Check Out Phong Nguyen’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Phong Nguyen. 

Hi Phong, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Hi, my name is Phong Nguyen I came to America 10 years ago as an International Students. I was studying English at Grand Valley State University for the first year and then move to Downtown Grand Rapids to study business at Grand Rapids community College. My major was marketing but I didn’t enjoy it at all and decided to change it to Culinary Art and fall in love with it right away. I finished the degree in two years and work at many restaurants in town and move to Indians for 2 years while working for catering and local restaurant. I love all the aspects of the restaurant business so I always want to learn more from front of the house, back of the house and try to learn as much as I can. While doing that, I also do private chef. I would come to people’s home and prepares 5-6 course meals at the comfort home. During Covid, the business picked up so much that I get to do that couples time a weeks. People enjoy and I have ideas of opening my business a long time ago. I got some friends interested in opening a fine casual dining Vietnamese restaurant in downtown and 4 of us putting the money in and get to open Monsoon Vietnamese Cuisine located on 55 Monroe center Grand Rapids Michigan 49503. We love to be the first Vietnamese restaurant in downtown with an open kitchen where the customers to see how we cook. This was an initial ideas since I’m doing private chef and people love that they can watch people cooking. Our restaurant serve seasonal menu with more warm braised dishes in the winter that warm your souls and more refresh menu in the summer with more charcoal grills’ dishes. We source 95% of our food locally and try to bring more local vendors raw food to live and become people favorite. We have been over 7 months and get a lot of good feedback and our team are working hard every day to make customer experience become memorable. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Struggle the most since we opened probably our liquor license, we didn’t expect how long it takes. During Artprize, have hundreds group of people walking out because we don’t have liquor yet. However, everything else have been smothZ we hope to receive our liquor license in couple months here and hopefully before summer so we can have our outdoor seating with cabana and new decorations for outdoor. It will be amazing summer for sure 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I think as a professional chef I’m so happy to create new dishes and bring our culture and dishes to live and introduce that to people. So many walk into our space that might now know Vietnamese food. I’m happy to be sharing my Pho recipes from my grandpa who owns a Pho shop in Vietnam for 20 years. It is so amazing to able to do that here in America 

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Monsoon wouldn’t be establish as a good business without our staffs. We starts with many good people that love our hospitality and love our food culture and able to share that with many customers 

Pricing:

• Imperial chả giò $10
• Fresh Spring rolls $10
• bún thịt nướng GRILL pork with meatballs $22
• Đuổi bò Hầm oxtail stew $22
• flan Vietnamese Flan $8

Contact Info:

• Website: Monsoongr.com