But they' ; ve got a whole wall of all the reviews that have ever been done. So you sort of see this history of Dallas dining, but they, they would have been there since 1984, but you had to be willing to go to the temple and you know, " ; Who knows, who knows what these people really do?" ; And there' ; s a certain little bit of fear level there. But once you get over that, well, because people are thinking of, " ; Oh my god, am I going to have Hare Krishnas dancing at my table?" ; Well, no, you' ; re not. That' ; s only at the airport. But I, you know, I think there has to be that natural curiosity, which I think a lot of people do have. And then you have to have venues where they can shop, where they can learn. You know, it' ; s what' ; s been interesting with COVID is that we' ; ve lost a lot of the cooking classes, which I think were an important bridge. I went to so many cooking classes of every stripe. I' ; ll never forget one at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, which was Jacques Pepin who I loved. And it was where he went through and deboned an entire chicken without ever, you know, cutting it apart. And you watch him do it and you think, " ; Well, that looks easy!" ; And then you go home and it' ; s like, all you have are thumbs and you can' ; t do it. But then I' ; ve seen other chefs like the woman that has Asian Mint, Nikky, whose name I can' ; t pronounce. I went to one of her classes and learned how to make Vietnamese fried rice. And it' ; s different from Chinese fried rice, what we' ; re so used to. So the classes, I think, are a really important link. I think Central Market still has some classes, but boy, you don' ; t have the number of venues that you used to have. I hope someone will fill in that gap eventually, because I guess in some ways you' ; ve got videos which people go to. You' ; ve got the TV shows, which are great. I mean, they really are a good distillation of techniques and how you make all this work. Everything that we' ; ve made from the TV recipes has turned out like... Because we' ; ve watched it. So maybe that' ; s what' ; s taking the place. |01:02:07| BRODY Do you think there' ; s something lost in not being physically together and seeing it in person? The hands-on piece? |01:02:16| PIERCE There is, there absolutely is, because usually you get... I mean, you still get story, but yeah, you don' ; t have the communal aspect, which maybe that will come back to us in some way. I' ; m not sure what that' ; s going to be. |01:02:35| BRODY Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of COVID. Here in Dallas, restaurants have been hit especially hard by COVID, obviously the labor issues that happened after and a lot of them by the tornado that came just before COVID. Do you have any, any stories or any observations or reflections on those challenges to the restaurants? |01:03:06| PIERCE My partner, Alfonso Cevola, I' ; ll give him credit for this. He was retired from the wine industry and he said, and I think he' ; s right, " ; I think we' ; re going to see a lot more fast casual dining where you have where you order at the counter and the food is brought out to you." ; I think we' ; re going to see fewer full-service restaurants because. It' ; s a, it' ; s a, the confluence is not only with the help, but for so long, restaurant workers have been underpaid. Without question, you know, a tip can only go so far when you' ; re making $2.25 an hour, which is what some servers make, which is crazy. So you had this burst of paying. All of a sudden there were, the help needed... The " ; help" ; that' ; s a terrible way to say it. But servers, cooks, people on the line were demanding more money and should be making more money. So there was that increase in costs. There' ; s the supply-chain issues in agriculture. I don' ; t know if you saw the news in the paper this morning, but Jon Alexis, who owns TJ' ; s Seafood, says the price of lobster right now has just doubled and it' ; s, it' ; s because of a series of problems in that supply chain, unique to that supply chain. I remember not so long ago for weeks he couldn' ; t, you know, I love his crabcakes because he really uses...It' ; s almost all crab meat. Jumbo crab meat, which is a specific high end type. And he had to stop selling those because the price of crab was just off the charts and people finally convinced him and said, " ; Look, we' ; ll pay that." ; And, and, and we do- raising my hand- because when I want a crabcake, I want the very best crabcake money can buy. And that tends to be one of his. But there' ; s, so there' ; s been an uptick in the price of the commodities. Part of that is a labor issue. Part of that is a climate issue. And it all has sort of dovetailed around, but people still want...There' ; s that, definitely that pent up demand of people wanting to go to restaurants. So, I suppose what I see is that there' ; s going to be a gradual division where you sort of hollow out the middle and you have the, the higher, not very high end, but even medium high end like TJ' ; s. That' ; s a medium, high end restaurant as far as dining there. It' ; s, you know, it' ; s not unusual to spend $100 for two for just a modest meal. And then there' ; s the fast casual where you can get pretty darn good food, but then you get the, the a little what am I trying...Not... |01:06:38| BRODY Different service. |01:06:40| PIERCE Well, no, no, almost no service and less ambiance. I' ; m trying to think...To me a perfect example of that is Wu Wei Din. I don' ; t know. That' ; s a Chinese restaurant. I think it' ; s Taiwanese- that they- street food they specialize in. You know, God, strike me if I got that wrong. But, but Wu Wei Din is. They even though it is a full service restaurant, it' ; s...Not it is, it is not mid-range, it' ; s not fine dining. But I but I think there' ; s going to be this hollowing out in the middle. There will be the Wu Wei Dins and then there will be the TJ' ; s. There' ; s a lot of others in there. |01:07:38| BRODY And do you think there' ; s still a persistent role for the very high end in Dallas? |01:07:48| PIERCE Only for expense account dining. There' ; s a portion of a one, 0.1 percent who... And the thing is, those very high-end restaurants are all competing for that diner' ; s dollar. And there' ; s a limit to how many of those restaurants can be supported. They' ; re just, you know, somebody that has a 200-page wine list and the cheapest wine is 50 bucks. It' ; s like, give me a break. And I' ; ve been on the expense account. I totally get that. But for most of us, I know where to get just as good of food and very good wine, maybe even bring my own, and I can still have a great experience. Do I need to go to those places? I really don' ; t. Which is a terrible thing to say, but I think we' ; re going to see fewer and fewer of those places. We had a couple of new ones open. I give them a year at the most. And then there' ; s those crazy people who come down from New York and think they' ; re going to show us how to do it. And I tell you, this is a, this is a trap. It' ; s got a body count from here to the end of your patio of New York restaurateurs who were going to show us how to do it. And they got surprised. |01:09:24| BRODY Yeah. Tell me about that. In going through the archives of the Food Section there, there' ; s definitely evidence of, you know, of some, I don' ; t know, if hard feelings is the right word, but just sort of |01:09:39| PIERCE You mean the lawsuit? |01:09:41| BRODY Yeah. Well, I wasn' ; t thinking of that. But the, you know, just some articles that refer to, you know, and also in D Magazine of especially in the mid ' ; 80s, sort of the influx of people who came from up north and, you know, had ideas. Yeah. Had ideas about what Dallas would be like, what food would be like. |01:10:04| PIERCE " ; We' ; re going to show you how to do it." ; |01:10:06| BRODY Yeah. So tell me about that time and sort of the what were some of the tensions that were happening in real time? |01:10:14| PIERCE Well, The Mansion on Turtle Creek, when it first opened, the restaurant was managed by the...And I don' ; t know quite the inner workings, but it was the 21 Club in New York that came down and, you know, did the menu and managed it. And boy. Very quickly, that that did not go over, there' ; s a certain, you know, Dallasites at that time might have been ignorant and I' ; m using my little air quotes, but don' ; t you dare tell them they are? That' ; s the easiest way to lose a customer is to kind of lord over them at the table and talk down to them about what they want. It doesn' ; t work. And like I said, there' ; s a trail of bodies. I was thinking of not, like there' ; s a building on the tollway that was Smith and Wollensky' ; s, which remains shuttered to this day. What a decade more? Il Molino was another one who came down and was going to show us how to do Italian, and it just, it doesn' ; t work. |01:11:39| BRODY Do you think that it came from a sense of sort of that Texas or Dallas in particular might have been too provincial or inexperienced? Where was that coming from? |01:11:54| PIERCE Inexperienced? Yes, the, the way you deal with that as a restaurateur is with velvet gloves. Not the...I am so reminded. Let' ; s see, where does the story begin? This is a story of The Mansion on Turtle Creek and Michael Flynn, who was at one time the sommelier from there, and he had come from Washington, D.C.. Michael is a is a very, very humble guy. He' ; s not a snooty wine steward. He really is a people pleaser. And the locals would come in to The Mansion and the guy, the big man at the table would be, " ; Uh, Screaming Eagle all around." ; Well, if you' ; re- that' ; s a wine. And if you' ; re composing a meal and matching it to wines, you don' ; t start with the Screaming Eagle. You, you start with something a lot softer and you work up to that with the with the entree, which he knew. But you could never, you would never say that. You would never want to embarrass your, your customer. And so what Michael would do, would be to very, it would be to talk. I can' ; t remember the approach he said he took, but it was to say, " ; Well, maybe we would...How would you like to start with a celebratory champagne?" ; And he would sort of gently move to a little lighter side and then gradually he would build trust and build up to where the Screaming Eagle matched the food? I' ; m not saying....Whoever starts a restaurant here, you' ; ve got to be sensitive to what we' ; ll call some of the eccentricities of the people who live here and dine here, and some of them are quite ignorant. |01:14:07| BRODY What do you think those eccentricities are? |01:14:10| PIERCE Well, this belief that big red, you know, big red wine. A big red wine is not the be all end all, but it' ; s, some people feel like they have to order that to impress. How you know, how big can the steak get, how big can the Tomahawk get? It' ; s...But you do that if you' ; re really going to do that and be successful, you understand the sensibility of the audience. And oh, I' ; ve got to look up because I just lost another name on who does this well. There' ; s a restaurant called Town Hearth. Are you familiar with that? It' ; s a steak house, and I' ; ve tried to remember the name of, I' ; m so sorry, I forgot your name, the guy who started it. Help me out here, help me out here. Oh, come on. I don' ; t want, you know, I don' ; t want Yelp. I want to know. Let' ; s, let' ; s let me go here, to " ; About" ; for just one moment. Nick Badovinus, Nick Badovinus is a chef who understands his audience and Town Hearth is so much fun. Have you been? |01:15:30| BRODY No, I have not. |01:15:30| PIERCE It is. It' ; s like he' ; s got an aquarium with a Yellow Submarine in it, and he' ; s got really wild, funky chandeliers. And there' ; s a sports car over here,(French) and it' ; s just it' ; s like, it' ; s fun. And then he' ; s got really good food. And some of it is big and outlandish, but it matches the market. He didn' ; t. I mean, he understands who his diner is, and I know that' ; s a long way from your question. But I do think that' ; s what' ; s made it so hard for these out-of-towners. These carpetbaggers, restaurant carpetbaggers, they do not know better. If, if you don' ; t understand this market, you' ; re not going to succeed in this market. |01:16:23| BRODY Do you think the since you know, those times in the mid 80s or so, do you think that the people of Dallas and the eaters of Dallas have changed? |01:16:35| PIERCE Yes. |01:16:36| BRODY And how so? |01:16:41| PIERCE Well, they' ; ve become more sophisticated. You know, the other thing I wanted to add, because this is an important part of the history. Two things back in the 80s. One is, at that time, the best fine dining restaurants in Dallas were usually part of hotels, which was quite unusual in this country. I mean, the whole country. But you had Cafe Royal at...Oh, I can' ; t remember the name of the hotel now, but it was it was our first really good nouvelle (French) cuisine restaurant and it was part of a hotel. The Mansion on Turtle Creek, part of a hotel, the restaurants of the Anatole, all part of a hotel. This was, this was true that that was where you found some of the best fine dining in the 80s. The other thing was once the celebrity chef craze hit, people really followed the chefs. They loved the chefs. You know, Dean Fearing could do no wrong. Stephan Pyles could do no wrong. I mean, he could, but that there was always looking for that, that personality, because usually even today with Dean' ; s restaurant at the Ritz Carlton, the Ritz Carlton, you know, you walk in there and you sit down to eat and chances are good, Dean' ; s going to make the rounds and you' ; re going to get to say " ; hi" ; to the chef. That' ; s who- I think that touchy-feely experience really started with the 80s and people, people loved it. |01:18:32| PIERCE Yeah. So I mean, that, kind of a lot of what we' ; ve been talking about revolves around sort of really the idea of hospitality. And early on, when you were talking about the ambiance at Routh Street, it was the warmth, that really sounds like it struck you initially. |01:18:46| PIERCE Yes. |01:18:47| PIERCE Is that unique to Dallas or is it a development that you know, that sort of nationwide that you know that, that people are seeking that sort of hospitality? |01:19:00| PIERCE I think you can find that anywhere. And in fact, depending here, if I were to go to San Francisco, we could find restaurants like that or if I were to go to Seattle, we could find them. I thought immediately when you said that of Chez Panisse. It very much is reflective. And I don' ; t know, we should ask Stephen some time...He would sit down and talk with you, by the way. |01:19:23| BRODY That would be lovely. |01:19:25| PIERCE But he could tell you whether or not he was influenced by Chez Panisse. He might have been. But it definitely had that cozy, warm feeling. And yet you never felt the service lag. All the elements of the best fine dining service were there. But without the stuffiness. |01:19:50| BRODY Do you think the stuffiness is, was tied to sort of the rigidity of the French, you know, the French tradition? |01:19:59| PIERCE What we imported? Yeah, I think you' ; re right. Absolutely, that...because that was the definition of fine dining: French, French and continental. And I, you know, I also brought you something which you can keep for a while and look at which gives you...This is another snapshot in time in Dallas of...Let me get you a...Oh, and then there' ; s the Pyramid Room at the Fairmont. Oh my gosh, that was again a hotel restaurant. That was absolutely the pinnacle of fine dining in its day. This book is from 1979. It' ; s called " ; Dining in Dallas." ; And you know, it' ; s one of those things where you paid to be a part of it. Nevertheless, there was there were a lot of people that paid to be a part of it and some of the ones, to some of the fine dining ones. We had the Pyramid Room. Then over at the Anatole, we had the Plum Blossom. That was a very upscale Asian Chinese restaurant. Chinese. You had L' ; Entrecote, which was also in the Anatole. You had Jean Claude. That was one of the early earliest French restaurants in Dallas. And he did classes. He did classes like a mad man. In fact, I' ; ve still got one of his recipe books. And then you have it, you have a few more. But this, this will give you an interesting snapshot of, of what people were eating. There' ; s not much left. |01:21:40| BRODY Thank you. Thank you. |01:21:42| PIERCE You know, and the other person that you might enjoy talking to is Gus Katsigris. Do you know Gus? Go talk to him soon, because he' ; s an old guy, but he' ; s hanging on. Gus started the hospitality program at El Centro and this was back in the late ' ; 60s when I actually when I was working there. He has many, many stories and a great perspective on everything in the scene. Now, he may not be able to add as much light on Asian. Again, that' ; s that was such...I' ; m going to use that word. That was so organic. And arose out of the populations that moved here versus being here and the scene sort of developing. |01:22:38| BRODY Right. Absolutely. And continues to grow so that. |01:22:44| PIERCE It does so. |01:22:45| BRODY And I mean, it is interesting and I don' ; t know if you have any observations on this that, that first generation of Asian restaurants. You know, we had the few Chinese restaurants that you mentioned, the ones that came after then, you know, a handful of Indian restaurants and then since then the rapid growth northward and, you know, just booming. |01:23:09| PIERCE Plano and Frisco. |01:23:11| BRODY Yeah. So I mean, the even the idea of Dallas has spread so much further. What are your, you know, your observations of that in terms of the restaurant scene that there' ; s you know, that small square footage, you know, that was considered Dallas, you know, downtown or even uptown, you know, back then where now you might need to drive 30, 40 minutes to find the restaurant that' ; s being written about in the in the Morning News? |01:23:42| PIERCE Well, it' ; s like it' ; s like we drive from Lake Highlands to Wu Wei Din for the dandan noodles. And for us, that' ; s about it. That' ; s about a 15- mile drive. |01:23:55| BRODY It must be good. |01:23:56| PIERCE Oh my God, they' ; re good. But. It is hard to know. It is hard to predict where things are going to go, because I don' ; t know how, again, because of the whole economic shift. I don' ; t know how, excuse me, how far fine dining can push. Again, you have to be. We have some friends who eat out fairly often, and they just they went out for dinner the other night and it was 650 bucks. And you know, they can afford that. But we don' ; t go out and spend, and most of us don' ; t go out and spend that much for a meal. So there' ; s a very limited strata that that serves. Then you have people like the Petra and the Beast, where she' ; s doing really innovative stuff, but you know you' ; re eating it out of a little paper plates. You' ; re not...you' ; re not getting the fine dining experience. The thing that I would like to see, and I think it' ; s starting to happen with Mexican, but I would like to see a more of a gradual specialization, if you will, for instance, either. I' ; m thinking of Indian, you know, southern Indian, northern Indian. Very, very different. OK, that' ; s about my extent of understanding. What happens if you start getting people who could talk more about the cuisines that have the Portuguese influence and specializing in that? Getting down to some of the finer divisions. Just like we talk about African cuisine. You know, Africa' ; s big continent. I know we get Ethiopian. I occasion...I don' ; t know whether I' ; ve seen a Nigerian restaurant or not. But I would I would think that we would begin to get more specialization, as Brian pointed out with the Mexican. Well, or even the latest issue of D Magazine, which talks about the different ways that quote authentic Mexican is being expressed here in Dallas. It seems like that' ; s the way to go, because otherwise you have people sort of up here treading water at a...Without much true immersion in the cuisine. |01:26:51| BRODY So more depth and more education? |01:26:55| PIERCE Yes. |01:26:58| BRODY That' ; s really, really interesting. |01:26:59| PIERCE And I could be 100% wrong. I mean, that might not be what happens at all. |01:27:05| BRODY Well, we' ; ll wait and see. Well, this has been really, really interesting. Is there anything that I didn' ; t ask you or a story that you' ; d like to share as we finish up? |01:27:18| PIERCE I think you have covered most of it. I got in my " ; Big Night" ; story. There' ; s also...The one thing I would like to point out is that we had a pretty darn authentic Italian restaurant in this city for years and years with Il Sorrento, which opened in 1950. And I, I will confess that we missed it on our radar at the Dallas Morning News. |01:27:54| BRODY Why do you think? |01:27:55| PIERCE Because we were ignorant. It' ; s...We just were. Mario Messina who owned that was doing his own, he was making his own pasta from the beginning. And it' ; s like all, " ; we" ; in our little restaurant review group were seeing was a festive, celebratory, you know, entertaining night out. But, but in reality, he was doing the real food. It took the city a long time to catch up to him. Is there anything else? I don' ; t know. I don' ; t know, I guess it' ; s amazing we' ; ve covered an amazing territory. |01:28:48| BRODY Well, it' ; s been really interesting to learn about your life and your work and also hear from someone that' ; s been really paying attention to what' ; s been happening in the food scene in Dallas for a long time. So I appreciate you taking the time and and sharing these amazing artifacts as well. So thanks. Thank you very much. |01:29:10| PIERCE You' ; re welcome. It' ; s a pleasure. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Kim Pierce, April 5, 2022
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2021oh002_di_007
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Food writing
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2022-04-05
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Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Madan Goyal
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5.4 Interview with Madan Goyal, April 15, 2022 2021oh002_di_008 01:03:10 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Indian Madan Goyal Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_goyal_madan20220415.m4a 1:|14(7)|25(4)|41(8)|51(6)|62(4)|77(4)|88(2)|103(5)|115(1)|125(4)|139(1)|148(12)|159(3)|165(2)|176(8)|185(3)|202(6)|212(7)|223(13)|233(14)|248(6)|260(5)|271(4)|285(5)|306(1)|318(8)|329(12)|343(10)|354(7)|363(8)|374(7)|384(1)|397(3)|407(5)|418(9)|427(15)|438(2)|449(1)|465(14)|480(3)|488(2)|504(4)|516(6)|528(11)|535(13)|547(9)|561(1)|570(4)|581(6)|601(2)|614(12)|623(4)|633(8)|641(2)|655(3)|660(9)|669(11)|676(11)|690(3)|704(2)|714(5)|727(8)|742(9) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/163030 Aviary audio 3 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Indian ; Texas--History 35 Coming to the United States from India India ; Thapar College ; Utah ; Xerox 226 Indian community in Dallas in 1971/India Association movie nights Dallas ; India Association ; Indian community ; movies ; SMU ; Southern Methodist University 453 Fitting in in Dallas assimilation ; culture ; Dallas ; first generation ; neighborhood ; neighbors ; racism ; Texas 669 Opening India House restaurant in Dallas chefs ; cooks ; entrepreneur ; ethnic food ; family run restaurant ; Hickory House Barbecue ; India House ; Indian food ; Indian restaurants ; labor ; Lufthansa ; naan ; remodel ; SMU ; Souther Methodist University ; tandoors 32.83670088441465, -96.7743036355824 17 1273 Sourcing spices from Indian groceries in New York groceries ; Houston ; India groceries ; local ingredients ; New York ; spices ; suppliers 1402 Permits and liquor sales alcohol ; health department ; health inspection ; Hickory House Barbecue ; liquor ; permits ; Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission 1545 Customers from Southern Methodist University and advertising advertising ; bridge ; curiosity ; customers ; Indian community ; Indian food ; Indian restaurant ; SMU ; Southern Methodist University ; Yellow Pages 1727 Most popular dishes at India House bridge ; competition ; educate ; education ; Indian restaurant ; menu ; shish kebab ; tandoor ; tandoori chicken ; vegetarian 2008 Responsibilities to employees and customers business ; customers ; educate ; education ; entrepreneur ; responsibilities ; responsible 2150 Customer interest in learning how to cook Indian dishes cooking ; educate ; education ; Indian grocery store ; spices 2300 Closing India House due to real estate boom in Dallas expansion ; growth ; landlord ; lease ; real estate ; shutdown 2365 Taste of Dallas and sharing Indian culture through food bridge ; culture ; curiosity ; Dallas Restaurant Association ; Diwali ; ethnic food ; Indian culture ; Indian food ; SMU ; Southern Methodist University ; Taste of Dallas 2588 Serving authentic Indian food authentic ; authenticity ; diverse ; diversity ; Indian food ; Indian restaurant ; North India ; spices 2767 Special events for Diwali, New Year's Eve, and other celebrations celebrations ; Diwali 2812 Introducing the lunch buffet at India House bridge ; buffet ; curiosity ; educate ; education ; India House ; Indian food ; lunch 2951 Changing Hickory House Barbecue to India House entrepreneur ; expansion ; growth ; Hickory House Barbecue ; India House ; landlord ; lease 3028 Reflections on restaurants being manufacturing, retail, and service businesses business ; restaurants ; tandoori chicken 3129 Impact of the airport/Changes in Dallas airport ; business ; curiosity ; India House 3262 Observations about the Asian community in Dallas Asian community ; India Association ; Indian community ; IT ; University of Texas at Dallas 3399 Celebrities at India House celebrities ; culture ; educate ; education ; Indian culture 3581 India House cooks featured at Neiman Marcus Fortnight and Fairmont Hotel India week cooking class ; Fortnight ; hotels ; Maharajah ; Mumtaz ; Neiman Marcus ; Ruben Buster |00:00:03| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is April 15th, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time, Mr. Madan Goyal. