Pasteur Grill and Noodles — Preserving Culture through Strife

*Dennis Chung peering through the window of his restaurant*

Note: I originally wrote this piece for Welcome to Chinatown.

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After escaping the Vietnam War by boat, Dennis Chung came to New York with his family at the age of 21 to start a new life. In 1995, Mr. Chung purchased Pasteur Grill and Noodles (originally known as Pasteur and founded in 1987) from its previous owner and took over the business to showcase the cuisine from his childhood. For the past 25 years, Pasteur Grill and Noodles has been serving traditional Vietnamese dishes such as phở, pork chops, and bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches). Read on to learn more about Mr. Chung and how the restaurant has fared during COVID.

Tell us about your business and who you are!

Hi, I’m Dennis Chung. I’m the owner of Pasteur Grill and Noodles, a Vietnamese restaurant located at 85 Baxter Street in Chinatown. Pasteur has been open since 1987, but I took over the restaurant in 1995. We serve Vietnamese food — mostly phở, vermicelli noodles, barbequed meats (e.g. pork chops), and bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches).

What inspired you to start your business?

When I was growing up in Vietnam, I ate Vietnamese food — com suon bi cha, bún riêu, bún bò huế, and chè — every morning on the street before going to school. I never had to pay; the bill went straight to my parents’ house. My mother didn’t cook much at home, so I would frequently go out with my friends to Vietnamese restaurants and eat dishes like banh tam bi. These memories inspired me to share the food I ate growing up with people who didn’t know a lot about Vietnamese food.

I worked at Nha Trang One (next door to Pasteur) for a year before taking over Pasteur in 1995. The owner of Pasteur at the time was a man named Lai Ngo. One day, as I was leaving Nha Trang One to go home, he stopped me on the corner of the street. He told me that he wanted to sell his restaurant and retire. He’d seen me working as the manager of Nha Trang One and asked me, “Do you want to take over my restaurant?” I said to him, “Are you kidding?” He said, “If you want, I will sell it to you.” That same day, I gave him a $5,000 deposit. I hadn’t even seen the inside of the restaurant, but I knew it was in a good location. There were courthouses nearby, tourists, and great local customers.

At that time, there were very few Vietnamese restaurants in NYC. I thought this would be a good opportunity to teach New Yorkers more about Vietnamese food. I like Vietnamese food because it is well-balanced — it’s sweet, savory, fresh, not oily, not too spicy, and mostly served with fresh vegetables. I knew that it had the potential to become really popular.

Could you please provide us with some background on yourself?

I was born in South Vietnam, in a small village called Soc Trang. My father was the owner of a rice factory. He had 7 children — 4 boys, including myself, and 3 girls. I never finished high school.

In 1975, the Viet Cong from the North took over the South, and it was hard just to survive. One day, the people from the North Vietnamese government took over our rice factory. We could barely make a living and used up all our savings to survive. In 1979, we tried to escape Vietnam by boat.

We had to buy tickets from the people who made the boats. A one-person ticket cost 10 oz of gold. We had 9 people, so we needed 90 oz of gold. Luckily, my father had saved up some gold over many years. Those days in Vietnam, people invested their savings in gold, as you couldn’t buy stocks or keep money at home. We spent 5 days and 4 nights on the boat. During the first 2 days, we only had cup noodles and water. Then, for the last 3 days, we had nothing to eat or drink until we got to the refugee camp, which was on an island in Indonesia. Once we landed, we immediately bought some canned meats and rice. We purchased a small house for $50 USD that had one big bed, and all 9 of us slept on it. It was like a jail cell. We eventually opened a small grocery store that my younger brother and I ran, and we made enough money to survive for a year. One year later, my family immigrated to New York City.

I was 21 when we arrived in New York. We came here with our bare hands. We all lived together in an apartment in Elmhurst, Queens. My first job was in a fish market in Chinatown on Bayard and Mott. I did this for a year. While taking ESL and Chinese classes on Mott St, I was doing delivery for a restaurant on 90th and Madison. I had to buy my own bike for the delivery job; after a few months, someone stole it, so I had to buy a new one, which cost $150 at the time.

After doing delivery for two years, I got a job at an accounting firm in Chinatown, where I worked for the next 10 years. During the day, I worked as an accountant. At night, I worked for a cleaning company. I worked 9am to 5pm at the accounting firm and 6pm to 10pm at the cleaning company immediately afterwards. During tax season, the firm would be so busy that after my cleaning job, I would go back and help for another two hours. Sometimes, my younger brother would come help me at the cleaning company, but my boss didn’t like that, so I would tell him to hide in the bathroom. Around the same time, I also opened a fast-food restaurant called King’s Express with 3 other partners and worked there on weekends.

