Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Huynh.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
It all started a few years ago as a dream back in Iowa where chef Taylor, my business partner and I are from. We were both professional wedding photographers, but deep down Taylor always had a passion for cooking. I was looking for a new challenge and adventure so here we are today. Fu Manchung opened up doors on August 1st, 2017 here in the northern part of Spring, TX on FM2920, Suite 210. I had moved here 2.5 years ago and heard Houston was a big foodie city. I started over by working for my sister and brother in law’s full-service restaurant for one month to learn more about the restaurant business. After that, I needed more experience and worked for a chain restaurant up in the Woodlands for another eight months to learn the back of the kitchen flow and operations from washing dishes to line cooking. I finally convinced Taylor to move here with his wife as I wanted to partner up with him knowing he had a deep passion to cook. It doesn’t hurt to know that Taylor is also my father in law. So, keeping this in the family was important to me. Trust is important and I had experienced eating his unique style cooking from Vietnamese to Chinese and American inspired cuisine. Though we had never run a restaurant before, I knew if we could bring his style of cooking along with our wedding customer service skills, it would be a win-win. How we landed here or chose Spring, TX is by chance and fate. Serendipity is how I’d like to call it.
So, it has been 8 or so months in the making. All I can say is, it’s been a challenge and worthwhile experience. And we have had so much support from the surrounding community and foodie group members. Fu Manchung is not only a Vietnamese based cuisine with a little twist, but it’s a little warm friendly place where you can relax and enjoy some home-style cooked meals made from scratch with fresh ingredients. Each dish has its own signature sauce and all our crispy rolls are homemade and individually hand rolled by my mother in law, Joni. We have a hybrid dine-in concept where lunch is casual counter service where you order at the counter, pay, and seat yourself from 11-3pm, then we close from 3-5pm to clean house front to back kitchen and prepare for dinner meals. We open back up for dinner from 5-9pm with full service and not to mention, it’s BYOB all day. We are closed on Sundays as chef Taylor goes grocery shopping after church with his wife to hand-select the fresh produce and ingredients for the week.
We are here today only because of the love and support of those that have dined in and have spread the word to their friends and family. We love to meet new guests and see our regulars that sometimes come in to dine at least once a week! We are not near perfect as this is our first little family restaurant, but we do care and strive for the best possible experience when you choose to dine here. We have a deeper underlying goal and purpose for this place, which can be found on our website at (www.fumanchung.com) We hope y’all come check us out soon in the near future and allow your taste buds to be pleasantly surprised. Best time to avoid the crowds is from 5-6: 30 pm and after 8 pm. We have only 15 tables and a small kitchen we inherited from the previous restaurant so patience is key, but it’s well worth the wait.
Thank you for allowing me to share our brief story and if you’d like to know more about us, come on to our little restaurant home sometime. We hope to serve you some yummy for your tummy!
Has it been a smooth road?
Life was never meant to be a walk in the park. Opening a restaurant seemed impossible three years ago when we were still living in Iowa. But we are here today, open and operating, so dreams do come true. Overall, it’s been a smooth journey. I don’t know how to explain it, but with our strong faith and much prayers, everything fell into place like clockwork. Of course, dealing with the day to day planning leading up to opening was all new to me so it was quite a learning experience with all the permitting and remodel build out.
One of the challenges I still face today on a weekly basis revolves around staffing. Finding good employees and training them to produce and be similar to your style of service is tough. Secondly, the turnover for these part-time employees is high, so finding passionate team members who share the same vision is rare. Most of the times, it’s just a paycheck to them. But, I treat them like family so we do cook a family meal at the end of each night to share a meal together.
Another struggle is we didn’t realize how important the size of a kitchen is compared to the dining space. We took over a space that had a very tiny kitchen so it’s tough sometimes to keep up with the demand when it’s getting busier, but most of our guests seem to understand and are very patient.
But we’ve kept our menu simplified to focus on our family favorites & unique dishes so that has helped us in finding a balanced medium.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Fu Manchung is not your traditional Asian Vietnamese restaurant. We have our own FU style with a little fusion and other Asian inspired dishes from Thai, Chinese, and American. We specialize in making most of our meals from scratch with fresh ingredients and probably one of the best Vietnamese crispy eggrolls around. We have a few unique items such as “Pho-rollees,” that nowhere else here in Houston has that we are aware of. We married our Spring roll with our dry Pho ingredients and you dip it in our Pho broth and add some sriracha and hoisin and magic happens in your mouth if you like those two traditional meals. We also have “Macarollees,” where we make homemade mac n cheese with ham bits and rolled it up in the eggrolls wrap, deep fried, and you can dip with sweet baby Rays BBQ sauce.
We are also known for our beef based Pho, which is the traditional rice noodle soup. We don’t add MSG and the broth is stewed overnight from lots of beef bone marrow and we make our beef meatballs from scratch for this soup.
We are so grateful and thankful for the team members who have put in the hours to help us get to where we are today. From our kitchen Fu Cru to the wait staff up front, we set ourselves apart from most places based on our attentive and friendly service. Our motto here is: “walk in happy, walk out happier!” We treat you like our family and there are no televisions on so you can actually focus on each other and the delicious food that chef Taylor prepares and cooks. We also have great music in the background from classic rock, the eighties, to soul/jazz at dinner time. I believe our deep passion for food and service helps set us apart and we care about our guest’s experience and our team members.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think Houston and the surrounding cities and communities is a great place for a small business to start out. We are a living example of it. With such a diverse population and love for food and choices, it makes it easier for such a business to survive and thrive. I don’t see other similar places as competitors as every family business has their own story and uniqueness. I tell those who ask me if I’m afraid of the similar restaurants to ours, and my response is, I only look to compete with myself and set our own standards and not look at what others are doing. Be unique in your own way and focus on what we do best.
I believe it is through such news outlets and social media like this where the city can help showcase such a small new family business to help get the word out. Word out of mouth always works but that takes time. But such interviews like this get the word out quickly and for that, we are so appreciative of this opportunity to share our story.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3416 FM2920 Suite 210
Spring, TX 77388 - Website: www.FuManchung.com
- Phone: 832-791-5873
- Email: info@fumanchung.com
- Instagram: @fumanchung
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