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and as part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; Hello, Mr. Goyal, thank you for sitting for this interview. Let' ; s just start out and talk about where and when were you born? |00:00:39| Goyal Well, Madan Goyal. I was born in North India, in state of Punjab and in a small town there. |00:00:55| Brody What brought you to Texas? |00:00:57| Goyal Well, after studies in India, I came to U.S. as a student and after finishing my studies, I got jobs in Pennsylvania and in Rochester, New York. And there, I was working for Xerox Corporation. Xerox moved a whole division to Dallas and I was one of the persons in that division. And that' ; s what brought me to Dallas. |00:01:37| Brody Where did you go to school? |00:01:40| Goyal In India? I went to Thapar College, which is an engineering college in Patiala in Punjab state. And from there I came to Utah State University in upstate Utah, and after finishing there, I went to the- my first job was in Pennsylvania. |00:02:03| Brody So Utah was probably quite a difference from India. |00:02:07| Goyal Very much so. Well, anything was different from India, but especially Utah, because as we all know, Utah is predominantly Mormon community, and so most of my friends and classmates and roommates in the dorm were all LDS faith. So which is very different than the mainstream Christianity, but so in that sense, you' ; re right that it was very different. |00:02:46| Brody What was Dallas like when you got here? |00:02:50| Goyal Dallas was nice. We liked it. |00:02:55| Brody What year was that? |00:02:57| Goyal 72. We came here in 1972, and we liked it. I think maybe seventy one. Oh yeah, we came here in 1971 and we liked it. It was more like India and Punjab, weather-wise, so no snows. Even though summers were a little hot, but it wasn' ; t that bad since we could always get inside and almost everything, including the cars, were all air conditioned. So we didn' ; t have any problems with the heat, but we didn' ; t miss the snows of upstate New York. |00:03:45| Brody Were there a lot of Indians here in 1971 when you arrived? |00:03:50| Goyal Well, I wouldn' ; t say a lot, probably less than 100. We pretty much met everybody. There were five or six families came with Xerox. So we already knew them. Then we made friends with the other families who were already here. But I would estimate it was total less than 100 families, from South Asia, including a couple families from Pakistan and the rest from India. |00:04:30| Brody So 1971, well before the internet and everything. How did you find other Indian families back then? |00:04:38| Goyal Well, typically we started from the university. In the SMU or Southern Methodist University. Of course, they had some students and they had some faculty members. That' ; s how we got to find out who else was in town and whether they had any programs or. And then that' ; s when the India Association, which is a nonprofit cultural, historical organization that got established in those early 70s. |00:05:18| Brody Were you active in the India Association? |00:05:21| Goyal Yes. At that time, I was, but later on and of course, as the population grew a lot more leadership came in. |00:05:32| Brody What kind of things did the- not just the India Association- but what sorts of things did, did the Indian community do to socialize and get together during those days in the early 70s? |00:05:46| Goyal The India Association did the movies. That was one of the things. They would bring the movies mostly. Many times we showed the movie- Indian movies at the Southwestern Medical School and one of their auditoriums because there were some doctors also who were Indian doctors who were and they could arrange to use of the auditorium. And then it used to be in the big reels, not digital. So the reels will come in in the mail and then somebody will take it. And we had a projector and that' ; s how we played and watched movies. So it was pretty popular because that essentially was really the only Indian outlet to and with the small community. |00:06:49| Brody Right? Was it usually a full house? |00:06:54| Goyal Well, I think most of the time pretty much everybody in town showed up. |00:07:01| Brody Yeah. Were they current movies that were popular in India or? |00:07:05| Goyal Yes. Indian nation movies which are popular there. These days, you know the Indian movies are released on the same day here as in India. But in those days, the reels, they would be still popular movies, but not the latest ones. |00:07:30| Brody Right. Makes sense. Tell me about your experience...I mean, if it was a small Indian community, obviously you had a lot of contact with people who were already here, other, other communities, native Texans, et cetera. Tell me about your experience, sort of as you got to Dallas fitting in to your neighborhood, workplace, et cetera. |00:07:53| Goyal Well, most of the time you spend is, outside of the office, at home is with the neighbors. So we, of course, when we got our house, built a house, or moved into the house, we met the neighbors. So that was...And since we had the school age kids going to the schools and meeting through the PTA, the other parents, which essentially were from the neighborhood since it was elementary school age kids. So we met the neighbors and other parents that way in the neighborhood. So it was good meeting them and realizing, well, how Texas is different even than New York, where we moved with Xerox. |00:08:49| Brody What were some of the differences that you noticed or that you learned about? |00:08:52| Goyal Well, I think some of the difference was people were a little more open, here, than I thought in New York. You know, more friendly in a sense and more inquisitive because in New York state and in upstate New York, there were a lot of Indians and other ethnic communities. Whereas in Dallas, it was not so much so. Very few, again, very few Indians, or for that matter other cultural families. |00:09:42| Brody What were the types of things that your new friends and neighbors were curious about? |00:09:48| Goyal Oh, everything from dress you wear, to, you know what you eat. So, they were curious and interested in just...Because it' ; s so different than the Texas culture. |00:10:11| Brody Did you try to maintain for your family, for your kids, some of the traditions? |00:10:18| Goyal As much as we could? Yes, because I think first generation Americans, they typically want to keep as much as they can of their own culture and try to pass it on to the next generation. |00:10:38| Brody Sure. Did you encounter any racism or any difficulties like that? |00:10:43| Goyal I wouldn' ; t say I encountered any racism, you know, with the neighbors or work or anywhere else. And I think it was more curious, our interpretation of some things, but not outright racism. |00:11:09| Brody So you were working at Xerox, but I know that you also started a restaurant. Can you tell me about the path that led you to starting the restaurant? |00:11:19| Goyal Well, when we moved here to Dallas, there was no Indian restaurant. The most ethnic restaurants were either Mexican or Chinese, and hardly any other ethnic food was available in the restaurants. So we thought, Well, that, that' ; s who would be...Family-wise or otherwise, I' ; m kind of an entrepreneur. A streak or DNA. And so I thought, " ; Well that should be good." ; Dallas is a big city and it' ; s a relatively...is cosmopolitan and getting to be cosmopolitan. They, so they should have enough market. We didn' ; t do any market study, but well, just gut feeling that should be enough market of people who' ; ll want to try. After all, they like...The Mexican food is so popular, so they might try the Indian food. So that was kind of reasoning and thinking behind it. And then it wasn' ; t really that easy to start an Indian restaurant at that time. |00:12:50| Brody Why is that? |00:12:52| Goyal Well, first there were no Indian cooks or chefs available anywhere. I myself am not a chef, or a cook. And my wife, and she had no desire to be working in the restaurant. And so I had to bring the cooks from India...who came to Dallas. And in those days, since of scarcity of the labor force, meaning availability of Indian cooks, we could get them the residency permit, the cooks who came from India. So I started, I got a restaurant which used to be a barbecue place called Hickory House Barbecue on Mockingbird, and that seemed like a right location to me since it was close to SMU, Southern Methodist University. And I felt that, well, that would be a good location since we could get the students if we needed the staff part time or full time. Plus the SMU faculty and others, they probably traveled and they probably would be interested. And the Park Cities nearby there. So, the location was on Mockingbird near Central Expressway. |00:14:46| Brody Okay. Did you live close to there as well? |00:14:48| Goyal No. I lived in North Dallas near Midway and Forest. |00:14:57| Brody So the no, having no cooks, that was the first challenge. What were some other challenges that you faced in starting the restaurant? |00:15:06| Goyal Well, the others was getting the tandoors. Tandoor is an Indian clay oven which is very typical of Indian food cooking. And so we had to get those by air from the Delhi on Lufthansa. Lufthansa delivered it. They didn' ; t break on, in the way. But then we installed it. So I started, got this barbecue place while we were working on opening the Indian restaurant. So, the barbecue place ran till we got the cooks, we got tandoors, and we shut down the barbecue place and converted it to India House. |00:16:03| Brody Wow. So you started, you came to Texas from India and in your path to starting an Indian restaurant, also started your restaurant career as a barbecue guy? |00:16:15| Goyal Yes. |00:16:16| Brody That' ; s interesting. |00:16:18| Goyal That barbecue place, Hickory House Barbecue. And the cook that was running the barbecue place, we kept him. He learned the Indian cooking from the other two Indian cooks that we brought home in India. So he learned the cooks, and then we had all three of them working there. |00:16:45| Brody That' ; s really...That' ; s really interesting. So in both cases, the finding, the cooks and buying the tandoor from India while you were here, those seem like logistically difficult challenges, what were the steps? How did you go about? |00:17:03| Goyal Well, yes, it was. Then I just contacted the cooks. I called the home town. My parents were still there and others. Told them, and they said, " ; Oh yeah, we got very good cooks in town." ; And so we got one of them was from my hometown. The other one was from Delhi and that we knew from talking to some other restaurateurs in New York City. Because New York City had several Indian restaurants talking to them. So we got the same way, talking to them, they said, " ; Well, if you really want to do the tandoors, you have to come." ; They put us in touch with some tandoor people in India. I got tandoors from them and then, you know, Lufthansa Air brought it. They did the packing and all that. |00:18:12| Brody And then once it got here, the installation, I' ; m sure that there was nobody in town who had ever installed a tandoor before. How did that go or how did you arrange that? |00:18:22| Goyal Well, I had the both cooks who were here by that time also. They come to Dallas. So in remodeling, we arranged so the cooks decided where and how, and I told them we wanted a window so people could watch the tandoors and your cooking in tandoors and kabobs and kitchen, chicken and all that. So we found the place where we wanted to and then put the glass windows on two sides of that area. And then once they installed the tandoors then around it put in some insulation and break and making the top. So essentially, me and the construction people did it. The cooks guided them that how they wanted. |00:19:28| Brody Was that window a big hit among customers? |00:19:33| Goyal I think so. A lot of people...Since, you know, that was so different, so unique. So a lot of people will go up to the window and watch the cooks, preparing the naans and other tandoor breads, because it' ; s so unique. And the cook takes the dough and slaps it on the side of the tandoor and it cooks and then it picks it up with the fork type of thing. So it was interesting. A lot of people found it very intriguing. |00:20:13| Brody Yeah, there' ; s an article in the Dallas Morning News about the tandoors at your restaurant and exactly that how the naan were prepared and so on. So I think it sounds like it was...It got a lot of attention. So was your family or yourself ever involved in any type of food related business before? |00:20:33| Goyal No. My parents and uncles, aunts, they all been in business, but not the restaurant business as such in India. |00:20:49| Brody Did you have a business partner or anything like that? |00:20:51| Goyal No. Initially I just did my own because it was so different and so new. I didn' ; t even try to get a partner...If I' ; m the one who wants to do it, I should take the responsibility. |00:21:13| Brody So in starting the business and or any business, there is a lot of nuts and bolts things that you have to do. So of course, sourcing things like a tandoor, you went through people and contacts you had in India. How about on this end, were there...How did you get the ingredients? How did you get those types of things? |00:21:33| Goyal Well, that' ; s another... We did not have any source of the spices or the other things that the typical Indian restaurant requires, which is not common for an American kitchen. So I had to get almost all those spices from New York. We' ; ll order them. New York had several stores at that time, even in the 70s, who sold Indian groceries and spices and other Indian items. So we had to get almost all those from there. And later on, a few years later, we could get some from Houston. Some stores opened in Houston. So but initially everything was coming to. |00:22:38| Brody Well, that sounds complicated to gauge how much to buy and, you know, refilling when you run out. |00:22:45| Goyal But thankfully, most of the Indian items, they had a the long life cycle. Like the spices or things like that. So you don' ; t need to worry, too, because the vegetables and the meats and all those we got locally. But the items we were getting from New York, they do not, you know, go bad. They were not the kind which will go, have a short life. |00:23:20| Brody That' ; s, that' ; s lucky. What about permits and things like that? |00:23:24| Goyal Well, it was like any other typical in restaurants, so we had to get the restaurant permit and then the health department to check. So just like every other restaurant, so in that sense, it was no different than running a barbecue place or Mexican restaurant or a Chinese restaurant. |00:23:52| Brody And the space itself, of course, it was the Hickory House Barbecue. Did you own that? Rent that? |00:24:00| Goyal No, we rented the space. It had two dining rooms and one bar area and the kitchen. So the kind of four sections? |00:24:16| Brody Did you serve alcohol? |00:24:18| Goyal Yes. We did. |00:24:19| Brody From the beginning. |00:24:19| Goyal From the beginning, yes. |00:24:21| Brody Well, at that time, what was the process for that in terms of permits and regulations? |00:24:29| Goyal Well, the permit, it was just again the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. You have to submit the application, apply for it and they' ; ll approve it. There' ; s no restrictions on this. You...I mean, I don' ; t know what they check, whether they check your criminal record or whatnot. But you know, we made the application and that was it. |00:24:56| Brody For a time in Dallas, there was, in terms of serving alcohol, a requirement to be a member. Have you know, for patrons to purchase a membership? Was that in effect at that time? |00:25:08| Goyal Well, it was in effect that time. It is still in effect, but it' ; s in what is called the " ; dry areas" ; where the liquor sales are not permitted. So downtown Dallas area or the Mockingbird Lane area was always where you could serve the drinks. Even Hickory House used to serve the drinks and the restaurants in the neighborhood, they all sold liquor. |00:25:40| Brody So that didn' ; t affect you at all because of your location. So you mentioned that in deciding on that location, you really were thinking that SMU faculty and staff and students themselves might be both patrons and, and maybe employees of the restaurant. Did that, did that pan out? Was that a good plan? |00:26:04| Goyal I think so in many ways. Well, I know the students, many of them work at the India House. Full time or part time, and I' ; m sure a lot of faculty came. You know, I used to be there at the restaurant pretty much all the time. Evenings. And then so I saw a lot of that same effect. |00:26:38| Brody Were you still working at Xerox as well? |00:26:40| Goyal And the first year I was, then I left Xerox and started this full time. Yeah. So while I was working at Xerox, I' ; ll come in the evenings. At dinner time. I won' ; t go there at lunchtime. The restaurant was open both lunch and dinner. |00:27:05| Brody So in terms of your customers, in addition to SMU, the SMU community, who were your customers and how did they find you? |00:27:12| Goyal Well, in those days, finding was...Essentially before the internet era, was either in the Yellow Pages or other more restaurant type of magazines or fliers and all. And that' ; s what I did also. I put in some ads in Yellow Pages of course, and then in various dining publications. |00:27:51| Brody So who were your primary customers, were they primarily Indians or? |00:27:56| Goyal No. Well, the Indian population was so small, even if they each one of them came in once a month, it probably wouldn' ; t be enough. But the population came from almost, I think, every walk of life who were curious, who wanted or who heard about Indian food and wanted to try and saw that, " ; Hey, it' ; s now available locally. Let' ; s go try it." ; Or those who have traveled and may have seen it in London or some other place. Indian cuisine. So it was, you know, all various kinds of people that were. |00:28:47| Brody What were your biggest sellers? |00:28:49| Goyal I think, if I can remember correctly, probably, that the tandoori dishes, tandoori chicken or shish kebab. And vegetarians, even though there were very small percentage in those days, now vegetarianism is a lot more popular. But in those days, the vegetarians found it all. This was a nice place to go. They could get a good meal and be vegetarian. |00:29:29| Brody When you created your menu, what were some of your goals in, in sort of deciding which dishes would make it to the menu and which would not? |00:29:41| Goyal Well, it was more of a traditional menu. So there was nothing " ; breaking news" ; type of dishes that we had. It was not like a " ; chef driven." ; It was more like the " ; cook driven" ; kind of menu. And so we had all the standard dishes, which you expect at a typical Indian restaurant, the tandooris and chicken were. And the vegetables and then all the breads, rice and condiments. So. |00:30:33| Brody So. Since there hadn' ; t been an Indian restaurant in Dallas before and you all were the first, in some ways, you were at the introduction to Indian food for a lot of people. What, what was that experience like and how, you know, how did people react and how did you interact with people when they were unfamiliar with things that were on the menu? |00:30:59| Goyal Well, it was a lot of education for, to the customer. Many customers, and the staff spent a lot of time explaining dishes and what it means. What are the condiments or chutneys and or how the breads made. And then of course, they could see it if they wanted to. And because like you said, yes, it was a new experience for many customers. And so they kind of, I think they pretty well accepted and liked and saw the uniqueness in not only in the presentation, but also in the food and in the taste and all that. |00:31:52| Brody Yeah. I' ; ve been reviewing restaurant reviews from the time period, and there' ; s a consistent mention of the helpful staff and people being helpful in guiding people, customers through the menu and so on. So. Did you have any competition? |00:32:12| Goyal No, not initially the competition was every other restaurant, essentially. Because we did not have a- India House, was the first not only in Dallas or North Texas, but we were the first Indian restaurant in the whole state of Texas. |00:32:33| Brody Really? |00:32:34| Goyal Yeah. Because through these people that we were buying the Indian groceries and condiments in New York and other people. So about six months after we opened, a restaurant opened in Houston. So, and I' ; m sure they probably were getting...So talking to these suppliers, that' ; s all I know. Plus, you know, I visited Houston many times and visited that restaurant when it opened also so. And then when there was nothing in Austin or San Antonio at that time. So with those major four cities... |00:33:29| Brody What were the biggest challenges for you in opening, starting the business and staying in business? |00:33:39| Goyal Starting business, not knowing. You know, before that, I was essentially an employee at Xerox. So employee lifestyle is...our mindset is different than a business owner or an entrepreneur. So that was the first thing to shift that. And then realize that you have a responsibility not only to yourself or your family- as an employee, that' ; s all you really care about. But now you have a responsibility to your employees and even to your customers in a way. So that' ; s how it was different. |00:34:31| Brody So how would you characterize that responsibility? What, what did you feel responsible for to your employees and to your customers? |00:34:40| Goyal Well, to the employees, it was to make sure that they have the resources. They have been explained what is coming, if something is not available that particular day, that they understand. And then if they have any issues with the customer, which you know in real life happens, that they know how to be sure that customer is happy at the same time, the issue is resolved in a peace. So that was to the employees. To the customers, since many of them were new to the cuisine, new to this kind of food, to make sure they understand what it is and why certain things are done the way they are and what they can do, or how to prepare if they' ; re even interested to prepare at home themselves. |00:35:47| Brody Oh, that' ; s a that' ; s a good point. This time period, especially later on, late 70s, early 80s, there was a real growth in interest among people across the country in learning how to cook foods from other cultures and Asian cultures in particular. How did you, you know, you mentioned that educating your customers through your menu was part of it? How did you encourage or cultivate that- cooking? |00:36:20| Goyal That' ; s why...Many times they' ; ll ask, " ; Oh, well, what kind of spices? What would I need if I want to make this dish at home? Whatever it could be- a dal or a curry or a chicken dish. So we' ; ll explain it to them that it takes these kind of, you know, spices and then many to say, " ; Well, but where can I buy these?" ; So again, there was no Indian grocery stores which specialized in Indian foods and condiments and Indian things, so they' ; ll go to the regular grocery store and get some of those things. And if they were really keen on getting, they' ; ll get it from New York or Chicago sometimes, the dishes. |00:37:24| Brody In the life of the restaurant, did it ever get easier to get local, locally sourced ingredients? |00:37:32| Goyal As the time grew, by the time three or four years had passed and the grocery, the Indian grocery store opened in Dallas, and even though they may have been getting from New York, they are not big enough to import themselves directly from India. But then we could source them, support them, and get the spice locally, and pick it up or they will deliver it. Then, having shipped from New York. |00:38:08| Brody So where was that store? |00:38:10| Goyal It was on Preston and LBJ. |00:38:19| Brody Did you ever think about expanding or growing the restaurant? |00:38:23| Goyal No, I never thought...One reason was, you know, the real estate in the late 70s was booming in Dallas, so as soon as our lease expired, the landlord said, " ; No, they' ; re not going to renew it." ; And so we essentially shut down after the lease expired. |00:38:52| Brody What year was that? |00:38:53| Goyal I think it was 75 or 76. So and by that time, the another two, three Indian restaurants had opened at that time. |00:39:07| Brody At that point. Did your family work at the restaurant? How active were they in there? |00:39:14| Goyal No, they didn' ; t work at the restaurant at all. |00:39:25| Brody OK, you mentioned that your- even if every Indian person at that time came to the restaurant once a month, that wouldn' ; t be enough to keep the restaurant afloat because the community was so small. Did you feel like your restaurant was a place where people from all different cultures came to learn about and learned about India? |00:39:50| Goyal I think in a way they did. People who were curious, who are a little more cosmopolitan, they definitely came in to explore and learn about the Indian culture and by extension, the Indian food, too. And then we participated in many activities like they used to have international days or if SMU students had some Indian program like Diwali or something, we either provided the food or participated in it to some other ways. So that was, you know, true. |00:40:47| Brody I found an article in which you, that India House participated in the " ; Taste of Dallas." ; Were you one of the first, I guess, quote unquote ethnic restaurants represented there? |00:41:03| Goyal I can' ; t remember if we were the only ethnic, but I' ; m sure there were, if you want to consider the Mexican and Chinese, and they definitely must have been there, if you want to call them " ; ethnic.' ; |00:41:18| Brody What was that like? What did you serve? Do you remember? |00:41:21| Goyal I don' ; t remember what we served, but it' ; s possibly a could have been chicken or naan or something? |00:41:34| Brody ,How did you get involved with that, do you remember the process? |00:41:39| Goyal I was involved from day one with the Dallas Restaurant Association and through them, I' ; m sure we learned about various other opportunities, whether it' ; s the " ; Taste of Dallas" ; or International Day Fair or you know, any other opportunities where we could, you know show the Indian food because this, I thought, was excellent way to get people to taste it without being intimidated and coming to a restaurant and thinking, Well, I don' ; t know what it is like. So that' ; s why, you know, I participated as much as possible in various opportunities. |00:42:33| Brody Yeah. In those days, what was the " ; Taste of Dallas" ; like? Where was it held? What did it feel and look like? |00:42:39| Goyal I think it changed to every year where it was held, either at the City Hall Plaza or at the Market Center on Stemmons Freeway. |00:42:59| Brody Was it like booths? Did you have your own booth? |00:43:01| Goyal Yes, we all the restaurants who were participating will have booths. |00:43:10| Brody So one thing that comes up a lot when we' ; re talking about restaurants that are of a different culture or presenting food from another culture is the question of quote unquote authenticity. So did you feel like what you were trying to do was to serve authentic Indian food? Or, you know, you mentioned earlier that it was kind of the standard Indian restaurant fare? Well, how did you balance that? |00:43:43| Goyal Well, it was absolutely authentic. When I said the " ; standard restaurant fare" ; you know, I meant that in India, it' ; s so diversified. You know, from South India, you know, dishes to the Bengal dishes and the East India. And so this food was what you might call from North India or the Mughal. And that' ; s what is for the average person outside of India is considered the " ; Indian food" ; you know, unless they really get into it, then they' ; ll try the other regional dishes. So that' ; s what I meant that we were just concentrating on those dishes cooked in the way they' ; ve been cooked, whether you' ; re in Delhi or Mumbai or anywhere. And so that' ; s, not that it was in any way made to an American taste. |00:45:03| Brody Yeah, that' ; s what the, you know, a thing that I think a lot of restaurant owners have to straddle that, you know, how do you obviously you, you want to sell a lot of things. You want your customers to be happy. And some people have said that they' ; ve used their menu to sort of ease people into learning about, you know, the different, different tastes and different things. Is that something that you thought about much? |00:45:33| Goyal We thought about it, but it really didn' ; t seem like it was a necessity. One, because the food, food and the cuisine that we were serving was more for certain spices rather than being just hot chili hot. And in that sense, people, you know, if they tried, they didn' ; t feel that it was in any way not acceptable to them. |00:46:08| Brody You mentioned the events that SMU students might be having, international events and things like that, did you, at the restaurant, do special things for cultural holidays or other events? |00:46:20| Goyal We did. Many times, we had, we celebrated the tradition of here- the New Year' ; s Eve party special or at Diwali time or other times. Several different functions we had specials. And generally we' ; ll get a good response from those. |00:46:52| Brody You earlier mentioned serving both lunch and dinner, and many of the reviews of India House mentioned the lunch buffet as being, you know, a lot of choices. What do you, what were you... What are your memories of the lunch buffet and the sort of the lunch crowd that you would get there? |00:47:11| Goyal Well, the lunch crowd again came in from close by, you know, a lot of office buildings and SMU is there. And even from downtown Dallas is just on 75, and they could get it. We were very conveniently located. And we started the buffet part essentially so that people would get introduced to the food. So they could come in at lunch and they can pick and choose and try it without having to be concerned, whether they like it or not like it. Plus, they get introduced to the food and then if they felt then, then they would come back in the evening with the family. So that was instead of just having like lunch special place. We thought, " ; Well, let' ; s do the buffet, so they can, you know, whatever one price they can take whatever or as much as they like, they can come back if they like more. So that was the idea of the buffet. I think buffets have proven popular with a lot of Indian restaurants, you know, ever since. But I did it because I wanted people to try and be introduced to the food. |00:48:53| Brody It' ; s well-suited for lunch because people can come and go on their own schedule. |00:48:59| Goyal Come and go. Plus they can choose whatever they like. And then if they like something, they can get some more of it. |00:49:11| Brody Was the restaurant always called " ; India House" ; ? |00:49:14| Goyal Yes. Always. After we opened, we changed the name from it used to be " ; Hickory House Barbecue." ; We changed the name from the day we opened to " ; India House." ; |00:49:34| Brody And how long did the restaurant stay in business? |00:49:38| Goyal We, I think, closed in 76 and so about five years. |00:49:47| Brody And because of the lease? |00:49:48| Goyal Lease. Yeah. |00:49:50| Brody Did you consider moving to a different location? |00:49:54| Goyal Yes and no. By that time, I' ; ve become a full fledged entrepreneur because I left Xerox after one, about one year, so I was looking at other things all the time. So I got into some other businesses after that. |00:50:13| Brody Still in the food industry? |00:50:17| Goyal Well, a little bit related food and drinks, so I didn' ; t pursue another restaurant. |00:50:28| Brody When you look back at those times, what are some lessons or reflections that that you have? |00:50:35| Goyal Well. I think if you understand your market, and you really want to do it, you know, it may take harder, hard work than if, let' ; s say if you are selling hamburgers, you know, your market is much larger for hamburgers than it is for Indian tandoori chicken. But, so you may have to work harder and educate people, but it definitely can be done. And