Yenvy and Quynh-Vy Pham Cook Up a Good Party

Yenvy and Quynh-Vy Pham grew up bouncing around Little Saigon, where their parents opened what was likely Seattle’s first pho shop in 1982. In between church, school, and bible study, they hung out at the tables of the original Phở Bắc, and—occasionally—helped out in the restaurant. “That was kind of like home base. We ate there, we did homework there, we met friends there, and then we just explored the neighborhood,” says Quynh-Vy.

As adults, they took over management of the mini chain, slowly making it their own—cool, modern, and quintessentially Vietnamese American. Today, they have two locations of Phở Bắc, the Phở Bắc Sup Shop, a bar called Phởcific Standard Time, and, in the location of the original Pho Bac, a yet-to-be-announced new concept replacing their chicken and rice spot, The Boat—plus a reputation as the consummate hosts, with multiple James Beard Award nominations for Outstanding Restaurateur to prove it. In their first cookbook, Phởnomenal Nights (out November 3 from Blue Star Press), they share recipes for their Viet-Northwest
cuisine and cocktails, with tips on how to copy their dazzling fish sauce- and pho-soaked brand of fun. —NT

Quynh-Vy Pham: Our parents are great entrepreneurs; they love to open, but they don’t love to manage. So I was stuck cleaning up a lot of restaurants that weren’t really profitable or just didn’t make sense.

Yenvy Pham: We did the first rib pho. My mom was really mad about the ribs; it was always oxtail pho. We wanted a wow factor.

QP: We made a pho connection board for all our customers. We would write our customers’ names that were single, a description of them, and how to contact them. People would come in and just go straight to the board. We didn’t ask permission.

YP: I think Sup Shop really helped show that Seattleites wanted Little Saigon to thrive.

YP: We consciously make decisions that our meat supply is in our neighborhood, our produce supply is still Viet-Wah, our tofu’s Thanh Son Tofu, our paper goods are King Oriental, our seafood is Wong Tung Seafood. For the last 40 years, the same vendors. That’s how we build the foundation of Little Saigon.

QP: We don’t plan. It’s never like, “Oh, we’re gonna open a restaurant, we’re gonna open this many, we’re gonna do a book.” Life throws us things, or we get inspired. We do it because we like it.

YP: We’re PNW girls, and we also have a melting pot culture and the resources of the PNW seafood, everything around us; we’re spoiled. The curiosity to create something that you want to eat, that’s more important than being authentic Vietnamese.

QP: When the editor came to us and asked us to do a book, we’re like, “Well, we’re not doing a pho book, right?” She was asking questions about us, like, “What do you guys do for fun?” We’re like, “I love to throw dinner parties, food is all about gathering people and community,” and then she’s like, “OK, well, yeah, let’s write about that.”

YP: We’re in an age where it’s very easy to be isolated, and we just want to break that.

YP: That’s the idea of pho: You can feed a crowd with it and that’s why it’s so fun.

QP: Our work-life balance is amazing at this point in our career. We have a very defined concept. We work a lot, but it’s not like having a really big menu or really fine-dining experience, so we have time for family, friends, and work.

YP: A great party is all about how a person feels, because food is emotional, and so is gathering.

QP: We didn’t start this business; our parents did. We could have just ran it the way they did. But if we’re in it, we just try to make it better. We think about ways to improve on it, and same with the neighborhood. If it’s ours, we just want to try to make it better.

Published in the The Innovation Issue issue of Seattle Met.