Why are there so many Vietnamese pho restaurants at one Fresno intersection?
When the owner of a popular Vietnamese restaurant opened his first Fresno restaurant about 13 years ago, he didn’t mind that there were already four pho restaurants at the same intersection.
Nho Kitchen, at McKinley and First avenues, initially started as a side hustle for George Quach, 53, and his wife, Tiffany Le. They served coffee, breakfast and pho so that Vietnamese elders would have a place to hang out and play Chinese chess, he said in an interview.
But about six years ago, the couple decided to expand their business and open a full-service restaurant, Quach said. This helped them stand out at the Mayfair Shopping Center, which already had three pho restaurants: Pho #1, Pho 99 and Pho 75 #2.
What makes Nho Kitchen stand out is its dishes like Bahn mi bò né: sizzling steak and eggs served with pate and daily-made bread to sop it all up.
“We’re flattered customers are willing to wait 30 minutes just to eat pho,” Quach said.
Pho is a popular Vietnamese soup consisting of a clear broth, thin rice noodles and a protein, either beef, chicken or seafood. The dish was popularized globally after the Vietnam War thanks to the refugees that brought the dish with them across the world. Pho restaurants are typically numbered after an important year in the owner’s history, such as the year the restaurant opened.
Quach, originally from Vietnam, grew up in Fresno’s Mayfair neighborhood in the 1980s.
“I grew up around this area,” Quach said. “This was central for all the pho spots.”
A former bank employee, Quach said he decided to turn his love of cooking into a business. Quach’s philosophy is that he won’t serve anything he wouldn’t eat. He and his wife test recipes at home on their family.
And his emphasis on quality, fresh ingredients is paying off. Today, Nho Kitchen has about 30 to 40 employees at its two locations. Quach said he’s considering an expansion to Madera.
Jonathan Sanchez used to frequent one of the neighboring pho spots when he decided to try Nho Kitchen about three years ago. On a drizzly December afternoon, he ordered a seafood lunch while dining with his family.
“This is my favorite spot now,” he said, noting that the restaurant is “always full.”
The restaurant, open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. is packed every day with nurses, city staff, sheriffs, and CalTrans employees and other locals looking for a good meal, Quach said.
“We have all the authentic Vietnamese dishes,” he said. “All the other ones, it’s only pho.”
Five Vietnamese, pho restaurants on one Fresno block
Fresno’s pho corner got its start organically, according to Mayfair Shopping Center’s owner Ted Caldwell, who has owned the commercial plaza since 1980.
He credits the success of its businesses to the central location and heavy traffic flow on First street before Highway 41 was constructed. Caldwell estimates there used to be 55,000 cars a day driving past the intersection, and these passersby wanted to place to eat.
With all that activity, passersby wanted to start at eat and various types of Asian food businesses started moving in, including Vietnamese spots and the popular Thai Phuket Thai eatery.
“One store was successful, and then another one wanted to come in, and it just kind of grew,” he said.
Caldwell thinks it’s a good spot for small business because the rent is reasonable, the building has had several upgrades over the years and the stores are “right up near the street” as opposed to modern shopping centers where smaller stores pushed to the back away from the street. But he didn’t really have an explanation as to why there are so many pho restaurants in his plaza.
“I didn’t give it much thought,” Caldwell said. “It kind of happened naturally.”
This cluster of restaurants has taken on a life of their own.
Customers mourned when Pho 75 briefly closed its doors in 2018 after a dispute over the lease agreement. The restaurant reopened about a month later in part thanks to the outpouring of support from the community.
Locals regularly debate in food-related Facebook groups where the best pho is in Fresno, and usually one of the spots at Mayfair Center spot is on the list.
Fresno poet Joseph Rios, the city’s former poet laureate, even memorialized this Fresno pho corner in a 2023 poem dedicated to the city.
“Fresno is / a holy well under a mini mall /on McKinley and First that becomes the magical Pho /sold at each of the five restaurants there.”
Pho 75, a longtime favorite
Gina Saiyasane grew up eating at Pho 75. When she was 15 years old, she started waitressing there.
Today, she is the restaurant’s general manager.
She thinks the restaurant, which she said was the first pho spot at the Mayfair shopping center has survived for more than 30 years due to its decades-loyal customers.
“We used to do the late night hours there we were open ‘til three or four o’clock in the morning,” Saiyasane said in an interview. “Everybody would go there late at night. It would be the spot to go after the clubs,” she said.
These customers grew older, started having families and then brought their children in for their first bowl of pho.
“People have a lot of great memories there,” she said.
Pho 75 opened in 1993. The name likely commemorate 1975 being the year that marked the end of the Vietnam War, Saiyasane said.
Saiyasane said the Mayfair plaza’s location was a natural place for pho businesses to thrive due to its location near popular community anchors like southeast Asian grocery stores and the office of Fresno Immigrant and Refugee Ministries, an organization that has supported Hmong, Lao and other refugees since 1994.
“And then with Fresno being diverse, you bring in not just Southeast Asians you bring in your other cultures and ethnicities,“ Saiyasane said.
Pho 75 Owner Jose Magallanes purchased the restaurant from its original owners in 2018. He said that while its under Hispanic ownership, the flavors are still the same.
“The original Vietnamese cooks — they’re still there,” he said.
Mayfair’s property manager Kim Rumbaugh said the cluster of restaurants is popular beyond Fresno city limits.
Once, while getting a manicure at a Vietnamese-owned nail salon in Visalia, she mentioned she worked in Fresno “where all those pho restaurants are.”
“They (the nail technicians) all knew exactly where I was talking about,” she said.