we enjoyed it. It was good. I mean, it was a lot harder than I would have thought. The restaurant business is one of the few businesses where you have a manufacturing and a retail and a service, everything. You know, if you open a manufacturing, then all you' ; re doing, if you' ; re doing chip manufacturing, that' ; s all you' ; re doing. Whereas in restaurants, you' ; re manufacturing the food in the kitchen and then you have the service, you' ; re also service business, you' ; re also manufacturing business. So in that sense, the restaurant is a multi-faceted business. |00:52:06| Brody Absolutely. How has Dallas changed in all the time that you' ; ve been here? |00:52:13| Goyal It' ; s changed tremendously. It' ; s...it used to be a small town. Now it is really the whole Dallas, what they call the Metroplex is much bigger, much more cosmopolitan. You know, |inaudible| after we opened the India House six months after that, the DFW airport opened and then that we thought was great. We thought, Oh, now people will be traveling in and out and they' ; ll be going to Europe. They' ; ll be going to Asia, Africa and all over and with direct flights from Dallas. I mean, it isn' ; t that they didn' ; t travel before, but it was not as convenient many times they have to either go to New York or through L.A. and change flights. Plus, the business community was expanding and growing and with the airport opening, they both kind of piggyback to each other. Businesses saw, " ; Hey, this was a great location for business." ; They could very conveniently do business anywhere in the world from Dallas. So more and more businesses came and so they just piggybacked each other. And then as a result, we, on the sideline, we had the advantage that many people felt, " ; Oh, yeah we want to go to India." ; It became one of the choices after they have travelled there. |00:54:16| Brody So people' ; s tastes became more open or more sophisticated? |00:54:20| Goyal Exactly. |00:54:23| Brody Similarly, what are some of your observations about the Asian community in Dallas? You mentioned how small it was when you first arrived, and it' ; s grown quite a bit. What are some of your observations about those changes within those communities? |00:54:40| Goyal I think the community started expanding with the IT, when a lot of IT-related companies either sprung up or moved into Dallas area. They brought in a lot of people who were IT-oriented expertise in the IT field. And so that' ; s what started, and it' ; s still true even in 2022. And, and then, of course, the universities...There are...UTD was a small, at that time. But now it' ; s got a lot of students from India and Asia and the faculty also. So that too. And as the Indian community grew, so did the Indian businesses that cater to them and also the other opportunities that the Indian community got involved in. It became so large that there are not only the whole India Association is there, but there are regional community organizations because again, because there' ; s enough volume of families that they need to have that cultural issues. |00:56:39| Brody When you put yourself back in the time period when the restaurant was open, do you have any... What was your most memorable story from the restaurant? |00:56:58| Goyal I have to think about it for a second. I guess nothing major. But again, just like, you know, I' ; ve made a lot of mistakes when I went to Korean or Vietnamese food. This same kind of thing that somebody taking our chutneys or something, thinking that' ; s the meal and just eating it or drinking it, and then realized, " ; Oh no, that was just condiment or this side dish." ; |00:57:48| Brody Right? You go back to that education piece that you were talking about. Yeah. Did you ever have any celebrities or athletes or anybody come through the restaurant? |00:58:03| Goyal Oh, all the time. A lot of times, you know, we didn' ; t keep track of that, because in those days the Beatlemania was there. A lot of people were, you know, oriented and a lot of those people came to the restaurant because they wanted the Indian food when they were coming through town for whatever reason, a concert or otherwise. |00:58:32| Brody Did the Beatles come to the restaurant? |00:58:33| Goyal No, not the Beatles. I mean, that was the period, right? And The Beatles, kind of all the others. So because of them, Indian food and yoga was popular and getting popular each day. So that' ; s why many of them came in and whenever the Indian ambassador or somebody came to town. They, of course, always came to the restaurant or we had the food, you know, catered and we took it if there was a function with the community. |00:59:18| Brody It' ; s great. It sounds like the timing of when you had the restaurant, when you started the restaurant was exactly when there was a really huge growth in interest in Indian culture and Indian food. |00:59:35| Goyal Excellent observation. |00:59:39| Brody Good timing. Good timing. Well, is there anything that I didn' ; t ask you that you' ; d like to share or a story that you' ; d like to include? |00:59:53| Goyal Nothing I can think of...Since we were the only Indian restaurant, many times we got invited to various functions. Our cook would be invited, you know, like, you know. A major hotel downtown, Fairmont. They wanted to have a India Week, so our chef went in and worked with there chef to prepare Indian dishes. Same way Neiman Marcus, when they have, they used to have a " ; Fortnight" ; various countries and I think one year they did India. So we helped them with Indian various functions they had. |01:00:47| Brody Did you ever do cooking classes? |01:00:51| Goyal No, we never did the cooking classes. You know, the chef didn' ; t feel they were really geared toward teaching. And this Ruben Buster who was the cook at the barbecue place, and I kept him alone. He learned. He was the only one we taught I guess. |01:01:24| Brody Did any of those chefs, after India House closed, go start their own places? |01:01:31| Goyal Not only the cooks did, but even some of the waiters and managers that did. Just so happened a couple of them are in the Dallas area. |01:01:46| Brody Oh, really? Do you know what restaurants? |01:01:49| Goyal Well, one is Mumtaz. Other is Maharajah. And the other is, we went to New Orleans one time when " ; Well, let' ; s go try the Indian food." ; We had some American friends with us and behold, the guy who was our manager. He said, " ; Oh, Mr. Goyal, what are you doing here? |01:02:16| Brody He started his restaurant. He started an Indian restaurant in New Orleans? |01:02:19| Goyal Right. So that' ; s the same way our other cook that we brought from India. He went to California. He worked at many places there. |01:02:36| Brody That' ; s really interesting. Well, I really appreciated hearing all of your stories and your, your thoughts about your experience running India House. I appreciate you being part of this project and thank you so much. |01:02:49| Goyal Well, thank you. I appreciate all you' ; re doing. Anything that you think of, if you need some more answers, if I can help you have, you know, call me. |01:03:06| Brody Thank you so much. |01:03:09| Goyal Alright. Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Madan Goyal, April 15, 2022
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking, Indian
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2022-04-15
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Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Thanin Viriyaki
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5.4 Interview with Thanin Viriyaki, April 19, 2022 2021oh002_di_009 01:49:20 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Thai Photography of food Asian grocer Thanin Viriyaki Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_viriyaki_thanin_20220419.m4a 1:|15(5)|30(7)|44(4)|58(6)|70(3)|84(3)|94(9)|107(15)|119(13)|135(6)|149(10)|162(1)|177(3)|189(6)|201(11)|214(1)|226(13)|244(5)|255(10)|266(13)|282(14)|298(3)|310(2)|323(12)|335(4)|346(8)|358(15)|373(9)|386(12)|404(2)|416(3)|426(11)|437(12)|448(6)|460(7)|472(7)|484(6)|497(1)|509(13)|522(8)|533(7)|546(9)|559(15)|572(10)|585(8)|598(10)|612(2)|622(9)|634(11)|646(1)|658(12)|674(1)|687(6)|701(7)|718(1)|734(7)|750(1)|762(14)|774(10)|785(6)|800(2)|810(9)|821(8)|832(13)|845(2)|858(3)|870(8)|882(9)|893(9)|906(4)|918(8)|931(6)|944(16)|955(7)|968(10)|983(10)|999(3)|1012(12)|1025(9)|1042(10)|1056(15)|1068(14)|1086(4)|1098(8)|1111(10)|1125(1)|1137(2)|1150(11)|1162(4)|1174(5)|1186(3)|1198(8)|1211(17)|1223(3)|1237(1)|1249(2)|1261(13)|1278(15)|1291(4)|1302(3)|1315(1)|1328(6)|1339(17)|1352(10)|1365(1)|1379(11)|1390(8)|1402(8)|1413(5) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/162897 Aviary audio 0 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Thai ; Photography of food ; Texas--History 30 Moving to Texas from Thailand Asian restaurant ; Bangkok ; chef ; community ; cooking ; crab ; curry ; Dallas ; family run restaurant ; food ; Hainanese chicken ; Haltom City ; home cooking ; hospitality ; house party ; Houston ; Marissa's Restaurant ; palate ; recipes ; restauran ; seafood ; Texas ; Thai community ; Thai food ; Thai restaurant ; Thailand ; Trader Vic's ; western palate 609 Parallels between culinary arts and photography art ; chef ; cooking ; photography 1027 Asian community in Haltom City Asian community ; Asian grocery ; community center ; community hub ; country club ; discrimination ; exotic ; generation ; groceries ; Marissa's Restaurant ; meatball ; neighborhood ; neighbors ; newspaper ; palate ; racism ; stereotypes ; Thai community ; VCR ; vegetables ; videos ; Vietnam Plaza ; western palate 1401 Changes in the Asian community in North Texas Asian community ; connections ; Dallas ; discrimination ; hole in the wall ; Lao food ; Nalinh Market ; racism ; representation ; social media ; stereotypes ; Thai community ; Thai food ; western palate ; xenophobia ; Yelp 1785 Food and representation as a cultural bridge Anthony Bourdain ; bridge ; ethnic food ; Martin Yan ; racism ; representation ; stereotypes ; television ; TV ; western palate 2112 Reflections on " ; authenticity" ; and food Asian flavors ; Asian food ; authentic ; authenticity ; banh mi ; Dallas ; fast food ; French ; fusion ; innovation ; Ngon ; palate ; Panda Express ; Pei Wei ; price points ; Quoc Bao ; ramen ; social media ; street food ; Thai food ; tradition ; western palate 2798 Contrast between " ; fine dining" ; and " ; mom and pop" ; restaurants authentic ; authenticity ; barbecue ; Bon Appetit ; celebration ; COVID ; culture ; Dallas ; Donny Sirisavath ; educate ; education ; ethnic food ; fine dining ; hole in the wall ; Khao Noodle Shop ; labor ; mom and pop ; negative reviews ; palate ; pandemic ; price points ; ramen ; rent ; representation ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; Salt Bae ; social media ; western palate 3276 Growing up in family run restaurants/ Reflections on Asian and American identity American ; Americanized ; Asian restaurant ; banh mi ; chef ; family run restaurant ; fast food ; immigrant ; names ; Quoc Bao ; western palate 3961 Viriyaki starts a photography business art ; Asian community ; business ; culture ; photography ; University of North Texas ; weddings 4707 Getting involved in food photography Dallas Mavericks ; food ; photography ; restaurants 5081 Attending University of North Texas/ Changes in Asian community in North Texas art ; Asian community ; photography ; social media ; Thai community ; University of North Texas 5830 Thai community restaurants, parties, and social activities Dragon Boat Race ; house party ; music ; parties ; restaurants ; Thai community ; Thai food 6084 Thai family businesses in Haltom City generation ; ghost kitchens ; Laos ; meatball ; movie ; social media ; video 6359 History of Red Bull/ Thai connection Red Bull ; Thailand |00:00:00| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is April 19th, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Mr Thanin Viriyaki. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; Thank you for joining me today, and let' ; s just start out. Tell me where and when you were born. |00:00:32| Viriyaki I was born in Bangkok, Thailand. March 4th, 1980. I came here at three months old. My sister, who is older, she was born in Houston, where my parents met and they decided to go, have me in Thailand because they wanted to have my mom have more help after giving birth. So they went over there to utilize all the family support and then brought me back over here. |00:00:59| Brody At three months. |00:01:00| Viriyaki Correct? Yeah. |00:01:02| Brody What were your parents doing in Houston and then later in Dallas? |00:01:05| Viriyaki So my dad, he went to Sam Houston College and he got a degree in accounting. I remember my mom working at a hospital, at the cafeteria, at the hospital when I was young. Not sure what she was doing when they actually met, though. My dad eventually became a chef and worked for Trader Vic' ; s in Houston. And then eventually, when I was four, they, which is in 1984, they had an opportunity to buy a restaurant in Haltom City, a suburb of Fort Worth. And so they bought a restaurant and we moved from Houston all the way up here, and it was named Marissa' ; s Restaurant, which is the name of my sister. So you can see which one' ; s their favorite kid. Although I will say that I was like- my, my sister was dad' ; s favorite and I' ; m mom' ; s favorite. So, you know, dad being a chef, I guess he had the say, you know, what the new restaurant name was. |00:02:07| Brody So your dad studied accounting. What led him into becoming a chef? |00:02:12| Viriyaki Ah, I' ; m not exactly sure. That' ; s something I never asked him, but I will say that my grandfather, his dad, was a butcher in Thailand, had his own butcher shop. I think it' ; s just passion for cooking. You know, one thing I always remember vividly was him always wanting to cook for people and friends, and he would always have house parties. You know, many, many, many years later when I was an adult, I met an old friend of his and he told me like, " ; Oh, you know, we would always have parties at your dad' ; s house." ; I don' ; t know if he said my dad' ; s nickname or the house' ; s nickname was " ; The Village" ; in Thai because everyone would always crash there. They' ; d come over. And I do remember seeing all these old photographs of my parents' ; house in Houston, and it was just always party photos. Full of parties all the time. You know, so my parents are very, very social people, and I think my dad, with his love of cooking. I guess it was a way for him to sort of like, I guess, give joy and entertain his friends. |00:03:26| Brody What kind of things would he cook, what were the the things that you remember? |00:03:29| Viriyaki Oh man. Well, for me, I will say this. Being a big seafood lover, every time we go to an Asian market and like crabs were in season, I would always bother him to make crabs. And you know, it' ; s like seafood, so it' ; s expensive and it' ; s like kind of like a bit of a hassle to make and eat. So I' ; d be like, " ; Can I get some crabs? Can I get some crabs?" ; And it was fascinating to me because like, you know, for in a western society, how often are you going to get any kind of live animal, if you really think about that? Like what? How many even American families, if you' ; re not living in the country, are cooking anything like legit live, that could hurt you. Right? With little claws snipping at you. So I would always ask for crab, but there are so many dishes he would make. There' ; s like the Thai version of Hainanese chicken. You know, they call it a Kao Mun Gai, which so " ; kao" ; is rice, " ; mun" ; is oil, " ; gai" ; is chicken. So when you cook it, you cook the rice with the broth that you boiled the chicken in and then you put like ginger in there and you make this sort of like oily garlic and then mix that with the rice. So the rice like this...Kind of like chicken brothy, not wet because obviously the water cooks, cooks out, but you' ; ll have this like oil, slight oiliness to it. It' ; s kind of interesting. So you have a soup from the broth, which they' ; ll dash some white pepper on there and they' ; ll garnish it with cilantro, sometimes some cucumber. Usually it' ; s like cucumber sliced cold. Put that on the plate. You have the rice and then you have the cold chicken. So when they boil the chicken, what they' ; ll do is they' ; ll dunk in ice water so the fat like coagulates. So it' ; s like this cold chicken dish with the hot, warm soup and then oily rice, and then they' ; ll make this sauce. So that was a favorite mine. I actually wasn' ; t too big on curries myself, which my mother is always like teasing me about because she was like, " ; Your, your American friends love the curry. How come you don' ; t love the curry? You' ; re Thai, you should love the curry." ; So, but he would make a lot of curry like all the different curries you could, you know, basically do, he would make a lot of different colors. |00:05:51| Brody So Marissa' ; s Restaurant. What was, what kind of food was served there? Was it Thai food? And what was sort of the feeling in the restaurant? |00:06:01| Viriyaki From what I remember is Thai food. I know that back then in the 80s, a very common sentiment was we' ; d have to, we had to make it for the Westerners, right? And you' ; d have to adjust the palate a bit. If I' ; m correct, it usually means making the food sweeter. I don' ; t remember specifically what was on the menu because it was so long ago. I was like four years old. But I just, yeah, I remember it was long hours, and I think that' ; s one of the reasons why my parents eventually sold it. Because you' ; re there first thing in the morning. You' ; re there late at night. Very labor intensive. I remember my mother always talking about how one of the reasons they had to sell it was they just they just felt physically overwhelmed eventually over the years. And there was a story of when it was, I think, snowing and they' ; re like, " ; Oh, man. Let' ; s go in to work, it' ; s snowing." ; And they' ; d get there. And there' ; s people already lined up like already, waiting to eat, you know, like this, like kind of like kind of like, " ; Oh my gosh, we have all these people to serve can' ; t really take a break, you know?" ; So I remember as a kid going, " ; Why don' ; t you just shut down the store? You own the store." ; But I guess they sort of felt like obligated. You know, I think I think with a lot of immigrants, there' ; s this sense of not wanting the opportunity to slip away. Because you' ; re over here, you know, the " ; land of opportunity" ; and also sort of like this sense of duty, which my dad is, was definitely driven by. You know, he was just someone who' ; s like, " ; If it has to be done, we have to do it, you know?" ; And he wasn' ; t it wasn' ; t one to complain, which is, I think, a common characteristic of the, a lot of first generation Asians coming over where they didn' ; t really take things for granted. And there, they looked at America as " ; Hey, this as a place for us to do something to take advantage of these opportunities, you know, move, to move up." ; You know, so it' ; s a common theme, whether you' ; re Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, I see that a lot. You know where the older generation, just they, they, they didn' ; t complain. They were just like they they if anything, they they sort of they didn' ; t want to acknowledge weakness for better or worse, and they just wanted to push through, you know? And so, for good or bad, they were very resilient people and workhorses, you know. Which you know, the aspect of pushing through and ignoring any sort of like setbacks or weaknesses is, funny enough, now, in this day and age where people want to talk about things like mental health, that' ; s actually kind of a discussion now where it' ; s like, " ; Oh, you can' ; t bring that up to your parents because they' ; ll just be like, ' ; That' ; s weak, what are you talking about? There' ; s no such thing like, you' ; re sad. Just go, go, go to sleep or something, go eat something, you know?' ; " ; So, but yeah, so my dad was from that first generation where it' ; s like, " ; Hey, our job needs to be done, so we' ; re going to do it" ; and they would just do it. |00:09:10| Brody It also sounds like, based on what you were saying before that he had a pretty deep sense of hospitality. So I' ; m sure that combined with the work ethic and the reality of having people that were there to eat. |00:09:23| Viriyaki Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So I think, yeah, yeah. Looking back on it, it was sort of like, what do we like to do? I like to cook. Hang out. Be social. All right. Well, this is the path. Let' ; s make a restaurant. You know, so which, funny enough for me, now, being a photographer, it kind of was the same path of where I was sort of, be very interested in art and visual arts. And then I would take photos for art. And then later on, after doing for years, eventually thought, " ; You know what, I should probably make this my job. Like I, I love this too much to like ignore that, right?" ; So it' ; s kind of funny, like there' ; s some parallels there to what they did and what I did. |00:10:08| Brody Yeah. I mean, tell me about the parallels that you see between your work as a photographer and what your parents were doing running the restaurant. |00:10:17| Viriyaki So, yeah, I have this theory of how photography and the culinary arts sort of like have these interesting parallels. So both are a combination of several elements. So like if I cook you a dish, it' ; s not just like the flavor...the end result, the flavor isn' ; t just who' ; s the cook, it isn' ; t just the recipe, isn' ; t just the tools, isn' ; t just the ingredients or whatever. Photography is kind of the same. It' ; s not just photography, not just the model, not just location, not just the wardrobe, not just the lighting used, it' ; s everything coming together, right? So, it' ; s kind of interesting how you can take one element out of that, of either, and it completely alters the end result. And also, I feel that it' ; s, both are sort of like this collaborative nature because even if you' ; re just a chef, you know, someone else probably grew the crops, someone else probably grew the meat, someone else probably made that bread, someone else probably made the tools. So it' ; s like there' ; s so many moving parts of both things that also culminate into something unique. So no matter if you' ; re trying to remake a dish, there might be some slight variation if you go somewhere else and make it right, you know. And same thing with photography, I might want to replicate and look, can I go somewhere else that' ; s going to be slightly different? That' ; s sort of the fun and the challenge of it. I think even how lighting effects an object is very similar, how the temperature of meat, or I' ; m sorry, the temperature of fire can affect, say, a piece of meat in a sense that if you have harsh, strong lighting, you' ; ll get this sort of uneven kind of effect or one part' ; s blown out and you have this dark shadow. And then if you have softer lighting, you' ; ll get softer shadows and more gradual kind of tones of the, of dark to light. And similar to how you sear a steak where you have this intense heat and you have this uneven cooked meat. If you slow cook it, it will be more even. So I think that' ; s kind of interesting how there' ; s parallels like that, you know, and I almost kind of feel like this funny connection to my dad in a way because he had his craft, I had my craft and are different, but they' ; re similar in those aspects, you know. So I think about that a lot and how we were different people, but we sort of like had like these similarities and what we gravitated to, if that even makes sense. |00:12:46| Brody Yeah, of course. So, you know, a lot about food. I understand you' ; re a food photographer as well as a photographer of human subjects. Tell me how you got into that. |00:13:00| Viriyaki Well, at first I was just doing regular fine art in school or just I would always draw, always draw and always paint. I remember one of my earliest recollections was, man, I think it was maybe kindergarten, and our task was to paint something for our mom for Mother' ; s Day. And my painting was this entire poster board just covered-the whole thing' ; s covered- of dinosaurs. And I' ; m just like, " ; Mom, look what I made for you." ; Yeah, of course. It' ; s like my thing, dinosaurs. It' ; s kind of funny. So I was always just drawing stuff. I remember there' ; d be a family camera and I was...I would like pose my G.I. Joes and Transformers toys, and I would just like, set them up, take pictures of them. So it' ; s almost like I had this, like, I don' ; t know, like cinematographer' ; s mind, already composing shots, and I would just take pictures of all kinds of random stuff, which my mother would always be kind of critical of at the time going like, " ; Why are you? Why are you taking so many pictures like, why do you need to take so many pictures?" ; And I just always gravitated to art, and I was always drawing and painting, and eventually I got a camera in I believe 10th grade in high school. So I could have specific pictures of specific objects, specific angles to then go and draw. So I wasn' ; t great at necessarily drawing from memory, but I needed like reference material and I would just use that camera to capture all kinds of random things, you know, like, " ; Hey, oh I' ; ll tell my friends, hey, hold your hands this way" ; and I' ; ll use like a regular table lamp to like light a certain way and shoot that, draw. So that' ; s what got me initially into photography. And then I started doing some experimental things with the photography where we' ; d like scratch it with like razor blades and do- put like fire on it or like rub ink on it or put Clorox on. So we were like trying some really interesting things like some of the artists I was influenced by at the time was...One was Dave McKean, who did the cover for the Sandman comic books, which, that series is apparently about to be made on Netflix and then Mark Romanek. If I' ; m saying that name, right? He did the videos for Nine Inch Nails, and you just had this sort of like grungy texture to them. That was interesting, you know? So at the time, the stuff that I was, the art that I was into was a lot of like surrealistic stuff, kind of more dark art kind of looking and stuff. And the stuff kind of just appealed me in that because it' ; s so surreal. Like, you know, that was sort of like for me, my escape was just making art. You know, it' ; s like being like, you know, the loser in high school, antisocial and sort of like, " ; I' ; m just going to hole in my room and hole up in my room and make this art." ; And so just listen to music, make art and I think about it now, with all the kids having so many amazing toys and video games to really distract themselves with and to be able to play online with your friends, like, you know, I think about that now and how I probably wouldn' ; t have developed some of those skills because I' ; d be too busy having fun doing, you know, all this other stuff, you know? So for me, it was like being isolated gave me, you know, I had to seek refuge in the art, which luckily for me, became like a career later on, you know, so I think about that too. And how like how like I think about like, how is that going to affect the future generations if they' ; re constantly having to, you know, get or what would be the term, like constant feedback or constant rewards, you know, like the Tik Tok apps and stuff like that? Not to say like, not to sound like some what they call a " ; boomer" ; and be like, " ; Oh my God, Tik Tok' ; s bad." ; You know, I love scrolling and looking at all that stuff too, like memes or whatever. But I wonder, just like, what' ; s the big picture that like 10, 20 years from now and how that would make the kids today develop as well. So it' ; s kind of interesting . |00:17:05| Brody That is interesting. Going back to the restaurant, you mentioned that they sold it. What...How long was it open? Do you remember when it closed? |00:17:15| Viriyaki Oh man, I gotta think about this. I could be wrong. My sister has the better memory, which is like, that' ; s why I usually say that' ; s why I take pictures. They last longer. I feel like it was roughly four years or so. I feel like around four years. And then my dad, he went on to work at Ridglea Country Club in Fort Worth. |00:17:43| Brody What was Haltom City like when you had the restaurant and who were the customers that typically were there? |00:17:49| Viriyaki So there wasn' ; t a lot of Asians around there that much. I will say down the street, there was another Thai family that owned a meatball factory and then further down that same street, there was another Thai family that owned a VHS rental place called Movies Unlimited. And so that was kind of like our little clique was the kids from both of those stores. We hang out each other' ; s stores and play, and our parents would be friends. So most of the time, I just remember it being largely like a Western clientele, you know, which again, kind of going back to how they cooked was we' ; d have to they' ; d have to make it where the palate of the Westerners could accept our " ; exotic" ; food, you know, so back then, like, you know, just without YouTube and all this stuff to teach people what things are to open their minds like, you' ; d have to kind of get