Restaurant · Guide Updated August 2026

How to Run an Award-Winning Vietnamese Restaurant: Lessons from Anan Chi Vancouver

Running a restaurant for 50 years is a commitment most operators never make. Emily and Vincent at Anan Chi in Vancouver made it on day one, and that decision shaped everything, from how they designed the space to how they built their team. Here is what they did, why it worked, and what you can take directly into your own operation.

How Did Anan Chi Start?

The siblings never planned to be in the restaurant business. Their parents had run Vietnamese restaurants on and around Main Street in Vancouver for over 30 years. One sibling became a dentist. Emily worked in public health. Vincent was in medical school. They had all watched their parents grind through the industry and consciously chose different paths.

Then their father passed away.

Vincent was in his early twenties at the time. His response was to drop out of medical school. His words, as Emily tells it: life is short, follow your passion. He came back to take over the family restaurant. Emily and the family pushed back, then rallied behind him. They started sketching, planning, dreaming, and borrowing.

That origin matters because it explains the level of commitment they brought. They were not optimizing for a quick exit. They were building something to last 50 years and then hand to the next generation.

What Makes Anan Chi Different from a Typical Vietnamese Restaurant?

Anan Chi sits on Main Street, one of the most active dining strips in Vancouver. It opens 11 to 11 and draws customers who appreciate detail and want a real night out without a fine-dining price tag.

The food is entirely authentic. All recipes come from their mother, passed down to Vincent, who runs the kitchen. Nothing is fusion. The flavors are exactly what you would eat at the family table. What changed is the presentation, the space, and the bar program.

Emily’s framing is precise: honor Vietnamese food by presenting it in a way that is approachable and eye-pleasing. Fine dining exists for Japanese cuisine. It exists for Chinese cuisine. There was no reason it could not exist for Vietnamese cuisine in the Lower Mainland.

The space itself feels, in Emily’s words, warm and vibrant. Cocktails are a genuine part of the experience. The bar program is a differentiator, not an afterthought. The signature Hanoi Highball is the kind of drink that turns a dinner into an evening.

Even the washroom became a talking point. Anan Chi won an award for it, which Emily describes as mortifying, since they wanted to be known for food, drinks, and atmosphere. But the recognition had real impact. The Senate of Canada reached out to ask how they designed it, because Anan Chi had built a gender-neutral washroom and others wanted to follow suit. That single detail became a statement about the kind of environment they were creating.

How Much Did It Cost to Open?

Their original budget target was $500,000. Emily says that clearly, and just as clearly says it was not enough.

Once they committed to building something they intended to run for 50 years, the number stopped being the ceiling. The award-winning washroom, the meticulous decor, the attention to every surface and detail, the staffing and training investment, all of it pushed costs higher. That is not a mistake. That was a deliberate choice rooted in a long-term mindset.

For operators planning a similar full restaurant build in 2026, the realistic cost range is $727,000 to $1,211,500, with a planning figure around $969,000. Before you sign a lease, you should have roughly 1.4 times your total build cost in accessible cash. That is the buffer that keeps you alive through year one, which, as Emily describes, is the hardest year by a wide margin.

What Does Year One Actually Feel Like?

Emily is self-described as an optimist. She leads with silver linings. Even so, her description of the first year is raw.

There were nights when Emily, her mother, and Vincent stood together in the back alley, holding each other and telling themselves they needed to give up. The weight of leading a team, serving guests, and honoring 33 years of family restaurant history simultaneously was enormous. The physical hours were brutal. The emotional cost was higher.

The reason they got through it was the same reason they started: commitment to the long term. They did not ask when they could sell or flip the business. They asked how to build something worth passing down.

If you are in your first year right now and you feel like you are in that back alley, that is not a sign you made the wrong decision. That is the price of entry for anything worth doing.

What Was the First Real Sign That It Was Working?

The answer is not what most operators expect.

Emily does not point to a full dining room. She does not point to the lineup out the door. She points to their first annual team dinner.

Sitting across from the people who had joined Anan Chi, who were counting on Emily and Vincent, and who Emily and Vincent were counting on in return, that was the moment she knew they had built something real. The restaurant had become a platform for developing people. It was building leadership. It was growing a family.

That is the common thread in every successful operator I have talked to. The staff is the asset. The team culture is what customers actually feel when they walk in. You can have flawless recipes and a beautiful room, but if the people running it are not invested, customers sense it immediately.

How Do You Build a Menu That Honors Tradition and Attracts New Customers?

Anan Chi’s menu runs from share plates to brothy noodle bowls. The interactive rice paper roll platter, one of their most photographed dishes, is a perfect example of their philosophy. It is traditional Vietnamese food, presented so that guests build their own rolls at the table. Fun, social, shareable, and completely authentic. No shortcuts, no compromise on the recipe, just a presentation format that makes the experience feel alive.

The bar program sits alongside the food, not below it. Signature cocktails are a genuine reason people come back. This combination, serious food and a real bar, is what pushed Anan Chi past the category of neighborhood pho spot into a destination.

How Did They Adapt When the Market Changed?

When COVID-19 closed dining rooms across Vancouver, Emily did not wait. She had already been thinking about packaged sauces and retail products. Her reasoning: if people can reach for Worcestershire sauce or hoisin at the grocery store, why not a fish chili sauce or her mother’s peanut sauce? There is something meaningful, she says, about seeing a bottle of sauce from your own culture sitting in people’s refrigerators.

The pivot was meal kits: salad rolls, pho, Vietnamese crepes, and vermicelli bowls. Each kit includes a sauce so customers learn how to use it, and after that first experience, they can shop for ingredients on their own and keep cooking. It is a product that teaches while it sells.

The lesson for your operation: revenue streams that extend beyond the four walls of your restaurant are not a distraction. They are what keeps you alive when the dining room goes dark.

The Bottom Line

Anan Chi’s story is a straightforward equation: deep commitment plus a long time horizon plus people-first culture equals a business that outlasts every short-term challenge. Emily puts the math plainly, anything worth doing in life, whether it is a marriage or a business, requires work, and the harder it is, the more real the reward on the other side. Build your team like they are your biggest asset, because they are. The food and the room matter, but the people running it every day are what customers come back for.

Watch the full video

Source — YouTube · the full breakdown, free

Keep going: restaurant guides