Eating Wyoming: How A Vietnamese Restaurant Helped Save The Dubois VFW

DUBOIS — Hidden inside the VFW Post in this rural Wyoming mountain town is one of the region’s best-kept secrets — a foodie haven with authentic Vietnamese recipes.

Not only do the dishes feature big, bold, authentic flavor from third-generation recipes handed down from grandma to grandchildren, the restaurant actually helped save the VFW from closing.

At the same time, The V Cafe created a vibrant new option for dining out in Dubois, a town that has fairly limited options for visitors. Those options can get particularly limited on Wednesdays when the Cowboy Café closes, and Fridays when 2Z’s BBQ closes. Those are both popular eateries that have gained national notoriety, helping expand Dubois’ restaurant scene.

A Vietnamese restaurant isn’t what people expect to find in an American VFW, restaurant owner KimChi Vu told Cowboy State Daily. But it’s honestly perfect once she tells the backstory. That backstory isn’t just of how the restaurant helped save the VFW, it’s also a story about how Vu and her husband of 20 years Elvis Nguyen came to be in America at all.

“Both my parents and Elvis’ parents were boat people,” KimChi told Cowboy State Daily. “They escaped Vietnam at the end of the war and had to find a way to get to America. We are first-generation Vietnamese, and now here we are, living our American dream, operating a Vietnamese restaurant inside a VFW Post.”

You Could Call It A Boat — Barely

KimChi has heard the story of her parents’ journey to America many times, and every time it sends a chill up her spine.

When South Vietnam fell at the end of the Vietnam War, many Vietnamese families fled in whatever they could find that would float.

“My dad was actually the quote unquote ‘captain’ of this boat,” KimChi said. “And when I say boat, it was nothing fancy at all. It was something they kind of just threw together and built, hoping it would last them long enough to get to another land that would accept them so they could begin the process of immigrating to America.”

On that rickety boat were crammed 25 members of KimChi’s extended family. They had enough hope and dreams to fill an ocean, but the vast ocean that they were in was also capable of tearing their makeshift boat to pieces. For the safety of everyone aboard, they needed to land somewhere safe quickly.

“They knew they couldn’t expect to survive in that boat all the way to America,” KimChi said. “So, they were just planning to land in a neighboring country that would accept all of these immigrants who were fleeing communism.”

Just a couple of days into the journey, though, KimChi’s family’s boat was stopped by Thai pirates out on the high seas.

“My dad told me that these guys all had guns, and they looked scary because they were all masked up,” KimChi said. “They blindfolded everyone on the boats fleeing Vietnam.”

After everyone was blindfolded, they roped several of the boats together and started pulling them out, farther and farther into the ocean. No one could see where they were going, but they could tell from the pit in their stomach they were headed out to deeper and rougher water.

At that time, KimChi’s sister was just a toddler and her brother was a newborn.

“Imagine going through rough seas and having a newborn with you and then having something like that happen,” KimChi said.

After many hours, the Thai pirates stopped pulling their boats out to sea and took the blindfolds off their captives.

Then they took one more thing.

“They did not rob them,” KimChi said. “The women were not assaulted in anyway. They did not take food. But they did take one thing away from everyone, and that was their compasses.”

After that, they told everyone on the boat not to come to Thailand.

“My guess is that they were getting sick of seeing so many Vietnamese people immigrating to their land, and they were doing what they could to deter them from coming that way,” KimChi said.

How To Avoid Thai Pirates With No Compass

With no idea exactly where they were in the ocean, the occupants of all the stranded boats faced a dilemma. No one had any idea where they were and, without compasses, they also had no idea which way would avoid more encounters with Thai pirates, and yet still land safely on some welcoming shore.

“So, one boat would go in one direction and another boat would go in another,” KimChi said. “It was just a free-for-all. It was a harrowing ordeal for all of them. I guess my dad must have just used the sun’s rise and set to figure out which way to go.”

Ultimately, KimChi’s family found safety on the shores of Malaysia, which was accepting refugees. There, they were able to immediately begin the immigration process so they could come to America.

“I don’t think it was too long for us,” KimChi said. “But you heard about people who ended up staying in the Philippines for six months, even a year, before they were able to gain access to go to America. I think my parents were able to arrive here within like two months.”

It would be another 25 years before KimChi’s grandmother or any other relatives who stayed behind in Vietnam would get to come to America to visit for a little while.

“By then, she had no desire to leave Vietnam,” KimChi said. “Even though the government wasn’t something she necessarily agreed with.”

Coming To Wyoming

KimChi’s family landed first in California, which is where she grew up and went to school.

