PHOnomenal Eats The Vietnamese Food Truck Experience

By Anya Sanchez

rothers and sisters are known for competing with one another. Tebi and Trinh Ngyuen, two siblings, now run Saigon Le Vendeur, a food truck, together.

In Austin, food trucks are visited by tourists and locals alike, making it a vital part of the restaurant scene.

Saigon Le Vendeur, a Vietnamese food truck parked on East 7th Street in Austin, is built from a recycled shipping container. Saigon Le Vendeur will celebrate its 10th anniversary in July 2023. The small locally owned business’ goal is to serve banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich, to the people of the city.

The co-owners of the food truck, started their business after discovering there wasn’t a lot of good Vietnamese food around town.

“I was like, ‘what the heck, I’m just gonna open one,’” Trinh Ngyuen said, “so now I’m stuck with a food truck!”

The two decided to start a food truck, rather than a restaurant, mainly because of the lower expenses. Starting and operating a food truck requires a lot of hard work, which the interviewees made clear. Trinh Ngyuen sees owning her own business as a fun, but also not so fun task.

“It’s not fun, we got a lot of stuff to do,” she said with a laugh.

Tebi Ngyuen, Trinh’s brother, found the independence of being his own boss to be exciting.

“It was really cool to get to make my own menu. I had control and I could make my own decisions to make our vision for the food truck come true.” he said.

As an owner of any business, there are certain requirements that must be met.

“For a truck,” Trinh Ngyuen said, “you have to take them out every year to go to a Health Department to have them give you a permit.”

The owners also have to rent a commissary kitchen to keep everything and a place to keep their cold stuff cold.

“The thing about a food truck is that when you get everything up and going, you don’t require a lot of time with it,” Trinh Ngyuen said. “It’s just you have to check up with it from time to time.”

Thanks to the manager taking over a lot of duties, the owners do have some free time now.

“I really enjoy working at a food truck and you have a lot of freedom,” Dang said. “You can run the food truck any way you’d like and you can play the music you want to.”

Not only that, but working at a food truck allows him to have close interactions with a lot of the customers and go to different events and places around the city.

“Cooking can often be very intense, sometimes, and repetitive, but it does give you a lot of freedom to experience and perfect new dishes, which is really nice,” Dang said.

According to the interviewees, the environment of the job poses a lot of obstacles.

“The most challenging part [of the job] by far is nature,” Dang said. “Since we are an outdoor business, we have to deal with all types of weather, like rain, heat, and the cold.”

According to the interviewees, the heat makes it difficult to operate in some parts of the year.

The manager and one of the chefs at Saigon Le Vendeur, Pho Dang, has worked there for over 8 years. As the manager, he wants everything to run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

“We are open mostly for local people who work around us,” Dang said. “We have to try our best to serve out food as quickly as we can for all our customers during the lunch rush.”

Although it can be a stressful job at times, according to the interviewees, there are many benefits.

“In a food truck, it is hot in there. Most of the time you are stuck in there and whatever it is outside you have to add 10 more degrees,” said Trinh Ngyuen.

The metal shipping container that is the food truck really traps the heat, making it a difficult place to work at times, explained Tebi Ngyuen. They chose this specific vehicle for its inexpensiveness and its aesthetic.

“I mean they do have AC in there but it’s not enough for them to stay cool,” Tebi Nyguen said.

Dang agrees with this comment.

“It can be very hard to find employees to work for you because not a lot of people want to work in an outdoor environment,” Dang said.

Due to the food truck’s success, they opened a restaurant, named Le Bleu on Research Blvd, and another food truck on Third Street.

Working and starting a restaurant greatly contrasts that of a food truck.

“In a restaurant, you just show up and everything is there already and you just start cooking and selling,” Trinh Ngyuen said.

To work at a food truck, more work is required before they get to sell.

”For a food truck, you have to wake up earlier and go to the rented kitchen that you already rented and prepared, and then start selling,” she continued. “Whatever you cannot get done on that day, you have to bring back to the kitchen. It’s fun, but a lot of work.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the owners had to close their location on Third Street.

“In that location, we relied on Austin office employees and some tourists visiting downtown,” Tebi Ngyuen said. “With the pandemic happening, we didn’t make nearly as much money to pay for rent and the staff and everything.”

By the end of pandemic restrictions, the business had lost over half of their staff.

“Since the pandemic, a lot of people don’t want to do it, like the restaurant industry anymore, and I’ve been working a lot since,” Trinh Ngyuen said.

Due to COVID-19, the food truck’s hours have significantly decreased. Before the pandemic, Saigon Le Vendeur was open from Monday to Saturday from 11 to 9.

“Now, we are only open Monday to Friday from 11 to 5 pm since we don’t have enough staff to open all day,” Trinh

Ngyuen said.

Le Bleu used to have Sundays off, giving everyone a break.

“I have to stay open all day and all week [now] to cover the rent cost,” said Trinh Ngyuen.

They are planning for a new restaurant. It has taken over a year just for them to get the permit and they are in the building process.

“It’s not that fun to open a restaurant,” Trinh Ngyuen said jokingly.

It will have the same menu as Le Bleu and will be named Saigon on Seven.

“It’s a cute different name in order for it to be easier for them,” said Trinh Ngyuen.

Trinh Nguyen believes it will be easier for customers if none of the names of the restaurants/food trucks are the same, to limit confusion and picking up food at the incorrect spot.

Saigon Le Vendeur started almost 10 years ago and they’ve had their fair share of good and bad times, according to the owners. There have been a great number of obstacles, like the pandemic and heat, for everyone involved to overcome. They don’t view any complication as the end of the world, but rather just part of the journey.

“There’s some difficulty but I don’t think there’s any challenges that you cannot overcome,” Trinh Ngyuen said.