The International Examiner is proud to honor Thanh-Nga “Tanya” Nguyễn with a Community Voice Award (CVA) for a Leadership in Business Award. Please join us in-person, on October 23, 2025, to celebrate her and other community leaders.
There is no business quite like Little Saigon’s Chu Minh Tofu Deli. Thanh-Nga Nguyễn—or Chef Tanya as she’s known—is a Buddhist lay nun who operates Chu Minh on an entirely different currency, in an economy of love and compassion.
At their two locations—the deli on 12th and Jackson in the Chinatown-International District (CID) and the second location in Columbia City (also the site of the family’s tofu company)—Chu Minh serves up veganized Vietnamese mainstays like bánh mì, phố, fresh rolls, and rice and noodle dishes, as well as a popular buffet. Chu Minh is also known for their free Sunday meals for anyone in need, run by a mutual aid group of volunteers known as the “Eggrolls.”
During Chu Minh’s beginning in 2011, Nguyễn would give free food to anyone who asked. Then, around 2018, she had a realization at a Buddhist temple. She saw people giving out food and thought: why not do that at Chu Minh? Nguyễn found an opportunity to help and opened the door for a community to follow.
“If you can get past the thinking [of], ‘We can collect as much money as we can,’ if you can get past that, then you will see so much beauty,” said Nguyễn. She considers her customers—both those who can pay and those who can’t—her “teachers.”
“Money is only one thing, but past that, you have your mind and your heart, and that lasts longer,” she said. “The love that we have for each other, the care that even when we do this little thing [giving free food], it comes back so beautifully. When you pass away, you take that happiness with you. If you make a lot of money, you cannot bring that with you. You leave it here, but the love and the happiness you can carry with you.”
Before Chu Minh
Before operating the restaurant, Nguyễn dreamed of being a pediatric doctor. Her family had a tofu company in Đà Lạt, Vietnam, and Nguyễn went to medical school in Saigon.
“[After] I finished my first year of medical school, my dad and my mom decided to go to America. I had to give up [school in Saigon] because I had to follow them; they are my priority,” she said.
Her parents started the tofu business in Columbia City shortly after moving to Seattle in 1994. Nguyễn helped at the business part-time while she finished school at the University of Washington with a major in biochemistry. After graduation, Nguyễn worked at the UW for four years before she was recruited to help with the family business full-time.
Their family decided to open a vegetarian restaurant when they spotted an opening at 12th and Jackson in the CID.
“I didn’t know anything about opening a restaurant, just making tofu,” Nguyễn said. She also “didn’t know anything about veganism, just vegetarianism.”
Growing up in a Buddhist family, being vegetarian was normal for Nguyễn. Chu Minh’s only non-vegan ingredients were mayonnaise and yogurt, but when a regular customer introduced her to vegan mayonnaise, Nguyễn noticed soymilk was the main ingredient.
“We make soymilk,” she thought. “We can control the concentrate of soymilk.”
Soon, she was making her own version of vegan mayonnaise.
Throughout the years, Chu Minh has achieved a devoted following of vegans and non-vegans alike, inspired by the food and the generous heart behind it.
“Running a business is very hard. Hard work. Long hours. A very small [profit] margin,” Nguyễn said. ”It’s hard, but I think it’s about the community, the compassion you have. When you think of that, it gives you more energy … you can do the things you never think you can do. When the customers show up and enjoy the food and say, ‘Thank you,’ that’s everything you need. The community helps you survive.”
“It’s about all the resilience, gratitude, and the energy you have, and how you make your customers feel welcome and feel at home,” she continued.
The Eggrolls
Every Sunday at 11 a.m., the “Eggrolls” set up tables and tents in the courtyard of International Community Health Services (ICHS) at 720 8th Ave. S., just blocks away from the Chu Minh location in the CID. Every week, the group serves over 150 free meals and gives out toiletries and other supplies, such as clothes and occasionally, tents. The location has changed several times throughout the years, but the free meals have always been consistent.
Ingredients are prepped on Saturday at Chu Minh’s Columbia City location and cooked Sunday morning. Meals are packaged and brought to the ICHS courtyard. Some volunteers break away to Hoa Mai Park to distribute food and supplies there.
“It’s really a team effort,” said Eggroll Michael Rowe. “There’s a lot of moving parts that go together.”
There’s been an estimated 400 volunteers involved with meal distribution over the past six years, with about 50 people currently active.
“People look for a sense of purpose in life, and oftentimes … you want to have something that’s beyond yourself, and that’s what I find in something like this,” said Eggroll Chrisil Arackaparambil. “People I hang out with several times a week are people I’ve met here.”
Nguyễn is quick to praise the Eggrolls: “They always think about others. When it comes to helping, it’s so easy for them. It makes my heart dance … It’s so amazing. I’m so blessed, and I’m so grateful.”
“I will always remember the first time I met [Tanya]; she gave me this huge hug … after the first [Eggroll] service I came to,” said Lucy Waggoner-Wu, who has been volunteering for four years. “She said, ‘I love you,’ and she does that with so many people, but it was very genuine despite the fact that she just met me.”
Sometimes neighboring businesses like Happy Food and the Bubble Tea shop also donate food for free meals.
“The energy brings out the best in people,” Nguyễn said. “When you do something with your heart—and it’s genuine—and with compassion and consistency, the community will amplify it.”
Wealth is a Generous Heart
The currency of love and care is also good business. Nguyễn noted that during the early COVID years, a lot of her employees quit for fear of catching the virus, but Chu Minh never closed. At times, it was just her taking orders and making food, operating as takeout-only. She credits the understanding and support of her customers with enduring those unprecedented times.
“When the customers saw [me working alone], they were very patient. The community played a very big part in our survival through COVID,” said Nguyễn “That’s how we survived.”
Since then, rising costs, including rent, wages, and supplies have added more challenges to sustaining a restaurant. Nguyễn said a big help is that all of Chu Minh’s tofu products are made in-house. But the main ingredient in her success is the loyalty of her customers and sense of reciprocal love and care in the Chu Minh community—a community ready to help those in need.
For Nguyễn, unhoused people, residents, small businesses, and the city are all interconnected in Little Saigon. Unhoused people and people who use drugs aren’t to be shunned or swept away. They are just as much a part of the community as anyone else.
“They have a lot of potential, and we do too,” she said.
As the Eggrolls prove, there’s no shortage of people who want to help those in need or struggling with substance abuse disorders. Nguyễn also noted the new CID ambassador program and organizations like Friends of Little Saigon are working to involve and support businesses and community members, but Nguyễn wants to see more. She wants to see more businesses getting involved, more effort, more involvement, more consistency, and more connectivity. She sees some renewed interest from the city in helping, but wants to see consistent, long-term plans.
“If one of your children goes the wrong way, you can’t give up on your child. You need to spend more attention, more time with them. Sometimes you bring the whole village to help,” Nguyễn said. “The CID is our parents, and we are its children. [Unhoused] people are our siblings and we cannot turn away from them … we have to keep trying and be patient with them.”
“We need to do this together,” she continued. “If we come together, the businesses, the community, the CID: we will be successful.”
Her recipe for success? Start small, be consistent, invite others to help, and communicate with others who are helping too.
“If you work alone, I don’t think it’s enough,” Nguyễn said. “But if we work together and communicate regularly, ‘Oh your group should do this, my group should do that’ … and ask people to come and do it with you, you will see the difference.”