But after the COVID-19 pandemic, she and her husband Elvis wanted to find a quieter pace of life. That led Elvis to take a construction job in Dubois.

One of the first things the couple noticed was the town’s limited selection of restaurants.

“There wasn’t a single fast-food restaurant,” KimChi said. “There were no Asian eateries, and there was one supermarket that closed at 8 p.m.”

That led KimChi and Elvis to stage a few popups in town. One reason was to help with food options, but the other was to gauge interest in a new,Vietnamese restaurant with a Wyoming twist.

“For the most part, we’ve kept the same ingredients and recipes from our parents and great-grandparents,” KimChi said. “But we have changed it up a little for Wyoming.”

For example, the Cowboy spring rolls use smoked brisket instead of the more traditional shrimp or pork. But they still have all the bold, fresh flavors so characteristic of Vietnamese cuisine — and they’re delicious, as is their Shaking Beef, garlic shrimp noodles, and the fried pork with lemongrass vinaigrette.

“So, every dish we do, it’s not quite Vietnamese food,” KimChi said. “And there are other items on the menu, like crab rangoons and chicken teriyaki, that are obviously not Vietnamese, but when you’re in Wyoming, you try to appease the palates of as many as you can. We gauge on what people are asking for and requesting.”

A New Home At The VFW

In the same timeframe that KimChi and Elvis were testing out their ideas for a restaurant, KimChi became acquainted with Gretchen Mack, president of the VFW Post auxiliary. From Mack, KimChi learned that the VFW was struggling to stay open.

“They just did not have enough traffic and enough business,” KimChi said. “They were dangerously close to closing.”

They do have a commercial kitchen, though, which was exactly what KimChi and Elvis needed for their restaurant. They decided to give the VFW a try.

“Some people thought we were crazy, because we had decided to launch and open up when winter was approaching,” KimChi said.

Dubois is a seasonal town, the couple were told. There was money to be made in the summer. Not so much in winter.

That first season was a struggle, KimChi said. But word of mouth quickly spread about the new dining-out option in the Dubois VFW. That not only kept the little restaurant going, it also helped the VFW.

“When we got here, the VFW was only open one day of the week for three hours,” KimChi said. “Now they’re open seven days a week, all seven days. And it’s just a beautiful thing, because you see all the hustling and bustling and hear everyone just enjoying food and drinks, and all kinds of stories being told.”

A True Melting Pot Of Culture And Food

From Continental Divide hikers who come through Dubois from all over the world, to firefighting crews working the Fish Creek Fire who have come from all over the country, KimChi is hosting all kinds of groups at The V Cafe in the Dubois VFW, 107 S. 1st St.

It’s become a true melting pot of food, culture and stories, tying together the many people who either live in or pass through Dubois.

The best part to KimChi, though, are the Dubois veterans who have become regulars.

“Some of them are Vietnam veterans,” she said. “And one of them is actually a regular and he told me, ‘You don’t know how meaningful it is that I served there and that now here you are, children of boat people, doing your thing in this small town.’”

Comments like those, KimChi said, make her feel like Dubois is where she was meant to realize her American dream.

“Every day at the end of the night, Elvis and I leave work, no matter how tired we are, and we feel so good and happy because you try so hard in your life to do something good and something right,” she said. “And at the end of the night, we know we fed people and fed them well, and we can tell because of all these new faces and all these great stories. It just feels so good all around.”

A New Understanding Of The American Dream

KimChi’s understanding of the American dream has grown since coming to Dubois.

She has been through two bouts with thyroid cancer, and she’s thankful for the access to health care that she realizes might not have been available to her in Vietnam.

“In high school, you hear about owning a home with a white picket fence and having 2.2 kids — but this is more,” she said. “Obviously, we were both born here, then to be given opportunities that our parents were deprived of — going to school, having access to health care and health education.

“And then getting the opportunity to basically fly. If you want to do XYZ, the world here is your oyster. There aren’t the roadblocks that there would have been if we’d remained in Vietnam.”

KimChi is particularly grateful for the service of American soldiers in Vietnam. Without them, her parents would have never even realized they had any other option than staying and living under communism.

America gave them hope.

Enough hope to climb into a rickety boat that the ocean could have swallowed instantly, in pursuit of a better life and happiness for their children.

“V Cafe has allowed us to mix in with the community and raise our family in an environment that is free of, knock on wood, violence and tyranny,” KimChi said. “And to just find our own happiness. Everyone’s happiness is defined differently. But, as long as you live with your choice and you’re genuinely happy with that, I think that’s living up your American dream.”

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.