Family History

The Pho Pasteur restaurant chain is the brainchild of Duyen Le and his wife Thu. Duyen Le is the perfect embodiment of a classic only-in-America saga. Le and Thu, along with their children, immigrated to the US in 1987, as political refugees from Vietnam. Once in his new adoptive country, brimming with hope and enthusiasm, Le took up English and computer science at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Massachusetts; and completed his schooling at the University of Massachusetts in Dorchester.

It is quite by accident that Duyen Le entered the restaurant business. He first started his professional career as a high tech engineer. At one point along the way Thu, his wife, who was working as a waitress in Lowell, casually mentioned to him about the profit potential she noticed in the restaurant business. Duyen paid close attention to his wife's provident observations. Thu's remarks prompted Le to start looking for a prospective place that could house his first restaurant. In due time Le found a place on Kneeland street, in Chinatown. The place was a moribund noodle restaurant beset with poor management and service. Le and his wife bought the place and literally changed everything.

They changed the interior, the menu, and most importantly they trained the new personnel to adopt a friendly and courteous attitude towards patrons. The new transformation paid off handsomely, the place became a magnet for health conscious students from neighboring Tufts Medical School, who were attracted to the new eatery for its tasty and generous servings, and best of all for its affordable menu items.

Soon the word-of-mouth kicked in and Pho Pasteur carved for itself a place on the Chinatown gastronomic map. Even tourists would swell the long lines of hungry diners trying to have their portion of Pho. Soon after, Le opened another Pho Pasteur just around the corner from the first one. Whether by design or not, the second Pho Pasteur restaurant was the harbinger of a marvelous success story, that is to say, the creation of the Pho Pasteur restaurant chain. In well-timed expansion initiatives, Le acquired new restaurants in Allston, Harvard Square, Newbury Street, and Stuart Street.

Although all Pho Pasteur restaurants bear the same name, each individual store has its own peculiarity. They are decorated differently, they may cater to different kind of patrons according to their locations, and their menus may vary considerably from one place to another. The Allston restaurant was designed and decorated to give a feel of a neighborhood place. The Harvard Square restaurant graduated to a more sophisticated and urbane decorative theme. The Newbury Street restaurant was decorated in very much the same theme as the Harvard Square store, but the setting is smaller. And the Stuart Street place aimed directly to the high-end patrons. The upscale setting manifests itself in decorative theme as well as its choice of menu, which offer a fusion based food selection with basic Vietnamese ingredients.

Duyen Le has been a significant proponent in the emergence of Vietnamese food to the main stream Metropolitan Boston. His methodical approach, from a storefront eatery in Chinatown to an up-scale restaurant in the theater district, has enriched Boston's gastronomic landscape. Duyen Le and his wife have created and re-defined, with stealth, what the Vietnamese culinary art ought to be.

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