lucky that someone would even want to give you a chance, right? You know, to, for them to expand their palate like that. So there weren' ; t too many Thai restaurants around back then. I mean, just thinking about. Like...I can' ; t even remember where my parents really even got their groceries at that time until later on when Haltom City got Vietnam Plaza. You know, I feel like that was the first like real grocery store we had was Vietnam Plaza in Haltom City. Before then, you would get little bits of groceries from one of the local like mini marts that were nearby. And those little places were kind of interesting in that they were sort of like the community centers for a lot of us. You' ; d bump into a lot of friends there inadvertently because you' ; re there to buy food or you' ; d rent videos from them because what they would do is they' ; d get these videos from overseas of these novellas and they would have this wall of VHS recorders, VCRs I mean, and they' ; d all hook up and they would make like, I don' ; t know, let' ; s say, 20, 30 copies of one tape that they' ; d get overseas and they' ; d rent out for a dollar. So every week you be like, " ; Oh, what' ; s the next episode? You got that episode?" ; You' ; d go back. So that' ; s where they would get their groceries from. It' ; s like they get their entertainment. I know my dad would get like newspapers there. He' ; s my dad was always interested in reading the news because again, no internet back then, right? Yeah, it' ; s like the internet, at least like commercially like wasn' ; t a thing. So that' ; s the only way for him to sort of keep abreast of like things like politics over there, which is he was very interested in, you know, so that was like our link to, you know, the homeland, essentially. |00:20:33| Brody So these were like, like a basically small grocery store that had like staples of rice, maybe? What other types of things might they have had? And then the videos and then the newspapers and things like that? Yeah. And you had one in Haltom City. |00:20:53| Viriyaki Correct. Correct. I forgot the name of it, but I believe it' ; s still there. I think it' ; s still there. I could be wrong, but I believe it' ; s still there. |00:21:02| Brody And you mentioned that it was sort of like a link to, you know, for especially the first generation to what was going on back in Thailand and things like that. Do you remember spending a lot of time in those stores, kind of hanging out? |00:21:15| Viriyaki Yeah, I mean, we' ; d go there multiple times per week, you know? So because like, you know, as far as like, your, where you source your goods from for the restaurant like that, that was like the place. There' ; s really no other option. You know, they kind of had a monopoly, you know, so I remember we' ; d have to go over there to get...what was that? I can' ; t. I can' ; t remember. Some vegetable. You know, it' ; s like if they don' ; t have it like, well, can' ; t make it. It' ; s not in. And it' ; s like, where else can you go? Whereas here you might go, " ; OK, let' ; s go down the street, go to Walmart, go to Target, go to, you know, Kroger or something." ; But over there is sort of like, this is the only place. Funny enough, kind of a similar situation. I went to Santa Fe, I think, to do an engagement shoot and there was one pho restaurant even around that area. And I was with the bride and groom, who are Vietnamese, and we' ; re just kind of joking like " ; They have a monopoly." ; Like, like, there' ; s no competition and you' ; re like, " ; Where do they get their groceries from?" ; So that was sort of like our situation too at the time was like... I can' ; t, I can' ; t even remember another Thai restaurant near us at that time. You know, so back then too, when my dad would cook for me and I' ; d take food to school like he' ; d get people going, " ; What are you? What are you eating? What is that? You know, like fried rice, what?" ; You know? So now it' ; s interesting seeing people go like, " ; Oh my god, Pad Thai, that' ; s amazing. Thai tea, it' ; s amazing, you know?" ; So it' ; s interesting seeing the palate and how it' ; s evolved. You think about the torture you basically went through back in the day of people not knowing what you ate and then also having to deal with any stereotypes or prejudices of those dishes from people who didn' ; t know better too. So it' ; s interesting seeing what it is now. |00:23:21| Brody Yeah. Let' ; s talk about that. Like the... What, what changes have you seen in, you know, in the time that you' ; ve been in in Texas since you were very young in the Asian community, in North Texas and in the connections between the Asian community and others? |00:23:43| Viriyaki Man. Well, for one, there' ; s a lot more of us. I' ; ll say that. That' ; s something that my mom always brings up too. She' ; ll be like, " ; Oh man, you weren' ; t that many of us back then." ; I remember even just when I, you know, we were living in Fort Worth at the time, came over to Dallas. I came up here to...There was a bowling tournament that for I think, like the Thai, like Commerce Association, something like that. And it' ; s full of all these Thai people, this entire bowling alley, like 20 something lanes. I just remember remarking to a friend, " ; I didn' ; t know this many Thai people existed up here. That' ; s crazy." ; You know, but it was like a bigger city, so it just, it made more sense that they would be over there rather than Fort Worth. But yeah, just the fact that there' ; s more of us, you know, it kind of logistically opens up so many doors of like options of food that are businesses, just so many resources in general and support, you know, so like just just for instance, like, let' ; s say you open up and no one knows what you' ; re making there or who you are, maybe at least the initial group of your, your people, so to speak, can at least support it in the early days until it gets going. You know, I remember just as an example, there was a restaurant called, is a restaurant called Nalinh in Irving. So this place was kind of like that little mart near my parents' ; place where they would sell groceries and kitchenware something like that. Really tiny hole in the wall, and they had two tables and four stools. So the you know, the joke was if you brought more than one friend, somebody was standing. Right? Two stools per table and in their corner had like a tiny little kitchen. And we would go over there and eat lunch. And it was awesome. And I remember going back years later and it was like, not just Thai and Laos people. It was like, you know, all kinds of people, Hispanics, Caucasians, you know, it' ; s kind of like, wow. So I remember asking them, like, " ; Hey, how did these people find you?" ; They' ; re like, " ; Oh yeah, we asked somebody that and we asked a customer that. How do you find us?" ; They said, we found you on Yelp and you know, you' ; re talking to in Thai and you' ; re like, " ; What' ; s, what' ; s Yelp?" ; So they didn' ; t even know, you know, I mean? So it' ; s kind of interesting how things have organically grown to where people now seek out this food. Whereas before it was like, hopefully someone even knows what we' ; re making. But now people are actively looking for it, seeking it out. And it' ; s really sort of been, I don' ; t know, like validating like, " ; Yeah, I told you, all this stuff was delicious!" ; You know, because like, you grow up being kind of teased about it, you know, like, " ; Oh, that looks weird. It smells weird." ; I remember my cousin had this jelly, lychee jelly like snack. Like you buy these tubs that had the screw on lid with the handle, and it' ; s full of these plastic sealed jellies with a chunk of lychee in it. He brought it to school and someone, someone made a remark like, " ; Oh, what is that? Is that dog meat?" ; You know? And it' ; s like, " ; No, dude, it' ; s, it' ; s a fruit. It' ; s like, you should try it." ; And the guys was like, " ; No, no, I think that' ; s dog meat." ; You' ; re like, really? That' ; s the stuff you had to deal with. And you know, so it' ; s great now. It' ; s great now seeing, you know, people being so much more receptive to our cuisine and, you know, just, just all kinds of Asian cuisine. I think it makes just life in general better, honestly, just to have this kind of variety, right? |00:27:33| Brody Why do you think people are more receptive now than they were back when you were growing up? |00:27:41| Viriyaki Well, you know, I think just being around different types of people, you become, I think, more open minded to them. So it' ; s just like if you had someone like a friend of yours recommend something, you' ; re much more willing to try to take their advice for anything, right? So I think just having more and more Asians around sort of just opened people' ; s eyes up, honestly for them to go, " ; Oh, what' ; s that?" ; So it' ; s sort of like this proliferation of taste, if that even makes sense, you know, so it' ; s just you hanging out with this person of this culture, you might- they' ; re going to consume something and you' ; re going to go, " ; What is that?" ; And the fact that you' ; re friends with them, your tastes are similar, you know, and not just food, but all kinds of things. And then you' ; re going to try it out and you' ; re going to go, " ; Oh my God, it' ; s amazing." ; And I' ; ve had that happen with friends, too, that I' ; ve known that...I remember one friend who he was very, very, very adamant that Thai food was not good because, " ; My wife in New York took me to a Thai restaurant. It was so bad. Oh my God, Thai food." ; And I was just like, " ; What are you kidding me?" ; So I I' ; m like, " ; I think you went to the wrong place." ; So I take him to....I forgot which Thai restaurant I took him to. And he' ; s like, " ; Thai food' ; s the greatest thing. It' ; s my favorite food now. I' ; m so wrong." ; . |00:29:04| Brody That' ; s funny. |00:29:05| Viriyaki But you know, like, it took a Thai friend for him to legitimately go, " ; I' ; ll give it another shot." ; You know what I mean? Because he went to, you know, the wrong place. Some place in New York. I don' ; t know where it was, but you know, I think that' ; s part of it. It' ; s just more of us being around, you know, which kind of goes to the whole thing with all minorities kind of going, " ; Hey, we need more representation." ; Like the fact that there' ; s more of us being out there in more things and people get used to us being out there and normalizes us. It breaks down xenophobia and prejudices, you know, so I think that' ; s part of it. |00:29:44| Brody That story that you just told kind of reminds me of people say that food is an opportunity for people to, you know, to have a door into a different culture to, you know, it' ; s a sort of entryway into learning about different cultures. Do you have any thoughts on on the role of food in particular? |00:30:06| Viriyaki Yeah, yeah, that' ; s a good point. You know, one of the...I remember when Anthony Bourdain passed, and everyone was writing like their own little eulogies on social media. And you really- like reading all that, you really kind of took in how important he was in all of this too, being that that bridge, right? You know, like he' ; s essentially the Jacques Cousteau of culinary, international culinary arts, right? So he' ; s out there exploring the world for us, showing us things we' ; ve never seen. And it' ; s like this guy who you know is, you know, adventurous, cool, charismatic individual. And if this cool guy thinks it' ; s great, well, shoot, I, maybe I like it too. I like him. You know, it kind of goes again what I mentioned previously where if the person you like likes something, you' ; re going to go, " ; Oh, you know what? Maybe I like it too." ; You know now, and he, what he did for all kinds of cuisines was really invaluable, you know? And so having that kind of reach to the Western world, with him being a Westerner, accepting that it' ; s a big deal for a lot of us. You know, you' ; d read out, like I said, all these eulogies and they were just so appreciative. You know, all the stuff that we were teased about and stuff that was stigmatized. He' ; s going out there and going, " ; You guys are idiots. Shit' ; s amazing." ; You know? And he...Yeah, he was like, I think maybe the most important person as far as like bringing that food or opening that food up to new audiences. I don' ; t know. I can' ; t think of anyone else off the top of my head that can I can even compare it to really. The only Asian chef I remember really seeing on TV at the time when I was growing up was Charlie (Martin)Yan. He had that catchphrase " ; Yan Can Cook. So if Yan can cook, so can you!" ; And my sister and I used to watch that all the time. I saw, you know, especially because, like, our dad was a chef. And so it was cool because like, especially back then, because there wasn' ; t that much representation like the only people you would see on TV were, the like emasculated Asian man like that Mickey Rooney in " ; Breakfast at Tiffany' ; s" ; which, you know, obviously not really Asian. And then you' ; d see, like kung fu stars, right, or ninjas or whatever. So that' ; s that' ; s kind of cool to see that guy on there and then to have someone like Bourdain be out there, essentially normalizing our cuisine over here. That was so huge. That was, that was a big thing for us. And then just America in general, just becoming more and more used to seeing different cultures slowly. You know, we' ; re part of that. And it' ; s interesting seeing just even recent last few years, things like " ; Shang-Chi" ; from Marvel or " ; Crazy Rich Asians" ; you know? And so it' ; s like, you know, amongst the Asians, if we joke about like, " ; We got to go see it or we' ; re going to get our Asian card revoked. We got to support it." ; There was there' ; s a comedian here locally. His name is, I' ; m going to butcher his name it' ; s like Peng Dang. And he was saying how, " ; Yeah, did you guys see " ; Shang-Chi" ; ? Yeah, I gave that movie five stars on Rotten Tomatoes, and then I went to go see it for the first time." ; And it was a joke because " ; I had to support it. You know, we got to we got to make sure it does good. Stuff like that." ; So it' ; s kind of like, that' ; s kind of funny. Like, it' ; s like we got to support the few things we have, so we see more because then if more of that comes out than we sort of are just more and more accepted and seen as normal, right? Because it' ; s like some of us, we grow up here and we' ; re normal. But for, you know, sometimes we will have certain prejudices, prejudices placed upon us that, you know, we' ; re not like " ; American" ; or whatever, you know, but just like so many Americans had their own like ethnic histories of, let' ; s say, Irish. We do too, you know, and it' ; s sort of inseparable. Like, it' ; s not like a black and white thing because you' ; re going to get people who go, " ; Oh, I have maybe Scandinavian roots or whatever, you know, Italian roots." ; You know? And they came over here, made their space, brought their cuisine over. I mean, deep dish pizza in Chicago, is that a thing in Italy? I don' ; t know. I don' ; t think I saw that when I went to Italy, right? So they...We' ; re going through what they went through and eventually we' ; ll get to where they' ; re at, where we' ; re kind of seen as equal as they are, you know, hopefully one day. |00:35:12| Brody Yeah, that' ; s an interesting point. I mean, earlier you mentioned that, you know, in your parents' ; restaurant, they had to kind of, at that time, adapt their recipes to maybe make them sweeter, adapt to the American palate. And you know, the examples that you' ; re giving about, you know, Irish or Scandinavian cultures and sort of the gradual assimilation into Americanized versions of whatever pizza or whatever things are from their cuisines. What do you think about this concept of what we' ; re talking about Asian food in particular, about when people argue about what is authentic? You know, whether you know this Pad Thai is authentic enough or not? Where do you stand on that issue? |00:36:04| Viriyaki I probably had the initial stance of, how would I say? Probably, probably a snobby elitist stance initially of like, " ; Oh, that' ; s not the real thing." ; You know, then just after thinking about it, I' ; ve kind of reversed. And maybe that' ; s because of my parents eventually having a fast food Chinese place of their own. And it' ; s, it' ; s something I feel like the evolution of food is, is constant. You can' ; t like if you say, " ; Oh, what' ; s truly authentic?" ; Like, where do you stop in the evolution of some cuisine? So if you think about, say, ramen. You know, I didn' ; t know. I thought that stuff was around for hundreds of years, but it really wasn' ; t around to...If I' ; m correct, when Japan finally opens its borders after being closed off for couple hundred years and the Chinese came in and the Chinese influence mixed with the Japanese influence to make ramen because the Chinese word for noodles is " ; la mian" ; and it' ; s turned into " ; ramen" ; right? You know, so that itself is essentially fusion. You know, and after going to Yokohama and going to the Ramen Museum of Yokohama, I learned that tonkotsu, the pork broth soup of ramen. It wasn' ; t a wide, wide thing nationwide in Japan until, like, I think, the mid 80s. And it' ; s like, oh, that' ; s interesting, because they are, I guess, like, you know, the logistics of farming there, you couldn' ; t have that everywhere. So that' ; s kind of interesting because I thought it' ; s just around forever. But if you are a purist, a true purist, you could go, " ; Oh, pork broth. Oh, no, no, no." ; Right? So for now, if someone says, " ; We don' ; t make that because it' ; s not real," ; the people would kind of look at you kind of puzzled, right? Another thing would be banh mi in Vietnam, and that' ; s supposedly a mix of the French influence with the Vietnamese, right? So again, if you' ; re a total purist, you leave that out. But I I see people arguing online over here where there' ; s a local Vietnamese restaurant, called Ngon, where they had a cognac infused pate and the price for the sandwiches was, I don' ; t know, maybe like eight, ten bucks, I forgot. But there are other local Vietnamese people going scoffing, going, Oh, what happened to buy to get a third free like at Quoc Bao Bakery over here? And they scoffed at the fact that it just costs more than normal, you know, so to them, they felt like " ; That' ; s a rip off! Because, ah, you know, in our minds, it' ; s anchored at this price point. You can' ; t change that price point. You' ; re not authentic." ; So there' ; s sort of like this gatekeep what it should and shouldn' ; t be. And I think that' ; s silly, and I love the fact that Ngon actually tried something different. I like the fact that we had these different options. So for Dallas, I feel like we' ; re slowly trying to catch up with these other major cities in terms of cuisine. I' ; m always seeing like the most like interesting, amazing restaurants, but I' ; ll look and go, " ; Oh man, that' ; s in New York. Oh, that' ; s in L.A." ; And it' ; s a little disappointing. So we' ; re slowly catching up. And I like the fact that Ngon gave me an alternative. I like that I had a place where I can buy something slightly more expensive and it was slightly different than what' ; s already there because we already have so many restaurants of this is really the same stuff that' ; s, you know, kind of mom and pop, hole in the wall type stuff. I like the fact they tried something different. So I welcome the evolution of food, you know, because like, where, where do you stop that evolution? Because if you stop it now...So you tell me, like forever from thousand years later, nothing' ; s ever going to change. I mean, that sounds kind of boring if you really, really think about that, right? You know, just think about all the random little local food scenes going on and all these other cities. I remember seeing I' ; m about to butcher this, but I if I remember right, it was either Chicago or Detroit where it was a thing to eat. I think it was like lemonade and cheese was a cheesesteak. If I' ; m right, I figure which city, but I was trying to look up what' ; s interesting locally. And one of those cities had this trend of that cheesesteak and lemonade. It was like, " ; Oh, that' ; s interesting." ; But you know, just the fact that that' ; s a thing. It' ; s really cool, you know, so every every little area is going to have their own food borne out of just preferences or the resources. I remember watching a National Geographic show called " ; Taboo" ; had one episode purely on food. They talked about how like these Nordic countries are eating like rotting shark meat. They showed how Anglo Indians had their own cuisine. The Indians rejected them. The, the Europeans rejected them. So they' ; re kind of like, " ; Oh, we' ; re mixed and we' ; re in the middle," ; and they made their own kind of food. And one of the things that was called " ; kutti pi" ; and kutti pi was essentially like a, like a lamb fetus. You know, it' ; s like very taboo, because it' ; s like, " ; Oh, you' ; re eating this unborn thing like, that' ; s crazy." ; You know, so can you imagine telling these people like, " ; Hey, that' ; s stupid. You can' ; t, you can' ; t even eat that?" ; Like, you know, why not? Like, who' ; s making these rules? Like I want to eat what I want to eat, you know? So I think it' ; s great. And I think the views of people gatekeeping certain types of cuisine, it' ; s like it' ; s such a virtue signal. Yeah. It' ; s like this thing of like, " ; I only want the real thing because I' ; m, you know, I' ; m a consumer of real things. I' ; m legit because I only eat the legit thing." ; But what' ; s really legit, right? You know, I can understand if, say, a company attempts like especially like a big company attempts some sort of dish and is disrespectful about the dish, I can understand. Someone might have a backlash. But just in general like to dismiss like anything they feel is slightly deviating from what they feel is authentic is, I think it' ; s just it' ; s just unfortunate. I think we' ; re just limiting ourselves to that point. American Asian Chinese cuisine in itself is like- it' ; s its own thing and it should be appreciated as its own thing. I was talking to a Chinese friend of mine and I was saying, I was asking her like, " ; What do your parents think about Pei Wei or Panda Express?" ; And she' ; s like, " ; Oh, they love it" ; I said, " ; Great! Me too!" ; Because like, if, if you made that and you brought that to a dinner party, let' ; s say I don' ; t know, like the firecracker chicken at Panda Express, which I get like almost every time. Like if you if I brought that to the dinner, I can' ; t imagine anyone going, " ; Oh man, this is horrible." ; I just can' ; t. It' ; s, it' ; s like, I mean, it' ; s chicken, it' ; s chicken and batter, and I don' ; t know what else to put in there. But whenever I cooked at my parents fast food Chinese place, like most of the ingredients, were like soy sauce, oyster sauce, like a chicken base powder, salt, pepper, maybe sesame oil, vegetable oil, cornstarch. I mean, this is like normal stuff. So the thought of somebody scoffing at any of that, these ingredients at all is like it' ; s just weird, because like, really like that' ; s normal, it' ; s not like you' ; re putting in some crazy, exotic like dish or ingredient out there, you know, but it' ; s just the stigma of it. They don' ; t want to be associated. So they, you know, like, " ; Oh, no, that' ; s not a our cuisine, so you can' ; t make fun of me." ; So they just kind of they get defensive, so they push themselves away. But, you know, I don' ; t know, maybe it' ; s because I grew up in that, making that cuisine because I think about my late father whenever I see some of these places like that and makes me want to go and eat some because every now and then I' ; ll just go, " ; I' ; m going to go to one of these like, you know, low end Chinese buffets to get some sweet and sour chicken or whatever." ; I think it' ; s great. I mean, to me, it' ; s no different than somebody here going, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to get some drive thru like fries or burger," ; and it' ; s like that stuff again, being fast food. It is what it is. It' ; s not seen as high, high, high end culinary, you know, art or anything. And that' ; s fine, too. Again, like, it' ; s great that we have these options. We get what we pay for and sometimes you just want something different. So you know, we' ; re I feel like we' ; re in this phase of our the West' ; s, America' ; s evolution of its palate, that there' ; s this segment of some of us Asians that are out there going like, " ; Really what' ; s really authentic?" ; Like, you' ; re just you' ; re holding the rest of us back and you' ; re kind of like being gatekeeping about the whole thing. And that is an issue that I' ; ve heard some restaurants have to deal with because they' ; re like, " ; What' ; s really authentic?" ; You know what? Like, where do you where do you draw the line? It' ; s kind of become a burden, if anything, you know? But at the same time, the trend is now that so many people are searching out the real thing, the authentic thing, you know, but it' ; s like, what? What is really the real thing? You know, so you see some of these restaurants in the last few years that open up, they' ; ll even put the word " ; street" ; in there in their name like, you know, I saw what was it like Thai? What was that place called like Ka-Tip? I think " ; ka-tip" ; is like the thing that holds sticky rice. It' ; s I think they say like " ; Thai Street Eats" ; or something like that. It' ; s either them or other one called Tanon, which " ; tanon" ; means " ; road" ; in Thai, which funny enough, because my name is Thanin and I had people writing me going, " ; Did you start a restaurant?" ; Like, " ; No, that' ; s Tanon, I' ; m Thanin, and that' ; s different." ; But anyway, I saw like a Korean Street Eats. I think Sabaidee labels themselves as like " ; Laos or Thai Street food." ; And so everyone' ; s trying to do the shortcut of authenticity now because it' ; s being searched out. Before is fusion because we were ready for the real thing yet. And it was like, " ; Oh, look, we' ; re trying something new." ; And now it' ; s like, whether we like it or not, the nature of social media, there' ; s so many skeptical people out there of everything. And again, whether we like it or not, we only trust the people we like, whether it' ; s factual or not. There' ; s yeah, it' ; s like it' ; s affected so many different things in the world now where we only trust the people we like. And so because of that, we want to go, " ; Oh, well, I only want the real thing." ; You know, and so but what' ; s real? Where you draw the line? |00:46:37| Brody And I mean, you' ; ve raised so many really interesting points that I think we should we should talk about a little bit more. First of all, earlier you were talking about the very expensive banh mi. Right? So in Dallas in particular, we have sort of a history of fine dining and sort of French influenced restaurants and things like that sort of high-end stuff with the white tablecloths. And then in, you know, the 70s and 80s, as we got more and more Asian immigrants and, you know, immigrants from other places, had a flourishing of, you know what, I guess we would call " ; mom and pop" ; you know, Vietnamese places, Chinese places and things like that. So. In this sort of conversation about authenticity, where do you think price point or sort of that that fine dining versus mom and pop, where does that fit in for you? |00:47:38| Viriyaki Oh, good question. Well, for one, you know, I think we all get what we pay for and sometimes, I think it is good that there are some things that just are expensive and or overpriced because sometimes you do want to go, " ; Hey, you know what? I kind of want to splurge something. It' ; s a special occasion." ; I went to a really, really expensive, overly priced restaurant called Nusr-Et. It' ; s owned by that guy, Salt Bae, right? He' ; s Turkish, right? Seeing him on social media, I was always like, curious, like, " ; What' ; s, what' ; s the food tastes like?" ; I knew it' ; s overpriced. I knew that' ; s what I was getting into. He' ; s selling like gold covered tomahawks. I mean, it' ; s over-the-top ridiculous. But, you know, I was like, " ; I still want to try it." ; I just, I' ; m so curious. And I didn' ; t care. So you go there, spent, you know, way more money than we obviously should have buying the food. But I didn' ; t mind because I' ; m of the expectation of one, I knew what I was getting into, but I like the fact that I could treat myself to something like that, you know? So in essence, that' ; s sort of like a thing with anything luxury, right? It' ; s like there is this joy of the fact that you can do it. Not to say it' ; s even necessarily smart or anything, but just sometimes it' ; s nice to go. " ; You know, what I' ; ve earned this for myself, it' ; s not practical, but that' ; s the joy of it." ; So these places that do- that aren' ; t charging like the price of whatever dish that' ; s cheap in the homeland, like they. I mean, they have to. It' ; s a different world where we' ; re not we' ; re not over there. We' ; re here. So the course, the price is going to be different. To expect it to be the same is, I don' ; t