Despite starting a business from scratch, 33-year-old Le Thai Hoang has succeeded in developing and operating a chain of 5 Thai restaurants named ‘Thai Market’ in Da Nang thanks to his great efforts and sensitivity in business.

Hoang’s Thai Market restaurants are always crowded with people

After failing university entrance examinations twice, Mr Hoang travelled to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) to work at a construction site as a worker. Sometime later, he made his ceaseless efforts to attend an intermediate accounting course whilst doing his job in HCMC.

His great efforts and nimbleness, then, were paid off as he became a building contractor that enabled him to save a good amount of money.  

In early 2012, whilst making friends with a Thai food chef, Hoang decided to quit his current job to learn how to cook delicious Thai dishes.

After that, Hoang returned his hometown in Da Nang. In December 2012, he opened the first Thai restaurant at Da Nang’s Indochina Riverside building on Bach Dang. However, at that time, Thai food was not much popular with local residents. Therefore, he had to cook beef noodles for sale in the morning in order to offset the losses to maintain the operation of his Thai restaurant.

In 2013, when the trend of eating Thai hot pot was growing, his Thai restaurant was always crowded with gourmets.  

In attempting to introduce more Thai food to locals, Hoang prepared some new dishes such as grilled food, green papaya salads, and tom yum soup.

In order to buy fresh ingredients, he had to go to the Tho Quang fishing wholesale market in Son Tra District at 2.00am to buy seafood, and the Hoa Cuong wholesale market at 4.00am to buy fruits and vegetables.

Telling about being charmed with Thai food, Hoang said he chose Thai recipes because they looked very attractive and shared many similarities with Vietnamese cuisine. In addition to learning from professional chefs at Thai restaurants in HCMC, Hoang travelled to around Thailand in order to try this country’s specialities. Through his trips to Thailand, he took the initiative to create his own recipes for Thai dishes to suit Vietnamese people’s taste.

Recently, Mr Hoang opened his 5^th Thai restaurant at 183 Nguyen Van Thoai, Son Tra District, with a more modern and professional style.

Starting a business from nothing, Hoang has to date developed into a chain of five Thai restaurants in the city. All of them have been operating effectively with a large and stable number of customers.

His restaurants are serving about 50 famous dishes of Thailand such as green papaya salads, tom yam soup, Thai-style fried rice and hot pot. Apart from the above-mentioned dishes, the talented chef Hoang can prepare vegetarian dishes to meet the needs of customers.

Hoang is planning to expand his restaurant chain into the city. He remarked that if young people do their utmost to overcome all challenges, they can start a business without money and achieve success.