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Table Hopping By Steve Barnes, senior writer on May 24, 2021 at 2:07 PM
The homemade rolls for the eponymous sandwich at the forthcoming Banh Mi 47, under development for an August opening on North Pearl Street in downtown Albany. (Provided photos.)
A couple who met at Siena College more than 20 years ago is developing a small restaurant specializing in banh mi sandwiches and other quick-serve Vietnamese fare in a storefront at 74 N. Pearl St., part of the redeveloped Kenmore complex in downtown Albany.
An August opening is projected for Banh Mi 47, named after the street address of the home in Saigon of Mike Nguyen’s grandfather, where a market and pho shop occupy the street level and family members live upstairs. Nguyen, who works in IT for a local furniture company, is opening Banh Mi 47 with his wife, Stacy, who over the summer will be leaving her job at a TV station to work at the restaurant full time, they tell me.
Apr 19, 2021 3:01 PM EDT
Oregon’s Jade District is a 10-block area neighborhood in East Portland that is home to dozens of Asian-owned businesses, from grocery stores to herbal markets, bakeries and restaurants that include a James Beard-recognized Vietnamese soup spot.
But in the first two months of the year, at least 13 businesses there had their windows smashed, which community leaders say was the result of anti-Asian hate fueled by misguided scapegoat rhetoric about COVID-19. A month after the fatal March 16 shootings at Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead, including six Asian American women, Asian American businesses across the country are reeling from the spate of hate and violence, and some say they’re operating in fear adding to the economic crisis many businesses have been grappling with since the beginning of the pandemic.