know, it' ; s just it' ; s just unrealistic. There was a Thai noodle place in town called Khao Noodle. He got rave reviews. I think it was named second best new restaurant in America by Bon Appétit magazine. Didn' ; t survive, ultimately the pandemic, but very highly reviewed place. I loved it. It was great. They would give you these small boats of handcrafted noodles. Like everything' ; s made from scratch. The chef Donny became like this media darling locally and you' ; d buy, you' ; d buy the noodles. And it was like something like five dollars a bowl. And it' ; s like, you know, basically like a couple of bites and it' ; s gone. Real small. And his whole thing was, " ; I want to try all these different noodles get a variety of stuff." ; It' ; s just like buying it on the streets of Thailand. Of course, the price point is much different. I didn' ; t mind. What I did hear from him and the other owners of the restaurant was that, you know, the Westerners are very accepting of it. They came in, they saw it as this cultural experience like, " ; Oh wow, look at this," ; trying all these different things. And the fact you had to eat so many dishes to kind of get full was kind of a fun experience for them. But the biggest pushback they got was from other Thai people who were like, " ; Oh my God, you' ; re too expensive. You know, like, it' ; s so cheap in Thailand." ; And so it' ; s just funny that we' ; re sort of now in this place of where we have this baggage of expectations now where these price points are anchored from the homeland. And to bring them over here and it' ; s different and they' ; re just sort of like unsupportive of it. You know, it' ; s...I know it' ; s interesting. |00:51:21| Brody Yeah, it' ; s difficult, it sounds like it' ; s difficult to navigate between the representation, you know, and sort of excitement at the representation and also the thoughts about authenticity and price and things like that. |00:51:38| Viriyaki You know what, I just thought of something. There was something similar to happened kind of like to that where when ramen, ramen restaurants were starting to come up in Dallas. And a lot of people I saw were going, " ; Wait, how much is it for a bowl of ramen? Ten, fifteen dollars. Are you kidding me? Like, I thought that was like, you know, like 50 cents for the ramen." ; And so they' ; re used to again, the anchored price point of the Momofuku Ando, like cheap packaged ramen. And so, what they don' ; t know is that' ; s what came after. But because they' ; re introduced to that first, they think that' ; s the real thing. Now you' ; re trying to give me this gourmet ramen. that' ; s not the real thing. How dare you? They feel they' ; re ripped off. But the, the packaged ramen was made because the process of ramen is very labor intensive, very time intensive. And so that all that process made this cheaper, quicker product, you know. So if you knew that- that what the real thing was before, you know, it' ; s like you' ; re kind of like, " ; Oh, that' ; s interesting. There' ; s this cheap alternative." ; Maybe some of those people would go, " ; Oh, that' ; s a bastardization of the real thing," ; but it was like the opposite where they experienced the fake thing first thought it was the real thing. And they' ; re, they' ; re offended that these people were, you know, ripping them off, essentially, with this overpriced version. But that was a real version all along, you know? You know, and kind of a similar situation is barbecue sauce. Some people think what makes something barbecue, you throw the sauce on there? Well, that' ; s not true. Actually, barbecue is marinated meat slowly cooked over an open flame. Because there' ; s Korean barbecue, Chinese barbecue. It' ; s way different from American barbecue, you know, but the barbecue sauce that we know it over here in the West, that' ; s the process of barbecue condensed into sauce form. So you have that shortcut, right? You know, so it' ; s kind of, kind of like that. Like you' ; re, they' ; re just anchored because of what they grew up with and then they find out something else. It' ; s not what they thought they were. And it can. It can kind of, you know, we' ; re stubborn people. We don' ; t, we don' ; t want to admit that we' ; re wrong. You know, so it' ; s just going back to the point of like price point. Yeah, it' ; s it' ; s a it' ; s a battle. And it' ; s like the thing that restaurants seem to keep- Asian restaurants- seem to keep having to educate their fellow Asians about and be like, " ; Hey, we got to be realistic here. We got rent. The cost of food' ; s different here. Cost of labor is different here. Like, if you want those prices from the homeland, you' ; re free to fly back over there. You get that stuff, but it ain' ; t happening here. Whether you like it or not." ; Like that' ; s just just the reality of it. You know that the you know, it' ; s almost like the cost of if you think about like pay overpaying Uber to bring food to your house. " ; Well, hey, we brought the flavors of the home here. So you' ; re going to have to pay a little extra because you' ; re not over there." ; That' ; s the that' ; s the convenience charge in this abstract way. |00:54:35| Brody That' ; s funny. So did your parents have a second restaurant then after the Marissa' ; s? |00:54:41| Viriyaki Correct, so they had Marissa' ; s. They sold it. And then my dad went to work for Ridgelea Country Club. Chef. He was a chef there. Which funny enough, he met two brothers there who were Thai. There were also chefs over there. And then later on, my parents made a fast food Chinese place in downtown Fort Worth. My aunt bumped into a lady who she said, " ; My husband' ; s from this area of Thailand," ; and my aunt was like, " ; Oh, my sister' ; s husband is from there." ; And through some talking and they' ; re like, " ; Maybe they know each other." ; And then just funny enough, it turns out they were like, that lady' ; s husband and my dad were childhood friends, like skinny dipping as little kids in Thailand. You know, like, I forgot how old, like super young. And so he literally like flies over like the next day, and he basically made this chain of fast food places, Chinese fast food. And they get to talking to and my dad' ; s like, " ; Hey, I' ; d like to open one here." ; And that' ; s what they did. And we had that for, I feel like eight years. |00:55:48| Brody What was it called? |00:55:49| Viriyaki It' ; s called Chao Phraya, which is a river in Thailand, even though it' ; s Chinese food. Which for those that actually knew what Chao Phraya meant, it was kind of confusing. " ; Like, Isn' ; t that a Thai river?" ; And they' ; re like, " ; Yeah, it' ; s because the owner' ; s Thai." ; So it' ; s kind of funny. Like every now and then you get somebody actually knew what the name meant. So yeah, they had that for a while until my dad had health issues and eventually they sold it. |00:56:11| Brody Okay. And you worked there as well? |00:56:14| Viriyaki Yeah. Yeah, that was that was my first job. So I actually worked there. And then eventually I worked there and I worked at Bank One. They soon got bought by JPMorgan Chase.So, I' ; d worked my two jobs. So there' ; s like those are like my first two jobs, and so I did a little bit of everything like cooking to, cashiering, scooping food. So it' ; s kind of like it, like so many other children of immigrants like we, you know, we couldn' ; t not work in the family restaurant, so it' ; s kind of forced upon us. And you know, I look back on it fondly now that we didn' ; t have like cell phones and cameras back then. So. But man, I wish I had a picture of me and my dad cooking back then. That would have been awesome. I try to ask my sister if she knew if we had any photos of my, our granddad' ; s butcher shop. I don' ; t think those exist too. Like that would have been so amazing to see. But yeah, I look back on it now. You know, you didn' ; t like it back then because it' ; s like you' ; re kind of forced into it. And you know, I think, I think a thing with, like a lot of Asian immigrants growing up, and this is sort of true of like any kid, we don' ; t look at our at our parents when we' ; re kids and it' ; s cool, right? Like, " ; Oh my God, I don' ; t want to do what they do. That' ; s, that' ; s lame." ; You know and with us, like growing up, a lot of us initially will have this phase because we' ; re being judged negatively by it. Like we push away our culture and we' ; re just like, " ; Oh, no, I want to do that. It' ; s embarrassing. I don' ; t want to do the family business." ; And then when you grow up, you sort of go, " ; Hey, you know what? That makes me unique and makes me special." ; And you embrace it. And that' ; s a major trend for a lot of children of immigrants, too. There was one girl I met who her mom owns Quoc Bao Bakery. And so she posted on this group on, hugely popular group on Facebook, called " ; Subtle Asian Traits." ; She had this tattoo that said " ; Banh Mi Princess." ; And she talked about how, when she was growing up, she was embarrassed that her mom made sandwiches. Right? And then she grew up. She' ; s like, " ; You know what? My mom was a single mom, who as an adult, went back to school earned her degree. Her sandwiches have been written about in publications like D Magazine. Just like, my mom' ; s amazing like, look at all she did for me" ; and I believe her sister, her sister. And so she went, got this tattoo to show her mom like, like, " ; You know what? I was looking at this all wrong. Your a badass." ; And now she embraces it. You know, I think that' ; s so cool, but that' ; s kind of just sort of the trajectory a lot of us are on where, you know, initially because we were judged on it, we didn' ; t really want to embrace it. It felt weird because we were in this kind of funny middle ground of like we' ; re Americans, but we' ; re not like the Americans, like the Caucasian Americans. And so we want to fit in. That' ; s why a lot of them will have these, you know, Americanized names like it' ; s it' ; s sort of funny. Like there' ; s memes and jokes about how there are so many " ; Kevin Nguyens" ; out there, you know, and they don' ; t have their, they don' ; t use their Asian name because they had to assimilate. You know, it' ; s like, " ; Oh, your name is, I don' ; t know. Huy. " ; Well, you' ; re going to be, you' ; re going to be Howard or something like that." ; So we had like my my sister, her Thai name is Sa, and they' ; re like, " ; You' ; re Marissa." ; My mom' ; s name Montatip..." ; You' ; re Mona." ; And it' ; s like me is like, no " ; You' ; re just Thanin." ; I never had like the American name, but I know some people who eventually reverted back to their Asian names. I know a Russian friend who she used to go by Jane, but now that things are, you know what they are, the climate, what they are, where they' ; re, much more, people are much more open. She' ; s like, " ; Hey, you know what? I' ; m not Jane anymore. I' ; m Yevgenia." ; It was like, " ; Oh, OK, you know, like, like, fuck it, I' ; m going to be who I am now." ; You know, and that' ; s kind of a cool thing, seeing that kind of happened. There' ; s a Korean girl I knew she was a, man what was her white name? I' ; m trying to remember. Well, either way, she used to be like, let' ; s say, Jennifer and then she' ; s like, " ; You know what? I' ; m going to my Korean name. I' ; m now Young Son." ; You know, like so. |01:00:40| Brody Well, I mean, it' ; s really interesting because I mean, it' ; s kind of similar to what you were saying earlier again about the adapting the recipes and the food that was served in the restaurant to the western palate. I mean, these names are people' ; s actual names, but they were adapted to be, you know, quote unquote Americanized. So. You know, you were growing up in the 80s and, you know, kids growing up today, it' ; s a much different climate. What do you think some of the key differences are and you know, and to sort of think about what, to you what does it mean to be an American? |01:01:23| Viriyaki Hmm. Man, it' ; s a good question. You know, I think as far as like just being an American, like, I would say that the more I travel around the world, the more I do appreciate America. Like it' ; s in every, every country has their issues, right? But like America? Like, it' ; s, it' ; s almost, it' ; s almost underrated in so many aspects. Funny enough, I joked with someone that I went to Italy and I saw the Arizona tea was $2.99 cents and I was like, " ; That' ; s the price of freedom." ; But yeah, I know, like America is awesome. There' ; s a, there' ; s a Laos friend of mine they' ; re, they' ; re dentists. They own like, I don' ; t know how many dental offices now, but they' ; re like loaded like crazy. We' ; re not close friends because, you know, I wish I was better friends. But we' ; re friends, anyway, they' ; re like loaded. And they' ; re from Laos. And I remember him posting about must have been Fourth of July or something. He goes, " ; Yeah, I came from Laos, but I' ; m proud. I' ; m more proud to say I' ; m an American because America, you study hard, you work hard. You could be whatever you want. And he basically did that. Him and his brother came over here and now this guy and his wife have, I don' ; t know, like nearly 10 dental offices. I don' ; t know what other businesses they have. I know they own, co-own, several restaurants, and they had like the biggest house I ever been in my life. And he credits you know, that to the opportunity that America afforded him, you know? And so to me, what it means to be American is like, this is a place where, you know, sounds so cliche, right? You can rise up from nothing. And I' ; ve seen that. I mean, there' ; s so many. Like, I' ; ve seen so many Vietnamese people who, they would come over here. Barely speak English and create businesses. You know, like they' ; ll just pool all there talents together, all their money, and they' ; ll do something through just grit and determination. And to them, it' ; s like, " ; Well, that' ; s the whole reason we came." ; And for some of us that grow up here, it' ; s very easy for us to forget the opportunities that are here because we' ; re like, it' ; s normal to us. It' ; s not normal for the people that came over here. And so, those of us that grew up within this system, we can kind of take it for granted, unfortunately, until someone later on points it out to us. There was, I was talking my friend about how, you know, there was there was some article about like, you know, Asians who are seen as the stereotype of, like, so smart, entrepreneurial. How come there aren' ; t that many, that many Asian CEOs and this and that, you know. And I thought that was interesting and I thought about- this is my theory. I could be wrong about this. But like they, a lot of them are like, they don' ; t want to necessarily be CEO for someone else they' ; re looking at as well. I want to run my own thing. I want to do my own thing. You know, so that can do spirit of " ; I' ; m crossing the ocean to come over here so I can have freedom in terms of, you know, life and business." ; So I think that might be part of it. That' ; s my theory anyway. But yeah, they' ; re so proactive and gung ho about it that they' ; re just constantly looking at it as, you know, this is an opportunity, and I' ; m here to take advantage of it, you know? So to me, what it means to be American is, is, is portrayed and like I' ; m reminded of it the most through immigrants. If anything, you know, it' ; s like there' ; s, you know, the whole thing of like, " ; we' ; re built on the backs of immigrants" ; and it' ; s true. It' ; s just true. You know, we just, for better or worse, like the people, people that are born here and grew up here, like we kind of, we kind of forget because it' ; s normal to us, you know, they have that perspective of coming from not having those opportunities and then going, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to take advantage of it over here." ; You know, so like my like my dad, I remember when I was like, five. Like, his car broke down. He just like " ; Oh I' ; m walking to work." ; You know, so to them it was like, there' ; s no complaining. We' ; re here to move forward. So I' ; m going to, I' ; m going to keep moving. |01:06:01| Brody That' ; s great. Well, speaking of starting your own thing, you have your own photography business. Can you tell me about sort of the turning points and what led you to starting that business? |01:06:15| Viriyaki Initially, I just like loved art. I was making art in high school. I wasn' ; t exactly sure what I was going to do. I knew I was going to be something visual. I went to college. I eventually decided I' ; m going to probably going into advertising. And while in that major, I had photography as the elective. I started liking that major way more than, or I' ; m sorry, I started liking that, the photography class way more than the major I was in. So to get into the major, which University of North Texas calls " ; Communication Design" ; so you' ; re designing like how to communicate with words and images, and it eventually would branch off into either graphic design or advertising. So to get into this major, I had to take five prerequisite classes- Drawing1 and 2, Design 1 and 2, Art Appreciation. Had to submit five pieces of art and I had to write an essay. I remember at the time, I think they said something like 300 something on average students would apply and maybe like 90 would get in. So I applied. I got in. I' ; m excited. " ; Oh, yeah I know what I' ; m doing with my life" ; because you know, you know, you' ; ll meet the college kid," ; It' ; s like I switched majors eight times and came back to the first one, and I don' ; t know what I' ; m going to do. I' ; m not sure what I like in life." ; So for me, I was excited- just the fact I even knew what I wanted. So I go in there and taking my classes, I get accepted. Taking more of the classes of the major. But while I was in photography what dawned on me was, " ; Man, I' ; m liking this way more than the, the, the major I initially took." ; But I always felt like two years just to get into this, get in as major. And I thought, " ; Oh man, like, should I switch?" ; I already spent two years of my life in this thing. And there was like an Arnold Schwarzenegger quote. I can' ; t remember exactly what it was, but he was talking about when he worked out. You talked about every little pain that he got from exercising. He, he loved it. In his own words. It' ; s going to sound gross. He goes, " ; Every time I get a pump, it' ; s like, I' ; m coming. So every time I' ; m lifting weights and doing a curl can imagine I' ; m just coming all day." ; It' ; s such a weird analogy, but anyway. The other part of the quote was whenever you do something and you, and to others, it' ; s, it' ; s hard or painful, but you like it, you found your calling. So while in photography class at UNT, I would be there like all day, like morning till night, developing photos. I mean, just long hours. But I was absolutely fascinated by it, just seeing the pictures develop and trying to perfect it. So to me, even as I was there all day, man, I loved every minute of it. I remember two classmates coming in right, right as they walked in the door. They stopped, they looked at each other and one person kind of elbowed the other and goes, " ; See, I told you Thanin would be here." ; And then it was like, kind of like, " ; Oh, that' ; s funny." ; Because I' ; d just be there all day, you know, I was just like, obsessed of it. So through being obsessed with it, it was just very evident to me. It' ; s like, " ; This is this is really what I really want to do with my life." ; And so I remember a turning point in my dedication to photography was we had an assignment in Black and White 1, and we were supposed to do a depth of field assignment, which means you' ; re, you have to shoot something where everything in the photo is all sharp and then shoot another thing where one thing is in focus, everything else blurred out. Shallow depth of field, right. Two pictures of each. So I remember doing my photos and I' ; m in the middle of developing the film. I see someone else' ; s photo. I don' ; t know whose photo it is. It' ; s drying on the rack. Black and white photo. It' ; s a picture of a dandelion on a little hill. The dandelion' ; s in focus. Everything else on that hill is just blurred out. Dreamy mess. And I see this photo and I think, " ; Oh, my God. That' ; s so amazing. Like, that' ; s so beautiful." ; And I go " ; My pictures suck. Like, I cannot compete with this photo. This photo was way better than mine." ; So I threw my film away. I was like, " ; I' ; m not even going to finish my assignment or that roll. I' ; m going to go reshoot everything." ; Seeing that photo gave me a benchmark. I went back out, reshot it, made an A. The teacher, you know, you turn in four finished photos, but you also were supposed to shoot entire role of 24. I would shoot a roll of 36 to go overboard. So I just had it in my mind that, you know what, if I can' ; t be better than the classmates, how am I going to survive in the real world, right? So for me, it was just like one thing I could control was my effort. So I was I was going to go, I' ; m going to give it a thousand percent. I' ; m going to be the guy that gives you more than you asked for. And so I felt like that was like my way to sort of separate myself from everyone that, you know. The one thing I have, you know, within my power was that and I will say that being an Asian photographer, it kind of helped out because you do have at least some bit of support from the community. It can kind of go for you and against you. You know, I' ; ve experienced it and I' ; ve heard it from other photographers of, let' ; s say, like my Vietnamese friends, that are photographers or Indian friends are photographers, that whenever the people who are from your homeland try to do business with you, there is this weirdness of like some of them are like, really supportive. But then you also get some that are sort of like dismissive of your value because you' ; re so close to them. You know, some of them feel like you' ; re not worth what you' ; re charging and they' ; re much more likely to pay, be willing to pay full price to a Caucasian than they are to you. You know, they just, just for whatever reason, we just devalue ourselves, and it almost goes back to that whole thing of like that restaurant, Ngon, where they' ; re having the banh mi and it costs like twice what it normally would cost. You know, where they' ; re like, " ; Oh, you' ; re not, you' ; re making it for white people or whatever." ; So I' ; ve had to deal with that in the photography world, you know. So I had a Thai friend. He made the comment like, " ; Oh man, I bet you get our business from the Thai community." ; I' ; m like, " ; Are you kidding me?" ; Like, it all comes from like mainly the Vietnamese community because the Thai people, they' ; re just like again, I guess just because we' ; re Thai, they just feel like, " ; Oh, I don' ; t know, can you do this price?" ; And was like, " ; Oh man, why do I have to deal with that?" ; But I hear that from, like I said, my Vietnamese friends. When they with other Vietnamese people. They feel like they' ; re so close they' ; ll be like, " ; Hey, give me a discount, you know, from the homeland." ; So for better or worse? You know, we had to deal with that stuff. But I will say just in general, as an Asian business owner, we do get that support. And just as a photographer myself, I feel like there was less competition to get business because there weren' ; t that many photographers within our community. Whereas I' ; ll see on the forums of Caucasian photographers, I have to in essence complete with other, you know, Caucasian photographers. They can get lost because of the sheer numbers of businesses out there, whereas I' ; m sort of niche among the community that I kind of luckily stand out, you know, and some, some of the Asian photographers they' ; ll shoot within that niche. Then they' ; ll go, " ; You know what? I' ; m tired of niche. I need to advertise to break out of this because I' ; ve shot or it' ; s a shoot within this community, and they want to break out." ; So which is sort of like similar to how the restaurants kind of operate too, where the general attitude was for us to survive, we got to appeal to the bigger audience out there, which is, you know, Caucasian, right? They make up 80 percent of America. I' ; m not sure my statistics, but you. You know, Caucasians are the dominant ethnicity in America. So to make sense, like business wise, they cater to them, you know? But I will say that now, especially now, there' ; s so many Asian Americans that if you wanted to just be within that niche like you could do pretty well. I think with most businesses, I would, I would assume anyway. |01:14:58| Brody Do you feel like there are times where being Asian or knowing about Asian customs and culture has been helpful to you in photography? |01:15:09| Viriyaki Yeah, I think so because sometimes those are legitimate concerns, some clients and they' ; ll express that where they' ; re like, " ; Yeah, I want someone who kind of understands and can predict and know what' ; s going to happen." ; So if you' ; ve shot it before, they' ; re much more willing to work for you. I will say, though, that even if you were a Caucasian and you' ; re an expert, they' ; d be fine with going with them too. Because I' ; ve heard that too, where there are times when maybe I' ; m booked already and I need to send them a friend and the friend might be Caucasian, and they' ; re like, and I' ; ll go, " ; Hey, this person just shot a lot of Vietnamese weddings and they' ; re amazing. You should go with them." ; And the client, the potential client will be like, " ; All right, cool. Sounds good." ; You know, so but it' ; s more of a knowledge thing than anything. But the shortcut is you' ; re from that ethnicity or you' ; re close to the ethnicity. So I' ; m going to assume that you know it already, you know, so because they don' ; t, they don' ; t know what people know, right? So it does. It does. It does help you out. I' ; ll say that. |01:16:08| Brody So like in a wedding situation, what are some examples of things that that are helpful to know? |01:16:13| Viriyaki Well, depending on the culture, of course, and every culture will have their own like differences of like the flow of the day and certain what I call " ; mini events." ; For instance, if you' ; re doing like a Chinese wedding, a lot of them will have these wedding games in the morning, where the groom essentially has to earn his way into the house to see the bride. So if you' ; ll be at the front door and they sort of like lovingly haze the guys before they can come in and they have to pay their way in. So some of the games I' ; ve seen are, yeah, some of them are just like intentionally like made to embarrass the guy. So I saw one where they had Saran Wrap, and if the guys had to put on lipstick and then kiss each other on the different sides of the Saran Wrap. There was another game where they made the guys eat random things and it' ; s like, this one' ; s like a tiny shot glass of oil. This is salt. This is something spicy. I saw one where they put, and these are weddings I shot, where they had to put female underwear on on the outside of their pants, and then they strapped an empty tissue box around their waist, that ping pong balls on them and had to twerk the ping pong balls out. It' ; s like one of the funniest things I' ; ve ever seen in my life. So they' ; ll do these games, but it' ; s kind of cool to like if you' ; ve kind of know the general flow, you can be prepared for things like that, And, like a lot of Asian weddings will have these table rounds where they go around each table. The oldest person will give a little speech, they' ; ll do a toast, will give them envelopes of money. You know, so instead of like a wedding registry, they' ; ll actually hand them envelopes of cash. And generally the custom is to at least cover your meal from the wedding. And usually, at the end, the bride and groom will wind up kind of making a little bit of money in a sense, once they pay off everything. So it' ; s kind of helps them in their new life together. But yes, it is mainly like a predictive thing, you know, so you can kind of know what' ; s going to happen and just be prepared for it and whether that' ; s like from a creative standpoint or a technical standpoint. |01:18:28| Brody How did you get into food photography? |01:18:32| Viriyaki So I had...well, besides my dad being a chef, I had two aunts who had restaurants. I remember approaching one aunt and just was like, " ; Hey, can I photograph your food?" ; I forgot. I only remember what made the me initially even want to shoot the food. I don' ; t know if it was even driven by like from like a business standpoint, but I asked this aunt to shoot some of her food. I figure, who else is going to let me, you know, get all this food free, right? So I shot for her so she could use. And then not long after that, someone else that knew my family needed food photos. And I think my mom was the one who was like, " ; Oh, my son can do that. Go hire him." ; You know? So she' ; s sort of like, my agent. It' ; s kind of funny. You know, so every now and then she' ; ll recommend some restaurant to me, and she' ; ll just half jokingly, but of course, that means half seriously be like, " ; I need a little referral for a referral kickback." ; Kind