Eventually, I left the accounting firm and became the manager of Nha Trang One. I met my wife there in 1989 and married her on January 20, 1990. I remember that day very well because the weather was very good. Four years later, I had my daughter, and 3 years later, I had my son. In 1995, I took over Pasteur.

How has your business changed over the years?

At first, business was very good. Then, 9/11 happened, and the business almost collapsed. Chinatown was like a dead city. After 2 or 3 years, the business picked back up a little but, by that time, many new Vietnamese restaurants began to open nearby, such as Thai Son, Viet Huong, and Tu Do. With the increased competition, business began to slow down again.

A few years ago, we began partnering with delivery platforms like GrubHub and UberEats to try and reach more customers, but the delivery companies take about 30% of the bill. Rent, property tax, and utilities are also all a lot higher than before.

We’ve had several names over the years. Pasteur was the original name of the restaurant. When I took over the restaurant, we renamed it New Pasteur. A few years after 9/11, one of my partners left, and so I renamed the restaurant Phở Pasteur. Since then, my wife has been helping me with the restaurant — she takes care of the kitchen, while I take care of the dining room. She actually came up with a few new dishes, like bún riêu, hủ tiếu nam vang, bò kho, and bún bò huế. My wife, Lily, based these dishes on her mother’s recipes (her mother is an amazing chef). About 10 years after she began helping me, we renovated the whole restaurant, signed a lease with a new landlord, and renamed the restaurant Pasteur Grill and Noodles.

As the manager, I don’t work in the kitchen, but I still need to know how to make the sauces and help in the kitchen when someone calls out. Sometimes when the cook doesn’t come, I have to cook. I’m not an expert, but I still have to know how to do it.

Dennis’s wife — Lily Lien Chung — *Dennis’s wife* — *Lily Lien Chung*

Who are your customers?

Before COVID, during weekdays, a lot of our customers would come from the courthouse. On weekends, we would get tourists from different countries and states as well as locals from around the neighborhood. We serve all kinds of people: people who sell watches and bags on Canal Street, doctors, fruit vendors, grocery store workers, fish market and supermarket workers, elderly people in the neighborhood, etc.

Last year, before COVID, a tour guide came to our restaurant with 20 people and told me to order for them. He said, “I don’t care about the price or the amount of food, just give me the bill.” When he saw that the bill was not a lot, he was really happy. The customers enjoyed the food and were also very happy.

What are your favorite dishes from your menu? What makes these dishes special?

My favorites are the beef cubes with fried rice, shrimp or squid with salt and pepper, bún riêu, hủ tiếu nam vang, bún bò huế, phở xe lửa, bbq rolled beef with vermicelli, chả giò, and pork chops. These dishes are the most popular, and I like them a lot too. I like beef cubes with fried rice because the sauce is very delicious. The cook must have excellent skills for it to taste good. He / she must know how to control the fire and the oil and know which ingredients to add first — it’s very difficult. You must put the oil in first, then the beef to get a good sear, then garlic, butter and onions, and finally the sauce. You must then toss everything quickly with a big fire.

We cook phở broth every day for the following day. We soak the beef bones, brisket, and oxtails in salted water overnight. In the morning, we grill the onions and ginger. Then, we wash all the other ingredients and cook them in the broth for 8 hours. In the final half hour, we put in rock sugar and toasted spices. We add these last because if you cook them for too long, the broth will become too dark. Then, we filter the broth through a cheesecloth to remove all the impurities and make the broth clear.

We pay a lot of attention to our phở, and we use very high-quality meat that we buy from the meat market on Centre Street. We buy our spices from an Indian supermarket in Jackson Heights called the Patel Brothers. They have high quality spices that you can’t find in Chinatown. Their star anise and cinnamon are fragrant, yet affordable.

We order our pork chops from the meat market one day ahead of time. If they’re too thick, they will be well done outside but raw inside; if they’re too thin, they won’t be juicy. We have to marinate the pork chops for 2 days, not just 1 day. We use lemongrass, oyster sauce, lemongrass, sugar, and onion. These are all classic Vietnamese ingredients, especially lemongrass and fish sauce. You also have to use a grill with charcoal, not gas, because gas has harsh chemicals. Charcoal makes it taste better as well. Most people don’t have charcoal at home so, no matter how you cook it, it won’t taste like the way it does at the restaurant.

You will notice that anything you cook with charcoal will taste better. I lived in the countryside for a few weeks because the Communists didn’t want us to live in the city. During that time, we used charcoal to cook all our food, and everything we ate was natural. Every fish we caught, we ate, and every vegetable we cut, we ate. There were no refrigerators.

When COVID first hit NYC, what kinds of thoughts were running through your head?

When COVID first hit NYC, I knew for sure that it would be even worse than 9/11. I asked myself, “Should I close my business or keep going?” We made the tough decision to close on March 15th, 2020.

