Pho Pasteur is on a Roll
by Sabine Benda for Hamline Midway Coalition
Sabine Benda for the Hamline Midway Coalition
Neighborhood restaurant delivers hearty meals and a friendly place to dine out in a space that feels like home.
Vietnamese restaurant Pho Pasteur has cemented its place as a pillar of the casual dining and takeout scene in the Hamline-Midway community. The owners credit the spirit of generosity they share with the neighborhood and quality food at good value for the restaurant’s steady customer base.
Neighbors in the Midway consist of families, students and other city-dwellers dealing with the rising cost of living. This demographic of customers is something owners Tien Phan and her husband Hien Nguyen consider in their business practices.
“Some customers ask, ‘Why don’t you raise the prices?’” Phan said. “[We don’t] because students and people right now need reasonable prices.”
Knowing their community and fostering mutual adoration is an element of Pho Pasteur that comes naturally to Phan, who keeps a decorative “Happy Birthday” banner as a fixture on the wall for kids who come in on their birthday. Unwavering low prices for large portions, including their giant spring roll priced at $8, are another product of that philosophy.
“Some other restaurants, they make very tiny ones,” Phan said. “With us, we want them a little big because we want the students and customers to be full.”
The loyal customer base developed early in Pho Pasteur’s existence. The restaurant opened in July of 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic led to restaurants being closed for dine-in. Facing rent costs and a significant decrease in revenue, Phan and her husband were concerned for their new business.
“We were new, so we didn’t have too many customers who knew us,” Phan said. “My husband said, ‘Let’s just keep up. We’ll just try.’”
Before Pho Pasteur opened on the corner of Snelling and Van Buren, the building was set to be demolished by the city of St. Paul after sitting vacant for over seven years. Hamline-Midway residents, concerned with the building returning to that fate, rallied and organized fundraisers to aid the new community members. Neighbors Jun-Li Wang and David Davies, who started a GoFundMe that raised over $8,000 for the restaurant, encouraged Phan and Nguyen to make a dish they had seen online, an egg roll inside of a spring roll. Spreading the word through Facebook, the dish gained popularity and evolved from a secret menu item to a permanent fixture.
With the fundraiser and raised awareness came a rapidly growing customer base. Despite a massive depression in the service economy due to the ongoing pandemic, Phan and Nguyen were able to keep afloat. The Midway’s loyalty to Pho Pasteur hasn’t waned in its nearly seven years of existence. Phan attributes the strong relationship to the quality and value of the food, as well as the inclination to generosity that she has found from Hamline-Midway and emulates in her business practice.
“The community here is so good. The people are so nice. We love them very much,” Phan said. “If you don’t give, you don’t receive — that’s why I give a lot.”
Phan moved to Minnesota from Vietnam as a teenager and worked in local Vietnamese restaurants. After she had been managing a restaurant for eight years, Phan and Nguyen were ready for a restaurant of their own. Phan says the intention was always to bring Minnesota a piece of Vietnam. That intention is clear in not only the food, but the atmosphere of towering plants and videos of Vietnamese markets and in the restaurant’s name.
“The Pho Pasteur is the famous pho in Vietnam,” Phan said. “If you go to Vietnam [and ask], ‘Where is the Pho Pasteur?’ they will show you, so I want to bring the famous [Pho Pasteur] from Vietnam here, to Minnesota.”
Pho Pasteur is open Wednesday through Monday from 10 A.M. until 8:30 P.M. and accepts take-out orders on their website.