Why I Returned to Lead My Family's Restaurant Into Its Next Chapter

For several years, my career had nothing to do with pho. I worked in the international corporate world — sales, marketing, branding, leadership, strategy. Different cities, different industries, different problems. And then I came home to Ottawa, to a restaurant in the ByWard Market with my family's name on more than the lease.

What My Parents Built

My parents immigrated from Vietnam and built Pho By Night from the ground up. For over 26 years they have served Ottawa the way immigrant families do everything: with long days, no shortcuts, and a standard they refused to lower. My mom — a pastry chef at The Westin Ottawa for over 30 years before this — became the heart of our kitchen. My dad dedicated his life to the restaurant alongside her. Both of them are still there, every single day.

Growing up inside that, you absorb things no business school teaches: what genuine hospitality looks like when nobody's watching, what consistency costs, and what it means when regulars measure their own lives in visits to your dining room.

Why I Came Back

The corporate world taught me how brands are built — how great companies think about customers, positioning, and growth. And the longer I did that work for other people, the clearer one thought became: the most authentic brand I would ever get to work on was the one my parents had already spent two decades building.

Pho By Night never needed to be invented. It needed to be carried forward.

My parents built something rare — a restaurant that has earned Ottawa's trust one bowl at a time since 2000. What I can add is everything I learned out there: strategy, branding, and the ambition to take what works in one dining room and let more people experience it. Coming back wasn't stepping down from a career. It was pointing that career at the thing that matters most.

The Next Chapter

My vision is simple to say and hard to do: build on my parents' legacy and grow Pho By Night into a modern Vietnamese restaurant brand that stays true to its family roots — first as the face of Vietnamese food in Ottawa, then Ontario, then Canada.

That ambition stands on four things we refuse to compromise on:

• Authentic Vietnamese culture — the flavours and traditions my parents brought with them, not a watered-down version of them.
• Genuine hospitality — the kind my parents practised before anyone called it a "brand pillar."
• Innovation — modernizing how we operate and reach people, never what's in the bowl.
• An unforgettable customer experience — because being good enough was never the family standard.

What Doesn't Change

My mom still oversees every recipe. The broth she has refined over decades is still the foundation of everything we serve. And the restaurant at 309 Dalhousie St is still a family in the most literal sense — three of us, one standard, 26 years and counting.

The next chapter isn't about becoming something different. It's about making sure more people get to experience what my parents built. If you've been eating with us for years, thank you — you're part of this story. If you haven't yet, come see what 26 years of family standards taste like.

More of our story: Meet the Family Behind Pho By Night.