Checking on Lang Van: How is the restaurant after $60K in donations during COVID-19?
Editor’s note: As new restaurants open in Charlotte, it’s easy to forget about the old standbys. We think they’ll always be there for us, but so many favorites have closed along the way. This makes it even more important to support the ones we love. Our Charlotte Classic Eats series highlights the places that you have frequented for years. During COVID-19, we are checking back in with these places to see how they are navigating the pandemic.
You know that scene at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” when all the townspeople cram into George Bailey’s house to drop money in a basket to save the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan?
There’s a virtual version of that scene right now in Charlotte during COVID-19. Just go to gofundme.com and search for “Lang Van,” the tiny Vietnamese restaurant on Shamrock Drive.
Then look down the list of messages from some of the 844 people who have given money to keep it open since word spread that owner Dan Nguyen was on the verge of closing, another Charlotte favorite snuffed out by COVID-19.
There’s Fiona Ritchie, who created NPR’s “The Thistle and Shamrock Hour” when she was at WFAE-FM in Charlotte. She sent $100 from her current home in Scotland. There’s Charlotte Observer political reporter Jim Morrill, who gave another $100. Chuck H. kicked in $50 – he moved away 10 years ago, but he still goes whenever he comes back. A guy named Colin just moved here and hasn’t even been to Lang Van yet, but he gave $100 to make sure it stays open until he can get there.
The original goal for the Go Fund Me was $30,000. It hit that in less than 24 hours, and kept going. The current total: $60,867. Several donations were as high as $1,000 each.
During COVID-19 especially, it’s important to support our favorites
Ask Nguyen (pronounced “win” in the Vietnamese style) about it and you may have to wait a few minutes for her to stop crying.
“Cry, every day,” she said, laughing and waving at her blue surgical mask. “Cry.”
What makes a restaurant a gem? Is it just being around long enough? Is it the number of people who pick it as their very favorite? During COVID-19, sometimes it has seemed like the gems are the ones we forget about too easily, until it’s too late. Places such as Bill Spoon’s Barbecue, or Queen City Q or The Summit Room.
Lang Van, Dan Nguyen’s story
If you’ve been in Charlotte long enough, you may already know the story of Dan Nguyen and Lang Van: Born in South Vietnam, Nguyen married her husband, Tuyen Tran, at 20. Tran left almost immediately for America, and they didn’t see each other for five years, when he was finally able to bring her to America in 1999.
They struggled to find work, even living in their car for several months. Nguyen finally got a job as a waitress at Lang Van, opened in 1990 by the Duong family. Taking care of customers and feeding people turned out to be something Nguyen was very good at, quickly rising to part owner and mastering the crazy-long menu: 139 dishes, from banh xeo, the classic curry-yellow pancake filled with shrimp, to com chien thom – pineapple fried rice served in a hollowed-out pineapple half. (The crispy quail, served with a little dish of salt and black pepper, shows up a lot whenever you ask local chefs for their favorite dishes in town.)
When the original owner, No Duong, moved, Nguyen took over, with her husband, Tran, doing most of the cooking. They raised their children, Henry Tran, 19, and Alice Tran, 16, in the restaurant, while embracing the children of regulars who considered it home, too.
Part of the Lang Van experience is Dan Nguyen’s memory: If you come in once, she’ll know you when you return – and she’ll probably remember what you ordered before. The other part is her visible joy in feeding people. If you’re new and you’re overwhelmed by that long menu, she’ll ask you what you want – chicken, shrimp, noodles, whatever – and hustle back to the kitchen to order something just for you.
Too small to distance easily
Then came March, when restaurants all over the state had to shift to take-out only. Even when dining rooms could open at 50 percent capacity, Lang Van kept its dining room closed, operating on take-out only. The restaurant, family-owned and mostly family-run with 10 employees, is just too small to distance easily, and Nguyen and her family didn’t want to put anyone at risk. (Plus, with so many loyal customers, how could she decide who gets a seat and who doesn’t? Closing for sit-down dining seemed easier than hurting anyone’s feelings.)
Business quickly fell to 50 percent of the usual sales, and it kept falling. Some customers would show up and leave when they found out they could only get food to go. But Vietnamese food uses a lot of fresh ingredients, especially those piles of lettuce leaves, mint and Thai basil, that have to be bought every day, whether people show up or not.
“We never really closed fully,” said Nguyen’s son Henry, a UNCC student majoring in business and design. (Nguyen speaks English well but with a heavy accent, and she’s more comfortable expressing herself in Vietnamese. So Henry Tran helped with our interview.)
“But it was slow, very slow. We needed a safety net, to pay our employees and buy food.”
At home at night, Nguyen would cry and confide to the family that the restaurant might not make it. She wanted desperately just to hang on until the holidays, when longtime customers always come with their families, and when those babies Nguyen used to carry around the restaurant while their parents ate come home from college, always making a stop at Lang Van to see her.
“If she shut down, she wouldn’t forgive herself,” Henry said.
A fundraiser from a regular customer
Then, on June 19, one of Lang Van’s regulars, Carly Valigura West, heard about her troubles. She started a fundraiser to save Lang Van. Nguyen didn’t even know about it. Henry didn’t know himself until a friend spotted it and called him: “Hey, isn’t that your family’s restaurant?”
Maybe it’s the love of the place. Maybe it’s that yellow pancake. Or maybe it’s just the chance to feel like we’re doing something, saving something, that makes Charlotte Charlotte.
Whatever the reason, the Lang Van fundraiser took off, hitting the goal in a day – and then doubling it.
“There was a moment,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Generous donation after generous donation. Everyone kept giving.”
The first thing Nguyen did was give each of her 10 employees $1,000 each. She got a lawyer to help figure out what to do with such a windfall (including paying the taxes, of course). Her kids got to work, writing down every person’s name and tracking down addresses, so they can thank each and every donor. She’s already making plans, for feeding people for free, for gift bottles of champagne at Christmas, for gift cards.
If the money doesn’t run out before the COVID-19 restrictions do, she plans to donate what remains to three causes: Cancer research, helping the homeless, and supporting veterans. The little girl from South Vietnam has a thing for veterans.
“I love your country, a lot, a lot,” she said. “Before (we came) here, no money, no nothing. I tell (my children) every night.”
What is it about Lang Van that made so many people click that button that says “donate”?
“My mom, she doesn’t treat customers as customers,” Henry said. “She looks at them as family. She wants them to have a fulfilling dinner. Because tomorrow, you never know.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