We reopened on May 1st with 4 workers. At the time, no one else on the block was open. Chinatown was completely dead. I was scared, but I told myself that I would be okay if I wore a mask and washed my hands. My workers also wanted to come back to work. They kept asking me to open because they like working at the restaurant. My cook said to me, “Any day, any time, I will work for you, just let me know.”

How have you been faring with the impact of COVID? What are some things that you have been doing to stay open?

Due to the pandemic, our revenue has gone down 60% percent. When all the bills — rent, payroll, property tax, utility bills, and raw materials — came due, I couldn’t pay them all. One day, while our restaurant was shut down, the landlord called me on my cellphone to tell me to pay the rent. I asked him, “How can I pay your bill if my restaurant isn’t open?” Then, Time Warner and Con Ed called me to pay their bills. They said, “If you don’t pay the bill, we will cut the telephone line and electricity.” The only thing I could do was apply for a PPP loan to pay the bills for the first few months. Even now, business is still not back to normal, so I’m trying to apply for a second PPP loan.

Ever since the city allowed outdoor dining, business has been a little better, but we’ve lost a lot of our tourist and courthouse customers. Things are still not back to normal. Our menu and prices are still the same, but most of the raw materials that we buy are more expensive. We unfortunately can’t pass those price increases on to our customers because a lot of our local customers are currently unemployed due to the pandemic. Since we re-opened, we’ve been closing 2 hours earlier at 8:30pm (we used to close at 10:30pm). After 6pm, there are usually no customers. On the weekends, there are no tourists.

How has Welcome to Chinatown helped your business?

Welcome to Chinatown has helped us a lot by allowing us to share our story online so that people can read it and understand how hard it is for Chinatown right now. I will use the Longevity Fund grant to pay rent, which hasn’t gone down since COVID hit.

Any advice you would like to give to other small business owners trying to survive during COVID?

My advice is to work later and do stuff on your own. Learn how to become more independent and efficient. Instead of hiring more people, stay up later to prepare tomorrow. For example, I stay late to cut meat, roll the spring rolls, and mix the sauces. I will always try my best to improve the business. I will never give up. I know it’s tough, but find it within yourself to keep going. Soon, it will be over. Also, try to give customers bigger portions if you can afford to, and make sure to keep the food fresh and clean.

What has been your proudest moment as a business owner? What has been your biggest challenge?

I am proud that we’re still open. We still have customers, but not like before. A lot of our older customers come back to say hello and congratulate us for staying open. I feel very happy when they come back to eat our food and say good things. There are even some customers who no longer work at the courthouse that still drive from their homes to buy our food.

The biggest challenge is definitely COVID. This is a challenge for everyone, not just me. Every day, I pray to God that I don’t get COVID. If I get it, I won’t be able to continue working at the restaurant.

What is one fun fact or something interesting that most people don’t know about Pasteur Grill & Noodles?

A lot of people don’t know that we have a full selection of bánh mì. Most Vietnamese restaurants don’t sell bánh mì anymore. Our Pasteur Classic bánh mì has chili-aioli, pickled carrots, ham, and a pork patty that we make and roast in-house.

Our restaurant is currently the oldest Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown and was named after a famous French scientist named Louis Pasteur.

Another fun fact is that my wife’s brother is the chef at District Saigon in Astoria.

Any plans for the future?

Hopefully, after COVID is over, the government will open indoor dining to 100% capacity again. In the meantime, we are planning on making some small adjustments to the menu. If business is good 5 years later, we may do a small renovation. If the economy doesn’t improve, we may close the restaurant and open a restaurant somewhere else with lower rent since rent just keeps going up every year.

What do you hope your legacy will be?

I hope people will remember us forever for a few items: pork chops, beef cubes with fried rice, and shrimp with salt and pepper. I hope that people will also remember our service. We always try our best to serve our customers well. If you want extra sauce, we’ll give it to you. If we have something in the restaurant that’s not on the menu, we’ll give it to you. I enjoy serving my customers and talking to them. I want to make them happy and have them come back.

*Dennis and Lily in front of their restaurant*

How can people support your business?

The best way to support us is to keep coming back. If people like our food and come back, that is the biggest compliment. Also, it would be helpful to recommend our restaurant to new customers.

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Chinatown establishments like Pasteur Noodle & Grill are what makes the spirit of our neighborhood. We need your support — now more than ever before — to keep that spirit alive. Please consider making a donation to our small business relief fund, The Longevity Fund, or help us spread the word of what’s at stake. Together, we can preserve Chinatown businesses and help say Chinatown will always be open for business.

Photo Credit: Fuxuan Xin, Pasteur Grill and Noodles

Pasteur Grill and Noodles — Preserving Culture through Strife

Tell us about your business and who you are!

What inspired you to start your business?

Could you please provide us with some background on yourself?