of seems to be like an Asian parent thing, asking her kids for money. So yeah, I don' ; t remember what really, really made me get into it at first. Or like, what was the catalyst for that? I honestly don' ; t remember. I mean, maybe it was just sort of just out of curiosity. I really don' ; t remember. |01:19:57| Brody But you' ; ve done a lot. |01:19:58| Viriyaki Oh yeah. |01:19:59| Brody Tell me about some of the most memorable food photography jobs that you' ; ve done. |01:20:03| Viriyaki Oh, man. You know, I remember, one of the first interesting things I did, or at least evolved from it was, there' ; s a local sushi place that wound up being in like a list for Travel and Leisure and a photo I shot for them want to be in there? So it was a great source of pride for me to go, " ; Oh man, I' ; m in Travel Leisure. It' ; s a major publication." ; Yeah. So getting to shoot anything that' ; s big is incredibly validating, right? And it' ; s is great for your portfolio. Can like tell people, right? All right, so you know, so you like in the last year, I got to shoot some stuff for Taco Bueno, a restaurant that Dirk Nowitzki and Headington, the people that own the Joule, the hotel are invested in called Tango Room. And so that was kind of cool being a huge Dallas Mavericks fan to go, " ; Yeah, I shot this restaurant Dirk co-owns." ; Like, it' ; s kind of cool. One of the, I have to say, one of the first or the first dish we shot there was this appetizer. It was like this caviar dish. It' ; s an appetizer. $250. If you bought this dish. It had like beluga caviar and we' ; re just like, you know and luckily we shoot it, we got to eat it. Yeah, so that was great. And also, I got to shoot for Bonchon, the Korean fried chicken chain. So I shot for Red Bull before. Actually not their drinks, but one of their cliff diving competition, which, by the way, not many people know Red Bull is a Thai invention. Not many people know that. I have an interesting story about that. But yeah, so it' ; s just it' ; s just cool and validating just to have like some major company, you know, has the option to choose anyone. They choose you. It' ; s, it' ; s awesome. And of course, even if you shoot like the smaller restaurants to shoot it and then get to just eat free food, like that' ; s amazing. It' ; s a theory of mind. Even if you' ; re rich, like free food, like a huge thrill. You know, I' ; m not rich. I can' ; t, I can' ; t confirm, but I would assume, like, " ; Oh, free food, it' ; s amazing." ; I' ; m assuming Jeff Bezos, if you' ; re like, " ; Hey, you want, you want free lobster?" ; He' ; d be like, " ; Hell, yeah. You know?" ; |01:22:11| Brody So when you' ; re photographing food, what are the biggest things to remember or what do you what are you trying to do? What are you trying to aspire to? |01:22:20| Viriyaki Well, for me, shooting food, I' ; m usually trying to look at like the texture of the food and how to emphasize the texture. So there' ; s a, there' ; s like a saying that I came up with where it' ; s called. I say use light like an adjective. So when what I mean by that, is like what I want to describe, this person, thing, place. And a lot of it' ; s going to be crafted by the mood through the lighting. And so when I' ; m shooting for that, I' ; m usually trying to look at like, how can I emphasize this texture in an interesting way to make it look like they give the volume or just show like the moistness of it? Or maybe it' ; s like the heat, you know, with the steam. Sometimes the food needs a little bit of work. So, you know, we kind of take it upon ourselves to do the styling. And if the budget allows for it, you have a stylist there to kind of help you out and make it better than what I could do, of course. So most of the time, I' ; m trying to evoke a mood, you know, emotion, right? Which then hopefully entices people to want to go out and try that food that I' ; m trying to, like, essentially advertise for the business. Whenever I look at the food, I' ; m usually trying to like. go, " ; What' ; s the most optimal angle?" ; Sometimes you have to ask the chef, like " ; Which, what are you looking at? You know, like what are you trying to do with this dish?" ; So I think it' ; s interesting that with food, where I' ; m essentially reinterpreting someone else' ; s art, you know, I' ; m like, I' ; m like the translator, you know, until someone actually goes there and eats it, you know, because their art is the interesting about culinary art is, it' ; s a fleeting thing because unlike like a Vermeer painting, they make that art is for it to be optimal, you got to eat it basically right away, right there, you know? And then they got to redo it, you know, so that' ; s like the part of the fun and the challenge of it is that it is fleeting. And so I' ; m there to sort of capture it in its best literally and figuratively the best light to then entice other people to go, " ; This is art that you need to come consume yourself" ; you know, and hopefully it translates you, well, my translation. Yeah. So I think that' ; s interesting, you know? And again, it goes back to the whole collaborative nature of both art forms. |01:24:36| Brody Yeah, that' ; s really interesting. I' ; m going to go back in time a little bit to...You mentioned you went to UNT and studied there? What was it like to be in college during, during that time period? Were there are a lot of Asian students, where there are a lot of Thai students? And you know, what was that? What did it feel like? |01:25:05| Viriyaki Well, I' ; ll say this not too many Asian art students. Your parents will put up a fight. I' ; ll say that Asian parents are very practical. So when they if you tell them I' ; m going to be in any kind of art major, they' ; re the number one thing they' ; re going to go, " ; How are you going to live? How are you going to survive? You' ; re not going to make any money." ; Funny enough, I just saw on the internet this viral video of this girl where her parents were...She wanted to do something I think, like in like graphic design. I forgot something art related. And she' ; s crying in this video. And the parents are like, " ; You can' ; t, you can' ; t study that basically." ; And then the mom is being very insulting to the daughter, saying, " ; You' ; re not even good-looking enough to get a rich man." ; And this and that. And so in this post, all these Asians are just sort of like, " ; Yeah, I can relate, man" ; . The Asian parents, like, they' ; re going to want you to take like a more, you know, quote unquote normal job. And I had that kind of pushback, too. Luckily, not from my parents, but everyone around my, my parents. So my mom, she had four brothers. Three of them were successful. The one wasn' ; t, but three of them were very successful. One of them was like a general in the Thai army, another one was a lawyer. Another one was a chief of police in one of the districts in Bangkok. And so those three, there were all wealthy, like incredibly wealthy. They had maids that lived at them, huge houses. Unfortunately, mistresses. I mean, it was like a movie. They lived the life. Right? So I remember the police officer uncle, he was like lecturing my mom, going, " ; Oh, tell him not to draw so much. He' ; s not going to make any money. Make him be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever." ; You know. I mean, so to me, it' ; s incredibly validating that I, you know, get to make six figures doing what I love, you know, so I it' ; s like I was kind of like, I wouldn' ; t say it to him and be rude, but it' ; s kind of really like yells, I want to stick it to you, you know? So to be able actually do that, my mom is incredibly proud and she just always looked at as like, you know, when people would ask her about or talk to her about, you know, what I was studying. She' ; s kind of like, that' ; s what he loves, you know? And also because I paid my own way through college, working for my parents and working for the bank. You know, because of that, with art being expensive, it is me, me, me, me paying my own way. You know, they didn' ; t really have as much to say because I supported myself. Maybe you would have been different if they had to pay for all the expensive like Prisma colors and charcoal and all that stuff. But, you know, I guess that' ; s sort of like the Asian spirit of like, I' ; m going to do this and persevering like I took it upon myself to go, " ; I' ; m going to make this work and make this happen by myself." ; My family would, they would go on vacations without me. I would. I would go on vacation like, I don' ; t know if I want to spend that money because that could be a new lens. So I was thinking big picture all the time and they would go to like Thailand without me, and I would just hang back so I could just save more money. So I was thinking like big picture, stockpile more equipment so I can move up. And then later on in my adult life, I would get paid to travel. You know, so like, you know, free vacations, essentially. And so I feel like, like like I won, you know, like I, I invested in myself. I took the chance and it really paid off. You know, so it' ; s, it' ; s awesome looking back on it now and how fulfilling my career has been. All of people I' ; ve met and all the places I' ; ve gotten to go, so I' ; ve gotten the go on, you know, like I remember, right before Corona 2020, I went to shoot a wedding in New Zealand and I went to Thailand, Japan, then I shot in Paris for like a proposal, you know, and and later that year, I was supposed to shoot in Mexico twice. Wedding in Italy. Hawaii that particular year. And you know, Corona kind of took it away. But like I mean, I had some years where I' ; d go to like three or four countries every year and a multiple states within the year. You know, so to even go to any one place is like such a thrill and validation of your skill, you know? And I was like averaging like multiple international trips a year. And so I really felt like man, like proud of myself that I. You know, took that risk and it all paid off. |01:29:49| Brody It' ; s incredible. What is the Thai community like in North Texas today? |01:30:00| Viriyaki Oh, you know what, I was going to mention something. You' ; re asking about the college thing. Go back to it real quick about how there aren' ; t that many Asians in my major. I' ; ll say this. I would meet other Asians or run across other Asians at UNT, but because I look a little almost like I' ; m Hispanic. I think it' ; s because my eyelids folded and I have the high nasal bridge because my mom luckily had the nice nasal bridge. They would walk by speaking Thai, and there was a part of me wants to be like, " ; I' ; m Thai too." ; But they wouldn' ; t think I' ; m Thai. It' ; s kind of funny. Yeah. Oh gosh, there' ; s something else I was going to mention about. You' ; re asking me about my experience in college. Oh, I will say this. When I was a UNT, we would learn all of the a lot of the technical stuff, but they didn' ; t teach you about business and, you know, not that knock on them. But this is just in general. You don' ; t learn about business, you don' ; t learn about the interpersonal stuff. So you learn the core basics of lighting, technical, how to use a camera. But for you to survive and make a career out of it, that wasn' ; t really a thing they taught. At least not then. I don' ; t know how it is now. So that was something you had to sort of go out there, get your reps and learn on your own. And that was...it took a long time. I completely think that if the internet wasn' ; t around and didn' ; t grow, you know, along with me, I don' ; t know if I' ; d have the career I have now because so much of like having a career depends on networking, getting yourself out there, because the old traditional ways of getting yourself out there, I mean it costed of money. So now if you' ; re somebody who' ; s passionate and has vision, you can easily find knowledge now, like online. When I, after college, I remember going to libraries looking, specifically looking for photography books of studio lighting to get smarter and up my skills, and the books would be like from the 80s, you know, or there wouldn' ; t even be there at all. It' ; s like it' ; s so difficult. So the landscape of the internet opened everything up with everyone trying to sell their knowledge and then the free knowledge and YouTube out there. You know, I look at YouTube as like, you know, today' ; s library. I mean, there' ; s so many things that I' ; ve learned from. I remember we were playing badminton and I found some Korean badminton lessons in there. I don' ; t know what they' ; re saying, but I watched a guy and I kind of knew how to do some of the basic moves. You know what I mean, so it' ; s been an interesting journey as far as how much information is out there now, so that anyone that' ; s really, really looking for it, they can they can learn it. They don' ; t necessarily need that curated formal education. It is helpful, but you don' ; t necessarily need it, need it. And then also just technology, too, as it is in a place now that there' ; s stuff I could do now, I could never do back then. I mean, like the Chinese lighting companies that created alternative gear, that was really expensive over here. They, they innovated. They did. They weren' ; t. I mean, there were some that were just cheap copies, but there are some that were cheaper and better than what was, you know, the popular stuff to buy. So, for instance, one of the things to do studio lighting was you had to have this trigger that would go on your camera would send a radio trigger to a receiver, the receiver plug into the light. So when you shot the photo, it would send a signal set the light off. So it used to be $189 for the trigger. Another $189 for the receiver. So you' ; re looking at almost $400 just to have light that popped off wirelessly. And then there was this company that came out and it was like, " ; Oh yeah, just get this receiver or this trigger." ; And it' ; s like 70 bucks and you' ; d see these Chinese companies that eventually came in. It was like some of them were as cheap as like ten, fifteen dollars. And, you know, and then some came in and that was just to pop the light off. And then these other Chinese companies like, well, not only can you pop the light off, you can turn the sound on off. There' ; s a modeling light they has a LED in the light. You could turn that off. You could do different channels. Different groupings. Change the power independently of all those. You could do...they mentioned a, it' ; s like the sound. Whenever you take a picture, it' ; ll have this beeping noise you could turn out. So they had all these options, you could do it and it was cheaper. And again, just kind of like anyone that' ; s really, really trying to improve and is hungry for that knowledge. Well, now with the price point being lower, it kind of leveled the playing field. So, you know, at least in the photography community, I saw a lot of older established photographers are sort of bitter about that like, " ; Oh my God, these young people come in, they' ; re taking away my business." ; And they felt like just because they were there first, they were entitled to business. But you know, the nature of business is it' ; s it' ; s it' ; s kind of like evolution, you know, it' ; s survival of the fittest. So if you' ; re not out there trying to be different, you' ; re not out there trying to like, make relationships with people, you' ; re not out there, you know, moving with the trends, you will get left behind, you know, and people are going to move on. And so the people who are truly visionaries, they' ; ll stick around and the people that are from the old school, being sort of gatekeeping about the industry, you know, they had to move on to other things, you know? I had a friend who she would say, " ; Oh, I' ; ve been shooting, I' ; ve been doing this for. I forgot how many years leading up to three decades, and I think this is the best way." ; And she' ; d lament to me like, " ; Oh man, how come I get all the boring clients? Like your clients so much more fun?" ; Oh you' ; re stuck in the past? And if I do anything that' ; s modern and you kind of scoff, " ; Oh, I don' ; t know about that." ; Well, what you put out, your portfolio is going to draw certain clients to you, right? So, you know, you got to you got to evolve. But yeah, so the technology with the internet and just the lighting gear like, I was sort of in a perfect spot growing up. I mean, I almost wish I was, you know, coming into it now because I would save so much money and there' ; s so much advancement now. But it definitely helped. It was this, you know, I thought about that a lot of how like, " ; Man, I wish I was more successful earlier on." ; I' ; d have like so much more money because back then, it' ; s like just trying to build your portfolio and buying so much equipment that then would get outdated. And then you' ; d find a better option, like a year later, two years later, months later, maybe. And you' ; re like, " ; Oh man, I wasted that. I don' ; t even use it anymore, you know," ; I' ; d have so much money saved. |01:37:03| Brody Now the technologies are expensive. |01:37:05| Viriyaki Yeah, it moves fast. So anyway, sorry, what was your question? |01:37:09| Brody Well, we were just talking about the Thai community in general. And sort of another question I had was during the time that you were in college and when you were growing up, how close was that community and what were the sort of the ways that the community socialized or, you know, or got together? |01:37:29| Viriyaki So I, around college time, I really didn' ; t know that many Thai people. I was living in Fort Worth. I don' ; t believe the Thai community around there was like, there is that many people. I usually wound up meeting, mainly Vietnamese or Laos people over there. It wasn' ; t till I was in Dallas that I started meeting more time people. Right after college, I remember. You know, there' ; s a there' ; s a lot of Thai young adults would be over here and one of the reason they could really stay was they were in school and they' ; d work for these restaurants. So on like Friday or Saturday nights like these restaurants would close and essentially they' ; d throw these parties with these young Thai adults would gather like 20, 30, 40 people in the restaurant and they' ; d serve food on like Styrofoam plates so they don' ; t have to wash them. Some other Thai people would bring in their instruments and start playing live music. So they, you know, we kind of create our own little scene there among our, you know, little cliques hanging out like it we' ; d be over this side of the bar and the other clique would be over there. And so we were just, you know, we kind of took it upon ourselves to cater to our needs, which is sort of, I think, a theme among a lot of immigrants, you know, and it' ; s created its own ecosystem of businesses of making the comforts of home over here. The Thai community itself, I felt like they, and I think it' ; s a generational thing. I think I think that the Thai American kids that grow up now are much more assimilated than the ones I met when I was growing up. And because of that, I felt like the people I was around, when I was in my early 20s, I felt like they weren' ; t as adventurous, or as outgoing as some of the kids are now. What, what I mean by outgoing is they kind of stuck to their other Thai friends. And I don' ; t know if that was a language barrier or cultural barrier. But I see, you know, the kids of today, they' ; re much more open to being around all these other people. Different types of Asian, Caucasians? Not to say that that group back then wasn' ; t, but I didn' ; t see it as nearly as much because I remember just as a small sample example, there was this thing called the Dragon Boat Race in Irving, Las Colinas, actually. And. I remember seeing an entire basically entire team of like, I think, Taiwanese people or Chinese. There was another team that' ; s made up of like 90 percent who were Vietnamese, and I would ask my Thai friends like, " ; Hey, you want to go do this thing like this dragon boat race?" ; Where I' ; d go, " ; Hey, you want to do a mud run?" ; And they' ; re just like, " ; I don' ; t want to get dirty or, you know, like, who else is going?" ; And it' ; s just, I just remember feeling a little frustrated. I' ; m like, " ; Why are we so lame?" ; I know if sounds terrible, putting down my people? But it just seemed like the Vietnamese community is so much cooler. Like they were just so much more open to trying all this stuff, you know? I don' ; t know what made them so reserved, but I feel like the younger generation now growing up is much more open to doing so much more things are much more adventures of getting out there, trying out of stuff. So the community is, you know, it' ; s kind of a small world, I guess. It seems like so many, at least the Thai people, so many just kind of know each other for better or worse, which could lead to, you know, just like needless drama. You know, so which I suspect that' ; s kind of a thing with all the all the minorities. It' ; s just it. Just it is what it is. |01:41:24| Brody I' ; m going to go backwards one more time, which is you mentioned when you were growing up, when you were quite young, that in Haltom City, there were the couple of other Thai families and one of them had the movie store. And one of them had the meatball factory. Can you tell me more about those two businesses? |01:41:43| Viriyaki You know, the movie store people, we don' ; t really keep in touch with them that much. I don' ; t have much to really explain further about them, unfortunately. I will say the meatball factory people, they were close friends of my parents. They eventually sold their factory to I believe a Laos family. And last year, funny enough, I wound up shooting photos for the website of that meatball company. And I asked them, like, " ; Hey, so did you guys buy this company from a man named man named Som" ; And they' ; re like, Yeah, yeah." ; I was like, " ; Wow, so funny." ; I told them how I grew up next to it. And so Somsak he when he had a second location for his factory, the one that was near my parents' ; restaurant was the first one. He then moved somewhere else, got a bigger factory. Next door, was a dry cleaning place. So his, his the owner of that dry cleaning place was this old man who he had no family. And was, " ; Oh I' ; m going to retire, you want to buy my business?" ; So he bought it and then he transitioned into dry cleaning. Somsak did. And so I believe those dry cleaning plants are still around. I think so. I know his son, his oldest son, he had two sons and a daughter, the oldest son. His Thai nickname is " ; luk chin" ; which essentially translates to " ; meatball." ; So just like, " ; Hey, Meatball!" ; Funny, his real name is Bobby. But he keeps in touch with my sister because he lives in Austin. My sister lives near Austin. So they still keep in touch. My sister is the one that, if anything is true historian. She keeps in touch with everyone. Much more social. I' ; m just working all the time. So yeah, he sold the meatball company off and man and honestly, I think they make the best Asian meatballs around. So I' ; m glad it' ; s still going on. There' ; s a few products they don' ; t make anymore, which I' ; m sad. But man, he had like what they call " ; heaven beef" ; Nua Sawan. And it was like, it was like the best. And I don' ; t think they make that anymore. It' ; s too bad. Now talk about it, I need to call my sister, see if they can give me the recipe. Maybe he' ; ll, maybe he' ; ll let me make it. If there' ; s one thing I' ; m really sad about my dad passing away, you know, besides, him passing away, of course, I wish he was around now to see how further the western palate has gone, how much more open because, you know, like just stuff like selling the beef jerky, it' ; d be so much easier to get out there. People are so much more receptive. I mean, just like social media and online presence like to sell your food items, it' ; s, you know, ghost kitchens. There' ; s so much we could have done instead of just being stuck at the brick and mortar place and hoping people stumble upon you. You know, I wish my dad was around to see that because it would have been really interesting for him to see and also for us to like, just take advantage, then just have to have fun, especially like just experimenting, you know, with different recipes and whatnot. You know, I wish he was around to do that. I see some of the younger Asians doing that with their parents now where they' ; re helping their parents do this social media side of things and taking the orders and the the mom, usually it' ; s the mom that' ; s making like the food, you know? And I' ; ve bought some too, where it' ; s like you go to their Instagram and you' ; re like, you' ; ll see them post the prices and items they have and you do, they' ; ll have like a little pick up spot, you Venmo them, you know, so it' ; s it' ; s cool to see that out there, that that' ; s going on, and it' ; s evolved to that. Because like, sometimes like restaurants themselves, like the logistics of restaurants, they can only make certain things because it' ; ll keep well. But then for you to actually like, someone will make something special and it' ; s being made this particular day, putting in your order now. So now they know exactly what to make, like. It opens of doors and makes some interesting food that you normally couldn' ; t get. Right, right. So I wish my dad was around because then he could have done more than what the restaurant usually offered. |01:45:54| Brody Now that really has changed. The whole landscape has changed and evolved. Well, I just want to say thank you for sitting for this interview and ask you if there' ; s anything that I didn' ; t ask you that you want to include. |01:46:11| Viriyaki Hmm. I' ; m drawing a blank right now, but a bet like later tonight, I' ; ll think of something. Let me think about this. What aspect have we not even touched on? I mean, maybe might have covered everything. Let me think. Oh, you know what, I' ; ll at least do this. That Red Bull story. So I remember I was having dinner with my parents many, many, many years ago. My father was still alive. And I was at dinner with my parents and there were a lot of people their age who were at the restaurant with them. And there was one gentleman there. He talked about how he knew the inventor of Red Bull and- in Thailand. And the inventor says to this guy, " ; Hey, I made this drink. I' ; m selling it in bottles. Door to door." ; So the Red Bull in Thailand is different from what we know it here because it' ; s non-carbonated and it' ; s in these short, stubby bottles. They' ; re like dark brown, almost like a A-1 sauce bottle, but it' ; s shorter. And he was kind of like, " ; You' ; re selling drinks door to door?" ; Like what? Like he said, " ; I don' ; t know, man, is this going to work?" ; So he passes it up and he' ; s like, " ; I' ; m an idiot. I' ; d be so rich now if I went sold those drinks to him." ; You know, the story goes that there was an Austrian businessman, I believe, on a trip to Japan drank this thing called Krating Daeng, which means Red Bull. And he' ; s like, " ; Oh, I got a little bit of pep." ; And if I' ; m correct, the story is that he and the original inventor, he came and bought like half the company, both like 49 percent shareholders and the Austrian, Austrian businessman brought it over into the west, dominates the landscape of energy drinks, right? So when I shot the Red Bull Cliff Diving Championship and Possum Kingdom Lake, I' ; m kind of marveling at because I' ; m like thinking back to that story going, " ; This guy was selling this drink door to door. And now all the way here, with all these people here jumping off a cliff, you know, like Red Bull merch every day, you know, like multibillion dollar company." ; Like, it' ; s kind of amazing, you know? And even though maybe that guy isn' ; t here, like that' ; s sort of like. I guess a good parallel, just Asians coming over and finding their own space within America. To see that dream come over, and it has its own history in place here too, you know, and to be accepted, you know, because like before Red Bull, like, what energy drink did we have, right? You know, so it' ; s kind of interesting thinking about the evolution of that. As a parallel with the rest of our cuisine, too. |01:49:07| Brody Yeah, that' ; s really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing that story. Well, again, thank you so much. This has been so interesting and I really am thankful to have your story included in this. |01:49:18| Viriyaki Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Thanin Viriyaki, April 19, 2022
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2021oh002_di_009
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking, Thai
Photography of food
Asian grocer
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2022-04-19
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audio
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bb01d50b1188295fd5a58cd9e92043bb
Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Tony Nguyen
