Young trailblazer
Young trailblazer
Meet 28-year-old Vy Nguyen Thuy. She is the owner of The Veg - Organic vego & Tea in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is the restaurant she opened one year ago in her hometown.
After spending a few years in Australia obtaining a Masters in Business and Accounting and then working there in the financial industry, Vy Nguyen Thuy was drawn home. She says her life was easy in Australia. She was paid well and she only worked from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. daily - but there was something missing. For Vy the connection to her family is strong and yearly visits with them were not enough, so she first tired to encourage her parents to move.
“My parents came and stayed with me for a month,” says Vy Nguyen, owner of The Veg - Organic vego & Tea. “They like it, but … they said they have a good life in Vietnam.”
Also, on her last vacation home she ran into her cousin who had just returned to Vietnam after living 10 years in Australia and started a vegan lifestyle business. The two factors combined led her down the entrepreneurial path.
There are a few vegan and vegetarian friendly restaurants in Hanoi (90 in a city of 8-million compared to 52 in Edmonton, a city of 1 million), but Vy says all the Hanoi restaurants she is aware of use a lot of tofu and deep fry their foods.
"It is good in some ways, but when you have too much of anything, it is not good anymore.” Her kitchen does not have a deep fryer and the focus is on whole plant-based food with minimal sugar and oil. "We try to use a lot of different types of veggie."
Her story is inspiring to me – she is a focused, young, female entrepreneur, but the fact she is from a developing country with an economy that only opened up a few decades ago, peaks my interest even more.
Vy and me on the third floor of her restaurant. There is seating on the main floor and on the third floor. You climb up a funky spiral staircase to get to the clean, modern space Vy personally created.
When I travel, I hope to learn first-hand through my experiences and the people I meet. I arrive with perceptions that usually fade. In Vietnam, one of my most enlightening was the role of women. From a history of women fighting in wars alongside men to women doing heavy lifting on construction sites. Vietnam culture appears to value women in the workforce. It works because of generational support - grandparents help raise the children. Women aren’t paid at the same level of men, but as far as I know, Iceland is the only country to legalize equal pay for men and women.
“I have no experience with the hospitality industry or cooking. Actually, I am not a good cook, just a good eater."
She admits not being able to cook is frowned upon in Vietnam – there is a belief all women should be good cooks.
“In old generations eyes, I am not a good woman because I don't go to the kitchen often," says Vy, but that doesn’t deter her drive. “Everything that makes you happy, it is okay. You don't need to worry about the other things.”
We were having lunch at The Veg for the second time when Vy approached us asking for feedback on a new lentil dish they were thinking about adding to the menu. I thought how progressive and felt compelled to find out more about her business approach and her personal story.
"You can see my menu is not big and we try to change it up. It is not changed 100 percent, just refresh it 40 to 60 percent based on new ingredients we find or new ideas,” says Vy emphasizing she listens to her customers.
Vy spent three months renovating the rundown building in Hanoi's old quarter making it bright and modern and another three months sourcing organic suppliers she could trust.
"The cost is pretty difficult in Vietnam, not everything can be organic, but we do what we can with what we find," says Vy.
Now that she is open, she says staffing continues to be her biggest challenge. She feels her standards don’t fit with the everybody.
“When I feel the business starts to be stable, some difficulty comes,” says Vy.
Despite her HR struggles, the restaurant is doing well. In fact, she has never advertised. New customers come based on word-of-mouth.
In all, we visited the restaurant three times and tried six different dishes ranging from Vietnamese to western cuisine. They were all good, with the banana blossom salad (this story's cover photo) by far my favorite. My hope is if I were to return in a few years, her business is thriving and she is inspiring her peers down a similar path.
