The owner of Huế Bánh Mì & Phở Cafe, a restaurant serving Vietnamese cuisine in Kent, was forced to temporarily close the restaurant after sustaining injuries in a grease fire three months after opening. 

Tuan Tran was transported to the hospital after receiving second and third-degree burns while cooking in the restaurant’s kitchen. He has already undergone surgery, but the injuries require a longer rehabilitation process. 

He opened the restaurant with his wife Kim Nguyen in late February after closing their nail salon because of COVID-19. 

“They ended up selling it, and after that closed they ended up not really sure what they were going to do,” said Anthony Tran, Tuan Tran’s son. 

The inspiration to open Huế Bánh Mì & Phở Cafe came after brainstorming their interests and skills, and both found they had a longstanding passion for cooking. The process of making their restaurant a reality, however, was tougher than expected. 

“It was setback after setback when they were putting it through architectural stuff, building engineers and inspections just because the building was older, so they had to put in a lot of their money that they had saved in order to get this place up to current code,” he said. “When it finally opened, it opened six months later than they wanted it to.” 

Tuan Tran moved from Vietnam to America when he was 16. His son said that his recipes come from his childhood in Vietnam, which made opening up his restaurant particularly special. 

“He has his own way of cooking and doing this stuff he brought from Vietnam, and being able to experience that my whole life was exciting,” Anthony Tran said. “He was very excited. It was huge for him to be able to do it again.” 

The authentic cuisine is what made Huế Bánh Mì & Phở Cafe stand out from many other restaurants. According to Anthony Tran, Tuan Tran found that a lot of other Vietnamese restaurants were tailored to Americanized tastes.

“His decision was to be as authentic as possible and to actually share the actual tastes from Vietnam to people who were not familiar with it,” he said. 

The restaurant will reopen as soon as possible, but the family is unsure how long Tuan Tran will take to fully recover from his injuries. In the meantime, Anthony Tran has set up a GoFundMe page to help the family pay for medical bills and to pay rent for the restaurant as they assist in his recovery. 

Anthony Tran said his father is looking forward to returning to the Kent community and all of the connections he has already made through his restaurant. 

“He loved to get the students in here,” he said. “I really think he enjoys sharing all of that with the younger people.”

Kayla Gleason is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].