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5.4 Interview with Tony Nguyen, April 26, 2022 2021oh002_di_010 01:06:22 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Grocers, Asian American Tony Nguyen Betsy Brody m4a oh_dig_audio_Nguyen_Tony_20220426.m4a 1:|14(8)|32(1)|46(14)|59(14)|73(11)|86(10)|102(5)|121(10)|143(1)|160(11)|184(10)|201(9)|214(8)|231(4)|244(4)|258(3)|271(2)|281(14)|294(11)|307(8)|319(7)|332(13)|345(5)|359(19)|373(10)|386(7)|399(9)|423(14)|443(13)|458(10)|473(7)|490(4)|506(4)|518(11)|537(10)|552(7)|570(8)|586(14)|599(13)|616(1)|628(8)|645(9)|663(12)|679(7)|693(3)|708(14)|721(6)|737(10)|756(12)|771(12)|784(16)|802(3)|812(11)|829(2)|849(6)|863(3)|876(12)|892(5)|903(1)|926(5)|942(4)|963(4)|978(1)|990(14)|1006(10)|1015(14) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/163031 Aviary audio 5 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Texas--History 37 Nguyen family arrives in Texas from Vietnam and establishes Vietnam Plaza Asian grocery ; Bedford ; Carrollton ; Catholic ; Church's Fried Chicken ; Dallas ; diverse ; entrepreneur ; fish ; fried chicken ; groceries ; grocery store ; Haltom City ; Vietnam ; Vietnam Plaza ; Vietnamese 503 Relationships with suppliers for Vietnam Plaza/Mentoring competition ; entrepreneur ; mentor ; relationship ; Vietnam Plaza 639 Growing up in Vietnam Plaza advertising ; Asian community ; Asian grocery ; cleanliness ; community ; family ; fish sauce ; groceries ; grocery store ; hospitality ; oyster sauce ; rice ; Vietnam Plaza ; word of mouth Asian American grocers 824 Work with The Halal Guys, Seven Leaves Cafe franchise ; restaurants ; Seven Leaves Cafe ; tea ; The Halal Guys ; Vietnamese 990 Reflections on " ; mom and pop" ; shops and site selection business ; demographics ; entrepreneur ; expansion ; growth ; marketing ; mom and pop 1219 Working at Lisa's Fried Chicken Church's Fried Chicken ; family ; family run restaurant ; fast food ; fried chicken ; hospitality ; Lisa's Fried Chicken ; Vietnam Plaza 1470 College and working in business telecom/2008 financial crisis business ; UT Arlington 1710 Playing poker during college gambling ; poker ; Texas Hold 'Em ; Webber Kang 1859 Diversifying into real estate Beard Papa's ; real estate ; The Halal Guys 1952 Role of business in the community/Asian community Asian community ; business ; entrepreneur ; expansion ; fast casual ; Goldee's Barbecue ; growth ; mentor ; mom and pop ; Seven Leaves ; The Halal Guys ; trends 2361 Involvement with Asia Times Square Asia Times Square ; Asian community ; Asian grocery ; Asian restaurant ; community ; community hub ; cultue ; family ; food truck ; Grand Prairie ; grocery store ; Hong Kong Market ; hub ; Koreatown ; Matthew Loh ; mentor ; newspaper ; real estate ; Seven Leaves 2652 Changes in Asian food landscape Asian flavors ; Asian food ; omakase ; palate ; social media ; western palate 2743 Impact of social media photography ; pop ups ; social media ; The Halal Guys 2785 Reflections on the idea of " ; authenticity" ; American halal ; appropriation ; Asian-American food ; authentic ; authenticity ; Chinese restaurant ; food ; Irving ; Muslim ; P.F. Changs ; The Halal Guys 3103 Characteristics of the Asian community in North Texas airport ; Asian community ; California ; connection ; diverse ; diversity ; Sandoitchi 3279 Partnership with Sandoitchi " ; sando" ; pop-up expand ; expansion ; Goldee's Barbecue ; growth ; mentor ; Sandoitchi ; social media ; Uchi 3700 Events and cultural holidays Asia Times Square ; food trucks ; Ramadan 3764 Lessons and reflections on success and happiness Asian community ; business ; Catholic ; customers ; Dallas ; Our Lady of Fatima ; Vietnam ; Vietnam Plaza |00:00:04| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is April 26, 2022. I' ; m interviewing for the first time Mr. Tony Nguyen. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture and Class Shape the Story of Asian Dallas." ; Hi, Tony. Thank you for coming and sitting for this interview. Let' ; s start out. Can you just tell me where and when you were born? |00:00:42| Nguyen Sure. I was born in Bedford, Texas, in 1983. |00:00:50| Brody What brought your family to Texas? |00:00:52| Nguyen What brought my family to Texas? My father came to Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Initially, he actually came into California and quickly moved down to Texas. And since then, we' ; ve been here. |00:01:10| Brody Did you move to Bedford? They moved to Bedford. |00:01:14| Nguyen Actually, originally, I think his first house was on Portman Avenue in Fort Worth, and eventually he was able to move to Bedford, Texas. |00:01:24| Brody Do you know what your dad was doing in Vietnam? Before? |00:01:28| Nguyen My father was...My father was in the Air Force. He was part of the the the pit crew. |00:01:39| Brody Great. And then once he got to Texas, what line of work did he get into? |00:01:47| That...That initially, he was a jack of many trades in Vietnam. I know that in California, before they came to Texas, he was in, he attempted auto sales. I believe that didn' ; t work out too well. And so that' ; s what actually drove them to Texas. From there, he just got a job and worked his way up to become a GM of a Church' ; s Fried Chicken. And through working there and saving up, he saw the need for an Asian or Vietnamese grocer just because him, the family, their friends, everybody he knew that was coming over and pouring over. And there was a problem and he wanted to provide a solution. So that' ; s how Vietnam Plaza came about. |00:02:33| Brody Oh, tell me about Vietnam Plaza. |00:02:35| Nguyen Vietnam Plaza. I would like to think that my father is the pioneer in DFW for Asian grocers. He was the first multi-unit Asian grocer-owner. Again, it was called Vietnam Plaza. He had, I believe it was four locations and they were just spread around the city. And that' ; s how I was able to learn and speak Vietnamese, as a matter of fact. That was my daily babysitting club, if you will. |00:03:05| Brody Had...You mentioned he was at Church' ; s for a little while, but how...Had he ever been involved in any kind of food oriented business before? |00:03:15| Nguyen Well, I can tell you from his treacherous journey. Well, I wouldn' ; t say it was treacherous compared to a lot of other journeys I' ; ve heard of people fleeing from Vietnam. But while he was in the Air Force, he was create...was able to create connections with pilots and in those relationships allowed him to board a plane when things got tough. And so before they actually got to America, they were in. Where is it? It slips my mind. I' ; m going to get back to where they... they were in Guam. They had to...They stayed in Guam for about a year. And so I can say, honestly, that' ; s when they got their restaurant exposure, because while Dad was in Guam helping out and fixing all the planes, hoping to hop on a plane to America, he also had brought his wife, Mom, and her siblings. And so they were actually...They ended up for a year selling food on the air base to all the the the Air Force members. |00:04:28| Brody Tell me your mom and dad' ; s names. |00:04:30| Nguyen Frank Nguyen or Phan Quoc Nguyen and Mary Oanh Thi Nguyen. |00:04:38| Brody So do you? I mean, you were probably very young, but, you know, in the family, are there stories about sort of how they got, got the idea and executed building the Vietnam Plaza. |00:04:56| Nguyen My father. From what I' ; ve learned, he was quite the entrepreneur even in Vietnam. You know, listening to people speak about him today, they' ; ll always reminisce about him being the first and one of the only ones that they knew that had a motor vehicle. He had some bars, I hear. He had a very popular roller skating rink once upon a time. So it sounds like he was a social butterfly and also an entrepreneur kind of throughout life, and just hearing stories from even all my aunts and uncles and his siblings. He, he took on everybody' ; s weight. |00:05:45| Brody So the business grew. Then if you had four locations of Vietnam Plaza. Was it all in the family? How did that happen? |00:05:54| Nguyen Mom ran a store, Dad ran a store, had an uncle run a store, and I had one of my brothers run a store. And, that' ; s what, that' ; s what we knew for about 20 some odd years. |00:06:07| Brody Who were the main customers? |00:06:12| Nguyen The Vietnamese community for sure certainly supported us. But then it became just again an Asian grocer. So we had pockets of everybody kind of come and just because of the different types of fresh fish that you could buy here versus there, things of that nature. |00:06:29| Brody Right. So it sounds like not just Vietnamese customers after a time and, you know, other Asian groups and were there also sort of native Texans? |00:06:42| Nguyen Oh, absolutely. And just again, we' ; re in...Those stores were in very... what' ; s the word? Diverse demographic areas. And so it was a hodgepodge. |00:06:58| Brody That' ; s interesting. So these stores were in Fort Worth. |00:07:05| Nguyen Haltom City was his first. And then there was Carrollton and Dallas, and I think there was another Dallas location as well. |00:07:15| Brody Great. How large was the Vietnamese community when you, you know, when he, when your dad started the stores? |00:07:26| Nguyen Hmm. That' ; s a good question. I wish I knew. I wish I knew population numbers, that one. I really can' ; t tell you. Yeah. |00:07:32| Brody No, but was it small? |00:07:34| Nguyen I can certainly say it was small because it was it was basically the congregation, the Catholic congregation nearby, you know. When a church was formed, where there' ; s a church, or where there' ; s a church, as long as there' ; s grocery, there can be civilization, you know. |00:07:52| Brody And that' ; s that was it. So do you remember if the stores were, you know, like a place that maybe people came after church or congregated or? |00:08:03| Nguyen Oh, gosh. I mean, again, he was one of the pioneers, so there wasn' ; t a lot of varieties and options to go visit. So if you wanted the spices or if you wanted the different cuts of fish that you couldn' ; t get at Tom Thumb or Target or what have you, this is where you would go initially. |00:08:23| Brody Yeah. And how did he get the supplies? Where? Do you remember where he had suppliers ? |00:08:28| Nguyen Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He' ; s got suppliers. I' ; m actually still good friends with some of them. I pass it on to their sons. And so but a lot of these hubs are in California and Houston. So a lot of the stuff is imported from Asia into California and then from there distributed across the nation. |00:08:46| Brody Right. And that' ; s...And so those relationships still exist for you? |00:08:49| Nguyen Oh, absolutely, for sure. |00:08:52| Brody So. |00:08:53| Nguyen Um, so I, I would like to think that. I try to stay connected with this world because it was my dad' ; s and I guess the other, the all the other store owners still respect him. And so, you know, anytime I see any of the other grocery store owners, they' ; ll make sure we' ; ll always connect and say hi and have some conversation. |00:09:16| Brody Yeah. So your dad was first and it sounds like, you know, with the growth of the community that then suddenly, you know, there were more stores opening, you know, different owners that that you still have relationships with. But did your dad help those people as they were starting their stores or offer advice? |00:09:37| Nguyen I' ; ve heard stories of business owners who are successful now and all of them, several of them will say, your dad helped me and guided me. He' ; s the one that gave me the loan. Just a lot... You know, he played banker, advisor, friend, supporter, business partner. He wore a lot of hats. |00:09:57| Brody Yeah. |00:09:58| Nguyen I think we' ; ll will continue to say that throughout the interview if it' ; s about him. |00:10:02| Brody Yeah, that' ; s well, that' ; s you know, a lot of people would think that, you know, that another store opening up is competition. But it sounds like it was more, you know, mentoring and training. |00:10:15| Nguyen And I think the same way. I' ; m also in the food, food industry and I always welcome synergy. I always welcome synergy. |00:10:25| Brody Yeah. Why? Why is that your philosophy? |00:10:28| Nguyen It' ; s more options. You' ; re not always going to be everybody' ; s number one option, but if you' ; re an option, you know you' ; re now an option versus not being an option. |00:10:38| Brody So did you grow up working in the stores? |00:10:41| Nguyen Oh, yeah. |00:10:42| Brody Yeah. Tell me about what that was like. |00:10:44| Nguyen It was...I was there from 8 a.m. to about 9 to 10 p.m. typically. That' ; s every summer and every weekend, Saturday and Sunday. And so, I mean, and of course, it' ; d be cleaning up the place, picking up to make sure it' ; s tidy, and then we' ; re going to go and typically fill up every aisle, you know, face everything forward, which coincidentally now, you know, I' ; m even teaching my sons when they walk into the store, they know to go push in every chair and they know to pick up all the trash and then turn every bottle forward. And they understand it just looks better. So I know this is going to be second nature to them, to you for sure. |00:11:29| Brody Do you remember what the biggest sellers were at Vietnam Plaza? |00:11:32| Nguyen Do I remember? I mean, fish sauce is huge. It goes in majority of dishes, fish sauce and oyster sauce. And rice. Goodness, rice. Everybody needs their bag of jasmine rice. |00:11:50| Brody Do you remember much about advertising? Did your, did, did your parents have to do much advertising? |00:11:57| Nguyen I don' ; t recall seeing too many articles in newspapers or any mailers. I think it was all word of mouth. It' ; s just, again, being one of the first and few Asian grocers. You know, people kind of talk about you and where to find these certain ingredients. |00:12:17| Brody In your recollection or just from family stories, what, if any, were the challenges that your family faced in, you know, that the early days of building? |00:12:31| Nguyen Mm hmm. What challenges that they face? Oh, gosh. I think everybody faces challenges. And no matter what time it is and any era. I know that. I know that there was always theft. Right? There was always insurance claims. When you have, you know, a thousand customers are walking in, somebody is going to act like they fell whether they did or not. And so I recall hearing a lot of those things happening pretty frequently. |00:13:08| Brody Any issues with sort of neighboring stores or the, you know, the neighborhoods that the stores were? |00:13:15| Nguyen You know, I mean, he brought, he brought the community together, if you will. I mean, people got what they needed there. And he was the happy man that greeted you at the door. Mom was the happy lady that greeted you at her door, depending on what store you went to. And so cleanliness and hospitality. I think that ended up rubbing off on me indirectly too. And never did I think I' ; d be in the line of work that I' ; m in now. |00:13:43| Brody Yeah. Tell me about that. What do you do? Tell me about your business. |00:13:48| Nguyen Well, right now, predominantly, my time is spent with the restaurants that we represent, which is The Halal Guys, a franchise from Manhattan, Seven Leaves Cafe, which is a coffee and tea concept from Orange County. I' ; d like to also say that that was created by a family of immigrants that had fled and moved to California. And this is just something they all collectively created. It' ; s not often that we get to hear that there was a Vietnamese creator of, in this realm, I guess in the in the coffee and tea realm. It' ; s typically Taiwanese. |00:14:29| Brody Right. So, so those are both businesses that are founded, created, you know, by other people, and then you' ; ve brought them into this area. Tell me how you decided to go that route as opposed to maybe starting your own restaurant from scratch. |00:14:52| Nguyen Sure. Restaurant talk. I chose The Halal Guys and Seven Leaves because of its simplicity. Of course, it has a- quite the following, but for me as an operator, I want to think of what is the easiest and best. You know, I don' ; t want personally, I don' ; t want to be like a Cheesecake Factory where there' ; s a million things to offer. I just think that it' ; s tough to master a million different things. And so, landing The Halal Guys, again, we chose that because there' ; s literally only two entrees you can choose from- a sandwich or a platter. And so, I don' ; t know. I think that it' ; s just easier to execute when there' ; s less to do in practice. |00:15:42| Brody And same with Seven Leaves. Was that a similar kind of logic that led you to... |00:15:49| Nguyen Yes, and a few other things. I don' ; t think that they' ; re your typical drink company. I love the way they are and who they are and what type of people they are as far as just being good humans. I like their philosophy. On every cup it says " ; Be the change you wish to see in the world" ; by Gandhi. And, being able to partner with somebody that aligns with your beliefs is rare. And I think that I did find a partner that, you know, I really love representing and just everything about them from the product to the people. |00:16:27| Brody That' ; s great. So how, you know walk me through how you, you know, decide where to open a restaurant. |00:16:37| Nguyen Site selection. This is, this is the one thing I think many I' ; m going to call it. I' ; m going to just categorize it " ; " ; mom and pop" ; shop owners fail to truly focus on. They think that if they market well enough or if they have a good enough product, that people will come. I don' ; t think most " ; mom and pop" ; shops should think that way. I believe that there' ; s too many pockets in this city, especially nowadays, that' ; s getting a diverse mix. So the question is, how are you going to get these people to your door? So when you ask me about site selection, you' ; ve really got to know the density. You know, what is your target density? We need to know that there' ; s customers around there. Otherwise, are you truly good enough for them to visit? And if so, how frequently are they going to visit? Demographics. You need to know who your customer base is. You really I mean, anybody. There' ; s always going to be a predominant, you know, customer base, whatever it may be. And if that' ; s what it is, that' ; s who you should be by. And so I think that demographic plays a part. Visibility plays a huge part. We can get really technical when it comes to talking about like stories and development. Yeah, it' ; s not so much history talk though, but I can go on and on about stories and. |00:18:09| Brody Just even thinking about, you know, what you brought up here. The sort of the difference between the types of stores that you' ; re opening versus a " ; mom and pop" ; type shop like, you know what, what are your thoughts about the main differences between even just sort of this, the style of place. |00:18:33| Nguyen The successful brands and the successful business owners, they lead by the numbers. " ; Mom and pops" ; they probably just cook something really well. And so that' ; s what they focus on. But they didn' ; t control the labor that went into it. They maybe didn' ; t control the cost that went into it. You open the business for business, not necessarily just to please people. And so on the business side, I think that " ; mom and pops" ; and what keeps them titled under that realm is that they haven' ; t became a expert or professional at running the business behind, you know, the store. |00:19:19| Brody How did you discover your aptitude and interest for sort of scaling up. |00:19:26| Nguyen By wondering where is all my money? Selling a fortune and not having much to show for it? And by working backwards, we had different bookkeepers and accountants, and we paid for all of these services. And while they might have prepared, you know, the books. Was it truly accurate or something accurate enough for me to make big decisions on that could change these percentages. It wasn' ; t, you know, in hindsight, the best bookkeeping is either done in-house or somebody that knows that business well that maybe has interest in that company, not just another account for an accountant. |00:20:19| Brody Walk me through your story, then. So you were working at your parents' ; stores and then after high school, what did you do? |00:20:31| Nguyen Oh, I was working with my parents all into my teens. As I got a little older, I was hoping that they would pay me, start to pay me. So I made a request and, and of course, Dad said, " ; Sure. Sure." ; And when the day came and I was supposed to get paid, I remember he paid me pennies on the dollar. And so I told him I asked my uncle for a job, who owns Lisa' ; s Fried Chicken, which he' ; s got 30 locations here in DFW. That was Dad' ; s little brother. Earlier, I talked about Church' ; s Fried Chicken. He was actually we' ; ll call it the, the predecessor, the person that took dad' ; s GM position at Church' ; s while Dad went on to open Vietnam Plaza. My uncle, Uncle Tom, Tom Nguyen, then took over Church' ; s Fried Chicken, and probably shortly thereafter, Dad was able to save enough to help him open his first store, which they called it Lisa' ; s Fried Chicken. And as I mentioned before, there' ; s about 30 of them in Tarrant County now. |00:21:40| Brody Tell me about Lisa' ; s Fried Chicken. So, first of all, your Uncle Tom and your dad both had their experience at Church' ; s. Was, is it that style of chicken? |00:21:53| Nguyen Yeah, it' ; s I call it, you know, I compare it to Church' ; s Fried Chicken or Popeyes or KFC. It' ; s just fast fried, fast food, fried chicken. But I think what sets them apart is the marinades and the seasonings. Unlike Church' ; s and Kentucky and Popeye' ; s, his chicken is marinated overnight. And so that' ; s what makes it really juicy and flavorful. And their prices typically are more competitive than the big chains. And so he' ; s been able to really thrive across Fort Worth, which is being able to serve a delicious product at a really good price. |00:22:33| Brody That' ; s great. Did you ever yourself work at a Lisa' ; s? |00:22:36| Nguyen I did. So when dad wasn' ; t willing to pay, I had to jump over to the uncle who was willing to pay. So I recall being 13. I was, and when I was 13, I started working Lisa' ; s Fried Chicken until probably 18. But that was a good experience because I watched him grow units as well. You know, I never...I was just sent out to typically stock the stores. If somebody opened a store, they' ; d just send me there and say, " ; Alright, fill up the shelves." ; And so I' ; d spend a few days just doing that nonstop. I never realized it would be a part of life and my life later on. |00:23:14| Brody Yeah. What were the main lessons that you learned back then from that experience? |00:23:21| Nguyen Organization. Organization is key. Really maximizing your space. And everything just always has to look and feel right. You know, I always, then and now, my uncle and my father always they wanted me to see as a customer. |00:23:46| Brody That kind of ties back to what you said earlier when you were talking about your dad, but we were talking about hospitality. What is your, sort of vision for, you know, what it feels like to be a customer in one of your stores? |00:24:02| Nguyen It should be an experience at the very least, even if it' ; s just a simple greeting. As store owners, we can' ; t control too much what' ; s going on outside of the four walls. But hopefully you' ; ve got a grasp of what' ; s going on inside of the four walls of your store, which is, again, the cleanliness, the hospitality, the fresh product or whatever it is that you' ; re pushing or selling. |00:24:30| Brody So. You did not get paid by your dad. So you went to your uncle, to Lisa' ; s, learned some lessons there. Then after that, what was the next step in your path? |00:24:42| Nguyen What was the next step? My brothers. My brothers. I' ; m the youngest of six. And I had three older brothers that owned a business telecom company. And at their highest point, they employed about 96, 97 people as well. They were selling business telecommunications, phone systems across the nation. And then in 2008, when everything tanked. Then it was that they were the unfortunate ones that went with it. And so and that taught me a lot too, that. That taught me not to put all my apples in one basket. That' ; s why I diversified the way I have. I watched my brothers lose. One of the oldest one had the Ferrari and the million dollar mansion and the boat. He had all that and got, you know, after 2008 he didn' ; t have any of that. |00:25:40| Brody Right. So your lesson was to diversify. |00:25:44| Nguyen I mean, one- Be humble. Two- diversify. And three is just you can' ; t be comfortable. You know, I got a lot of lessons from looking in hindsight and seeing how they they were working. |00:26:00| Brody And how did you diversify? |00:26:04| Nguyen How did I diversify? Goodness. I mean to just...I mean. If restaurants went down, I would still have an income. Right. We dabble with real estate. We dabble with crypto. We dabble with a lot of other different things. And so, I don' ; t know, like Dad, I' ; m busybody. I can' ; t stay still. I think that just having worked with all these different people from my uncle or my father to my uncle to my brothers. Seeing adversity, seeing growth, seeing change. Some being in the ghetto. Some being in the business world. Obstacles are a dime a dozen. You just got to learn how to manage that and you can do anything. If you can' ; t handle the obstacles. You create actually more obstacles and walls instead of trying to be resilient or trying to conquer. |00:27:02| Brody So it sounds like you learned a lot on the job and just sort of observing what was going on. |00:27:08| Nguyen I learned it through observing. Sure. I don' ; t think I ever had a one on one conversation with my dad, with my uncle, or with any of my brothers regarding business. |00:27:17| Brody Did you study business? |00:27:19| Nguyen No. I dropped out of college after the first year. I realized I would rather just work. |00:27:24| Brody Yeah. What? Where were you? |00:27:28| Nguyen Where was I? I went to UT Arlington. |00:27:33| Brody And you decided that learning on the job was probably more your speed? |00:27:37| Nguyen I graduated high school early, as a matter of fact. I got bored and I wanted to go make some money. I' ; d rather go to work and figure something out. You know, high school was fun. I loved it, but I had enough of it. And so I took night courses to leave early and then immediately went to UTA and TCC and filled up. I mean. I recall getting A' ; s in every class, but I knew it wasn' ; t for me. I was like, I don' ; t need this piece of paper. |00:28:05| Brody Right. So what did you do instead? |00:28:08| Nguyen I went to go work for my brothers. I went to go work for my brothers again. At that point, they were selling a little over $1,000,000 in phone systems a month. And so that gave me the taste of like, I guess you could call it a corporate world, you know, offices and cubicles and phone calls and different departments. |00:28:29| Brody And then the next jump was into operating restaurants. |00:28:34| Nguyen I actually started playing poker. |00:28:36| Brody Oh. Tell me about poker. |00:28:38| Nguyen Started playing poker. Well, I wanted to go out and work and make more money. I found myself at that time, Texas Hold' ; em started taking off and I was playing. That was also during the first year of college and...I remember just always playing and winning. And so one of my cousin' ; s boyfriends, Webber Kang, was an amateur pro at the time. And so his life fascinated me. So I asked him, " ; Can I just go around and watch you?" ; You know? And here I was only playing $20, 20 bucks, 20 bucks, and he' ; s doing the two, three, four or $5,000 tournaments. And I' ; m just like, I mean, " ; I don' ; t even have that much money?" ; But I would love to watch. And so I watched him for about 6 to 8 months, and it was one day when he asked- he had won a big pot- and he said, " ; Hey, you want to play? I' ; ll buy you in." ; And he gave me my first $2,000. |00:29:34| Brody How did that go? |00:29:36| Nguyen I won. I won. I set goals in my mind. You know, I want to be the guy that can lose it all. Control is big too. Control is really big. And I think I got that from my father. He never raised his voice. He never got angry. He just thought about the problem and how to fix it. And that was that. I think that' ; s how I' ; m able to deal with life. This is problem and solution. That' ; s it. Don' ; t dwell over it. |00:30:04| Brody Did the poker experience offer you anything that comes in handy now? Tell me about. |00:30:11| Nguyen Absolutely. It allowed me to be aggressive. We' ; ll call it...Excuse the terminology, but " ; it grew a set of balls" ; would be how I would describe that. You know, willing to gamble and risk a lot for a high reward. You know, I think that gave me the edge in the business world. People may describe me as too aggressive, but I think that I turned out just fine. You know? I think I could be doing more, so I don' ; t even think I' ; m that aggressive. But again, I think the high stakes gambling allows me to push the envelope where some would swallow and flinch. I would kind of smile and be ready. |00:30:56| Brody Interesting. So the businesses that you have now. Is it The Halal Guys and Seven Leaves? Or is there more that you' ; re involved in? |00:31:07| Nguyen Yeah, there is. |00:31:08| Brody Yeah, tell me about that. |00:31:09| Nguyen We have a Japanese bakery called Beard Papa' ; s. That' ; s also a franchise. That' ; s in Frisco. We are currently working on an industrial park