OCALA, Fla. – Vinnie Nguyen and his wife, Phi Phi Lam, started their food truck, Pho Wheels, so that they could have more time to spend with their children.
“The hours and restaurants are just really long,” Nguyen said. “You go in — opening, you’ve done everything — by the time you go home, it’s almost midnight as well. I miss a lot of time with my children. I was a stay-at-home dad at the beginning when they were born for like five and a half years and when going back to the workforce, it just felt like I was missing a part of myself.”
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Nguyen has spent much of his life around restaurants. His family has been in the restaurant business and he has worked in a number of kitchens around Orlando, such as Umi Japanese Fusion in Winter Park and Hana Sushi in Altamonte Springs.
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“I just love how food makes people feel and any kind of a field that you’re in it’s really hard to try to please a lot of people,” he said. “But if you get the correct ingredients, the correct food, it makes people happy and that’s our kind of occupation.”
However, after spending time as a stay-at-home dad, Nguyen decided it was best to be his own boss.
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“If we don’t make enough money, we’ll just spend less money. So that’s that’s our scenario,” Nguyen said. “We’re not as successful as some restaurants are but we do get to spend the most amount of time with our kids. We try to work during the time when they’re at school so that when they come home, they don’t even know that we left for work.”
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Even though Pho Wheels gives the couple the freedom to spend plenty of time with their children, it does still keep them busy.
“We’ve been all the way to Winter Garden. We’ve been to Tampa, we serve a lot over in Titusville, in the Space Coast area, but most of the time we are headquartered in Winter Park and we serve a lot of the outer Orlando area — downtown a lot,” Nguyen said.
Getting ready for each event also has the couple working long hours.
“The prep time is a lot. We do wake up early, and we do stay up late, but those are the schedules that we picked so that we can have the time with our child. It is a lot different from a brick-and-mortar where you have enough water, enough electricity — so it does take a lot of adjustment,” Nguyen said.
The couple serves a variety of Asian street food including Vietnamese dishes like pho, Korean fried chicken and even some sushi.
So we just love that we’re able to accommodate a lot of the Asian culture and a lot of different food for all our events,” Nguyen said.
On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Nguyen and his wife talk about what it is like to work together in their food truck. They also show off some of their favorite dishes.
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Florida Foodie is a podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that takes a closer look at what we eat, how we eat it and the impact that has on us here in Florida and for everyone, everywhere. Find new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.