in Kennedale, Texas. That' ; s going to be...I feel that in business and everything that I' ; ve come across, from watching my parents and watching my uncle transition now from stores to real estate and just networking. It' ; s all pointed me towards real estate. And so I had to kind of see and learn. And so now we are attempting our first it' ; s 180,000 square foot flex space industrial park. |00:31:55| Brody Wow. And you' ; ve never done anything like that before? |00:32:00| Nguyen I mean, well, I' ; ve built now almost ten stores. I' ; ve worked with architects, I' ; ve worked with engineers, I' ; ve worked with the planners, I' ; ve worked with all of them, and I' ; ve stood next to the GC to build all of them. So. |00:32:16| Brody So you' ; ve gathered... |00:32:17| Nguyen I would naturally kind of just learned a lot of this and now I just got to take the next step, which is be the one turning the dirt, not just and working with the trades. And so... |00:32:30| Brody That' ; s great. That' ; s really interesting. In the businesses, the food oriented businesses that you have, what do you see, you know, your role in the community or those businesses' ; role in the communities that they' ; re in? |00:32:44| Nguyen Well, for the Asian community. I' ; m hoping that I can show everybody. It' ; s possible. I' ; m still young. I am trying to create awareness of what I' ; m doing, not for my own gain, but again, to to let people know. You just got to focus and stop saying you don' ; t have enough time. You know, everything' ; s effort driven. And if I can just be an example and show it and talk about it and make it happen, then that' ; s what that' ; s what I would love to do, you know. Like a while ago, I told you, I went to Goldee' ; s Barbecue, and I learned that it was Asian owned guys. I was so excited. And I told them, guys, if you want to talk numbers, if you if you' ; re, you know, I understand you' ; re busy, but if you want to talk business, come talk to me. I would love to see you scale or I' ; d love to just see you succeed. I think there' ; s...There' ; s not enough. There' ; s too many people taking high risk when they should at least take the time and give the effort to learn more about it and what it is that they' ; re trying to accomplish. |00:33:55| Brody What do you think, some of the, I guess, barriers that people who have, you know, maybe a " ; mom and pop" ; shop.. |00:34:04| Nguyen Exposure. Exposure. They don' ; t know any better. |00:34:08| Brody Okay. So the... |00:34:12| Nguyen Or, they don' ; t want to put out the effort to make it better. |00:34:16| Brody Right. And do you think there' ; s a...unwillingness maybe to to go bigger for fear of maybe the, you know, the product changing or the experience changing or something like that? |00:34:36| Nguyen What' ; s the question? |00:34:37| Brody Well, I' ; m just thinking about like a lot of the restaurant owners that I' ; ve been talking to are, you know, a single, you know, they have a single restaurant that' ; s maybe a neighborhood favorite or, you know, it' ; s you know, it' ; s one special thing. And I wonder if, you know, when you talk to people who have a restaurant like that or a store like that, if, you know, what are they worried about in terms of growing? |00:35:08| Nguyen Well, a lot of these probably these owners are probably owner operators, first of all. There lies a big hurdle in itself. How, can you truly think about expansion when you' ; re so busy being tied into the system that you created, which probably isn' ; t seamless? I' ; m not saying anybody' ; s seamless, but there' ; s a right process and there' ; s certain parameters you have to be in within for percentages. It' ; s questionable where they' ; re at or if they even know how to come up to that value. Does that answer? |00:35:47| Brody Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It' ; s a, there' ; s a lot that, a lot to learn. |00:35:53| Nguyen Oh, gosh. But see again, sure, you might want to think about scaling, but now that you' ; ve tied yourself into the system and you have to cover for the manager, or you see that the portioning is not right...You know, a lot of owner operators too, aren' ; t able to delegate as easy. That' ; s one big reason why a lot of people can' ; t scale either. They don' ; t trust. And I get it. It' ; s hard to. |00:36:22| Brody Right. Especially when it' ; s something you' ; ve built from scratch. |00:36:24| Nguyen In order to scale, you must be able to delegate and trust that whoever you have in that position will execute and sell. |00:36:35| Brody So do you have any explicitly Asian oriented businesses? |00:36:42| Nguyen Explicitly Asian oriented. Only Asians come in? |00:36:47| Brody No. Or just where the sort of the character of the business itself is, you know, something Asian specific, like Asian food or Asian... |00:36:59| Nguyen I mean, The Halal Guys sells halal food and that' ; s Mediterranean. Seven Leaves, all of our products I would say would hit a Vietnamese palate. |00:37:11| Brody Yeah. What does that mean to you? |00:37:13| Nguyen What does it mean to me? Well, we have certain desserts and fruits and drinks that I typically don' ; t taste or have anywhere else. And so I can kind of experience that at Seven Leaves. And we get that often from a lot of our patrons. It reminds them of different desserts from their countries as well. |00:37:34| Brody Yeah. How much in sort of communicating those tastes and you know, like what you' ; re doing at Seven Leaves, for example, do you, do you feel like you' ; re educating the customers who come in? |00:37:49| Nguyen Oh, gosh, I well, I also love Seven Leaves because of their name. You know, as a business owner, I want something that will be accepted by all cultures and nationalities. And in my opinion, when you have certain names that are very Asian, like you' ; re just you might not draw other nationalities. And so Seven Leaves being more generic, you know, I knew it could hit a Caucasian and then Hispanics, what have you. |00:38:24| Brody Back to the numbers you were talking about earlier. Yes. What do you think are some trends in the market as relate to Asian food today? Since you have an eye on sort of the big picture. |00:38:39| Nguyen The trend right now? Well, I can tell you, everybody is trying to create the real quick QSR type concepts, the quick service restaurants where you' ; re probably going to pick a lot of things in front of you, like it was fresh and you assemble that yourself. That certainly seems to be taking off. And it' ; s the speed of service versus a sit down. It seems like people don' ; t want to sit anywhere that long anymore. |00:39:09| Brody Why do you think that is? |00:39:10| Nguyen I mean, no idea. There' ; s is there' ; s too many things to preoccupy a human. |00:39:21| Brody So I know you' ; re involved with the Asia Times Square. Can you tell me about that project? |00:39:27| Nguyen Sure. Asia Times Square. I got to befriend Matthew Loh, who...who has been an inspiration and a mentor to me as well. He was able to...He has and now controls a couple of the Hong Kong supermarkets in DFW. He' ; s built shopping centers all around them. And so he' ; s actually one person that I' ; m learning a lot of real estate from and just getting mentorship from as well. He is focused on bringing the community together and connecting cultures. And so I really love being a part of Asia Times Square. We do the marketing for Asia Times Square as well, and our Seven Leaves drive through location is also at Asia Times Square. I just believe in his passion of really connecting cultures. |00:40:28| Brody How is that development going to do that? What is it? Tell me about the development. |00:40:32| Nguyen Oh, gosh. It' ; s got so many different restaurants and businesses. It' ; s, it' ; s a full blown mall slash shopping center slash grocer. He' ; s built a big outdoor plaza that can host big outdoor movies and a lot of food truck, food truck nights, have a lot of different vendors from being Thai to Laotian to Cambodian to Vietnamese to Korean. And so there seems to be an event going on every month out there. And so he' ; s working it. It' ; s actually his focus. And it' ; s, and it' ; s, it' ; s coming together. I think, in my opinion, Asia Times Square would be the busiest Asian center in DFW in the years to come, for years to come. |00:41:22| Brody Where is it located? |00:41:23| Nguyen It' ; s in Grand Prairie, Texas. |00:41:25| Brody So. And he envisions it, and you envision it as being a hub for the community? |00:41:33| Nguyen Absolutely. Absolutely. Right now, the other hub would be Old Denton Highway. You know, both sides. There' ; s a big Korean-dense area and then on the other side of the highway would be a more mixed Asian-dense center, where, in my opinion, most people congregate. I can say that' ; s probably got the most foot traffic of any center in DFW. Asian, Asian-wise. |00:42:02| Brody Yeah. What is a typical, let' ; s say, a Saturday at one of these centers? What does that feel like and look like? |00:42:11| Nguyen The hunt for parking is ridiculous, if that can explain anything. You know? But I mean, what does it feel like? It feels great because you can have you can have food from so many different types of countries that are represented over there and then fulfill yourself with all sorts of sweets and goods. So... |00:42:33| Brody Is it typically pretty family oriented? |00:42:36| Nguyen It is very family oriented. |00:42:39| Brody In Asia Times Square, for example, or these other centers that you' ; re talking about, you know, obviously, there' ; s a lot of food. Are there other businesses included there that, you know, that maybe help people who just moved here from, let' ; s say, Korea or Vietnam or somewhere like that, to... |00:43:03| Nguyen I can' ; t say that there' ; s any specific businesses geared for that there. I mean, there' ; s, there is bank, there' ; s a couple of banks, there' ; s furniture stores, there' ; s novelty stores, there' ; s a clothing store. It' ; s pretty mixed use. |00:43:19| Brody So lots of different things. I was just thinking back in the earliest days, like probably with your dad' ; s store even, you know, things like job boards and video rentals of movies from back home and things like that. Newspapers were things that, you know, people came to those grocers or markets to, you know, to buy their food, but also to have a little connection. Just wondering if the modern version of that in Asia Times Square or places like that, includes those kind of, you know, newspapers, video rental, things like that? |00:43:58| Nguyen There' ; s definitely there' ; s definitely the the bulletin board or everybody sticks their card or their fliers or what have you... |00:44:12| Brody Talking about, kind of switching gears here about food in general, about Asian food in the Metroplex, what are some changes that you' ; ve noticed in, you know, since you were involved from the beginning? |00:44:30| Nguyen The diversity, the willingness of non-Asians' ; palates to explore. And just the power of social media introducing it to them and creating, you know, a curiosity or a desire. That' ; s certainly helped. |00:44:49| Brody Now, talking about palates, especially non-Asian palates. You know, what are some examples of changes in that that you' ; ve noticed yourself. |00:45:02| Nguyen I personally grew up in Grapevine-Colleyville, Texas, which is 95% Caucasian. And so, you know, I grew up with all of them and I know what they would and wouldn' ; t eat. And, back then they wouldn' ; t eat it. Now they probably would eat it. And this is from a variety of just from noodles to seafood to raw foods and, you know, omakase type stuff, things like that. I think people are more adventurous or less standoffish. |00:45:38| Brody Yeah. Why? |00:45:39| Nguyen I don' ; t know why. Maybe social media. |00:45:42| Brody Yeah. So in your experience, what are the key ways that social media has impacted people' ; s thinking about... |00:45:51| Nguyen People eat with their eyes. People eat with their eyes. So, I mean, as long as you can purvey the message that it is really good or put out enough effort to just get the food in there in their mouth somehow. Yeah, we used to do a lot of samplings and random pop ups just to give away food. And it wouldn' ; t be a full portion, but it would be, you know, enough for you to understand what we were about. And I think that' ; s what' ; s driven our catering business for The Halal Guys. |00:46:20| Brody Oh, really? Yeah. That' ; s interesting. On the question of authenticity, right? That' ; s a it' ; s a prickly, prickly concept when we' ; re talking about, you know, foods from other cultures and, you know, and what is perceived as authentic, where what are your feelings around that whole idea? |00:46:46| Nguyen What is authentic? I think that' ; s, that' ; s....the definition, I think it' ; s kind of lost. I think. If you ask, is this an authentic dish? I mean, at what period are you talking about? What date and time are you from? You know, because I know that everything changes. There' ; s certain ways to make basic dishes that everybody eats. I don' ; t have any restaurant that would sell those types of dishes. I don' ; t think there' ; s lots of restaurants that thrive on the at home pots that mom always has on the stove. I think, I think that' ; s a tricky one to ask or say just because it' ; s more or less " ; Is it good and fresh?" ; Not " ; Is it authentic?" ; What do you mean, " ; Is it authentic?" ; I don' ; t know. That' ; s. That' ; s a tough one for me. |00:47:48| Brody Yeah, for sure. I think it' ; s... |00:47:51| Nguyen I can' ; t connect with " ; authentic." ; |00:47:53| Brody Yeah. I mean, and it' ; s...It comes up because there are a lot of people.... |00:48:00| Nguyen I can tell you, a lot of people will say " ; This is not authentic, you know, halal food." ; |00:48:07| Brody Right. And what' ; s your answer to that? |00:48:09| Nguyen We' ; re not trying to say, well, we were never in the Middle East, nor was the brand, you know, the operators, the original owners were from Europe or Egypt, I mean, and. And no...We are, we like to call ourselves American Halal. If you' ; re asking me, are you authentic? All right, so then. And that' ; s how I came to that...to my answer earlier, is because then ask well, " ; What is American Halal?" ; Because that never existed. |00:48:38| Brody New category. |00:48:39| Nguyen Right. So to me, it' ; s authentic. We' ; re the first to say we' ; re American Halal. |00:48:44| Brody Yeah, I mean, that' ; s a thing to think about. I mean, initially, right? You saw, you know, people being introduced to new cuisines and, you know, through, you know, a taste of this or and then there was, you know, a kind of a broadening of the palate, maybe like with, you know, fusion cuisine. And so it sounds like what you' ; re saying is this is a different category, an innovation that is particularly American. So do you think that that kind of logic can be applied to, you know, not just The Halal Guys, but, you know, other types of especially Asian food. |00:49:31| Nguyen You have to ask that again. |00:49:31| Brody Yeah, no, it just. Just wondering if there' ; s, like, Asian, like, Asian-American food that you would characterize as, like, different category than Asian food or, you know, different category than Vietnamese food. |00:49:44| Nguyen Sure. I mean, you have. What is the one? That, that Chinese restaurant that' ; s been around? P.F. Chang' ; s. Is that authentic? I mean, they sell day and night. They' ; re doing great. Is that authentic? You know, as long as you have a product that people like and you, you' ; re creating an experience and you' ; re executing. That is...How important is authenticity? |00:50:12| Brody Yeah, that' ; s an interesting thing to think about. Right. Then on the flip side of that, like the idea of appropriation. Right. That' ; s another sticky concept that comes up a lot in when we talk about food from other cultures. And I think in in your case in particular, because you' ; re, you know operating restaurants that are all over the place, you know, that are, you know, based in California or based in New York or whatever. How, you know, how do you or do you come into any kind of criticism for... |00:50:51| Nguyen And I mean, of all the brands we represent, only The Halal Guys. Just because they' ; ll ask me, are you Muslim? And why are you selling halal food? |00:51:01| Brody Right. Right. And how do you respond? |00:51:05| Nguyen I tell them I love their food. I love halal food. And I tell them the...Why I enjoy halal food and they don' ; t have too much more of resistance afterwards. A lot of Indians initially in Irving, because I lived in Irving and I was looking for a site, different sites. They, they were really serious about why are you doing it? You know? |00:51:30| Brody Do you think it matters? |00:51:32| Nguyen No, no, no. Not at all. Not at all. Again, if you can really just execute, do whatever you need to do. |00:51:42| Brody Yeah. If you could use just a couple of words to describe to somebody who' ; s not from here, the Asian community in North Texas, what would you say? |00:52:10| Nguyen I' ; d say we' ; re only a couple of steps behind California. Contrary to people' ; s belief of us being far behind. We have quite a lot of people here. As a matter of fact, East Coast, West Coast Asians are all pouring here. Amongst everybody else as well. I think we got a nice hot pot of mixed, a mixed community of Asians. We have it all and, and the young, yet the younger generation for example Koreans don' ; t really mix with Chinese and others or you know, a lot of those barriers are being broken down right now in modern day. |00:52:53| Brody Yeah. Why do you think they' ; re being broken down or how? |00:52:57| Nguyen Again, just a lot of these venues and centers and music groups and, you know, anime, it' ; s just, it' ; s opening the world' ; s eyes, you know. |00:53:08| Brody Built those connections. |00:53:09| Nguyen Right. |00:53:12| Brody A lot of people who have businesses, especially food oriented businesses, say that one big factor in Dallas that helps is the airport. Does the- having that DFW airport and having it be sort of a hub make any difference in your operations? |00:53:32| Nguyen I don' ; t feel like I get...I know a lot of people will go to The Halal Guys if they used to frequent New York and now they have an opportunity to try it outside of New York. Same for Seven Leaves if they' ; ve only ever had in California and they' ; re from the East Coast. At least now you can get it from Texas. I can' ; t...I would never definitively say " ; Yes. The airport carries us." ; I would say the airport is amazing. We did consider putting The Halal Guys in there, and then COVID had happened. So a lot of those talks had died. But the airport is quite a generator for those that are in it indeed. |00:54:16| Brody Or even, you know, people say getting fresh fish, for example, you know. |00:54:22| Nguyen It' ; s all flown in so you can pick it up over there. Yes. I' ; m not in that. |00:54:26| Brody Yeah. Not doing any fish right now. |00:54:29| Nguyen No, no. If I did...Sandoitchi is the last project that I do that' ; s going to have anything to do with food. |00:54:37| Brody Really? Well, tell me about that project. |00:54:40| Nguyen Oh, Sandoitchi. Sandoitchi is a Japanese " ; sandos" ; concept. They create sandwiches, desirable sandwiches, that look good. And they' ; ve got a great marketing team that' ; s been able to truly spread their awareness and creates a lot of engagement. Anyhow, these guys have been just popping up for the last two years and throughout Houston, Dallas, and California. I reached out to them probably within the first two or three months of when they started, and I had really liked what they were doing. So I called a meeting and I asked them, " ; Hey, you know, if you guys ever want to scale and go to the brick and mortar side, please call me. Consider me as a partner." ; That didn' ; t work out. That just wasn' ; t their direction. They continued to thrive and continue to pop up and build their name. And during those two years, I was I was still a sideline cheerleader. I would always call and text and say, " ; Amazing, great job. I can' ; t believe it." ; You know, I was their supporter regardless. And so when they came when it came time for brick and mortar, they they only considered me. |00:55:57| Brody That' ; s great. It' ; s a good relationship. |00:55:59| Nguyen Yeah, I think you have to nurture all relationships, especially the ones that you want to keep. |00:56:06| Brody Right. So tell me about the sandwiches. |00:56:08| Nguyen Oh, gosh, sandos. There' ; s the, the main the head curator and the creator, his name is Stevie and he' ; s been with a lot of different restaurants. His last restaurant was with Uchi. And so, you know, he' ; s got a really creative culinary skill and eye and knack for things. And just the way he' ; s able to pair different types of foods, you know, that you don' ; t usually think about. Like, for example, today they had a Sandoitchi collaboration with Goldee' ; s Barbecue, who' ; s one number one smoker in Texas for a couple of years now. One would think, how in the world can these two kind of fuse. And lo and behold, they did it. The line was out of the street today, this morning. And they' ; re just creative. They were able to pair with a hot brand and use that brand' ; s expertise in preparing meats. And then Sando was able to bring in quality meats like Wagyus, and allow these professional meat cookers to prepare it for the sandwiches. So it' ; s just, it' ; s a twist on sandwiches that you don' ; t usually get. But it is artisan made. It' ; s there' ; s nothing what' ; s the word? Mass produced about any of their products. You know that you had a special sandwich that was prepared by somebody that knew what they were doing. |00:57:46| Brody Yeah. And. Social media has been instrumental. |00:57:52| Nguyen Social media has propelled them to the stars. |00:57:53| Brody Tell me about their story and how it ties in with what we were talking about with social media. |00:57:59| Nguyen Oh, gosh. I mean, again, we' ; re, we' ; re saying that the different, the different cultures are mixing, right? Because there is more awareness, there' ; s more social media, there' ; s more curiosity, there' ; s less walls to have to jump over. And so, I mean, these guys are just really aggressive and, again, creative on the content that they' ; re able to bring out. They do pop ups that sell out within minutes, you know, 50, 60,000 sandwiches in 40 minutes or less. Like, that' ; s their capacity. It' ; s all we can make. I' ; m like " ; Geez. Within minutes." ; And so, there is there is certainly a cult following to these sando sandwiches from Sandoitchi. And I' ; m excited because again they' ; re connecting with me finally to do their first brick and mortar. And so we' ; re going to create I think it' ; ll be Dallas-Fort Worth' ; s first Japanese convenience store that specializes in sandos. |00:59:02| Brody Oh, that' ; s really interesting. Where is that going to be and what will it be like in your vision? |00:59:07| Nguyen Well, I can tell you it' ; s going to be in Dallas. I can' ; t be too specific yet, but I feel that it' ; ll be a, it' ; s going to be on an endcap corner at an intersection. It' ; s going to be a real sleek, trendy, simple store with just a lot of concrete and metal with curated Japanese music that' ; s going to be more upbeat. So you' ; re going to feel, you know, kind of like you' ; re in a, in an Asian, in the Asian, in the Asian scene. Just based on the music and the products that you see, because we want to, again, be a convenience store. We want to specialize in the sandwiches, but you' ; re still see your Japanese candies and chips and junk food and stuff of that nature. |00:59:51| Brody Interesting. Will there be a sit down element? |00:59:55| Nguyen No. There' ; s not going to be sit down. |00:59:56| Brody It' ; s more takeout. |00:59:57| Nguyen Mm hmm. |00:59:59| Brody That' ; s sounds great and really interesting. And I think, like you said, kind of capitalizing on... |01:00:05| Nguyen I' ; m excited for this one because I am not a franchisee to the brand. You know, I' ; m a partner of the, of the creators of the brand. And so I get to experience their creativeness. |01:00:19| Brody Yeah. What does that mean to you to, to be a partner as opposed to a franchisee of the brand? |01:00:25| Nguyen I mean, first of all, I don' ; t have to pay royalties. That' ; s a big plus. You know, being a franchisee, you have to pay royalties. And I get it. You got to pay the piper. You got to pay to play. But now I don' ; t get to be creative with the being a franchisee. I get to do and say what they tell me to. As a matter of fact. And so with Sandoitchi, it' ; s we can get creative, we can have different type of collaborations. We can, the team can have fun. We' ; re trying to, you know, execute. |01:01:03| Brody Do you think, and maybe you can' ; t say this yet, do you think, do you see growth beyond that, beyond that one store? |01:01:11| Nguyen For Sandoitchi? Absolutely. Absolutely. And that' ; s why I was brought onto the team. I' ; m actually one of my roles is to create the SOP, the standard operating procedures book in order to scale. |01:01:27| Brody So it sounds like a lot goes into these decisions. And, you know... |01:01:32| Nguyen Oh gosh. Yes. |01:01:33| Brody Yeah. |01:01:34| Nguyen There' ; s lots to do if you decide to do it. |01:01:37| Brody Yeah. In any of these businesses that you' ; re involved in. Are there, you know, special things that that are done for cultural holidays, events? |01:01:54| Nguyen Yeah. I mean, Ramadan was just around the corner. We gave deals out for after 9 p.m. We' ; re always trying to do something for the Asian community. |01:02:06| Brody Connect. You know, I think you mentioned at, Asia Times Square that, that there' ; s something going on, events going on every week. What type of events, typically? |01:02:17| Nguyen Oh, gosh, this is an event to go to whoever is listening to this if Asia Times Square is still around. But I mean, they have performers on stage. They' ; ll have 10 to 15 different food trucks that are serving. They' ; ve got live music. They' ; ve got...it' ; s just, it' ; s just a nice outdoor venue, that is...There' ; s nothing like it in Dallas-Fort Worth. |01:02:44| Brody So just sort of nearing the end of our interview here, what, when you look back over your life and your experience, you know, starting with Vietnam Plaza and, you know, into what you' ; re doing right now, what are some reflections or lessons that you would say you' ; ve gathered over the years? |01:03:10| Nguyen Gosh. Love and effort. That' ; s all it takes to succeed and to be happy. |01:03:23| Brody That' ; s great. So that' ; s the advice that you would give to people who are starting out. |01:03:28| Nguyen As a business owner, it depends on how far they' ; re willing to take love and effort. You know, it sounds simple, but I can give you examples. Love. Love your customer. If you walked into my store and maybe I looked at you, maybe I nodded, or maybe I said " ; Hi or welcome in." ; What' ; s the difference if I said it with a love? You know, eye contact, the genuine smile. It doesn' ; t even have to be fast, but with love. It was completely different. So while I say or you say, that' ; s it. I think it' ; s really big. |01:04:12| Brody Yeah. Yeah. And what about effort? |01:04:15| Nguyen I mean, that' ; s equally important. None of us have to be a genius. We just have to be willing to outwork and work it, and it' ; ll fall into place. Too many people won' ; t go the distance, so they won' ; t, they won' ; t be yielding the result that they were searching for or longing for. |01:04:37| Brody That' ; s good advice. Well, thank you very much for sharing your story and your experiences. Is there anything that I didn' ; t ask you that you' ; d like to include or talk about? |01:04:52| Nguyen Shaping DFW. I would certainly have to say that my Uncle Tom Nguyen that I mentioned, owns 32 to 30ish units, Lisa' ; s Fried Chicken. Him and my father also probably helped create the Catholic community in Fort Worth. The church is called Our Lady of Fatima on Lancaster in Fort Worth. I would love to say that my father and my uncle contributed greatly, as far as funding the building of the churches and my father, as far as being the president of the church for many years, and kind of being their leader and trying to set people up for success. My uncle has also just greatly helped the community as well. With that many stores, he' ; s got that many employees and he actually allows, you know, people to partner with him. So that way they can have some equity and just try to you know, live a better life here than there, referring to Vietnam. I don' ; t know. I got to I got to give him some love too. He' ; s, he' ; s helped. |01:06:06| Brody That' ; s great. Well, thank you for sharing that story as well. I really appreciate your time today and I' ; m really excited that you participated in this project. So thank you. |01:06:20| Nguyen Sure. Thank you. Absolutely. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Tony Nguyen, April 26, 2022
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2021oh002_di_010
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Grocers, Asian American
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2022-04-26
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audio