All Chay

Address: 1264 West 500 North

Telephone: 801-521-4789

Website: all-chay.hey-restaurants.com

District: Fairpark

 

“My parents have always been so supportive of all of my dreams.” For Trung Tham, that freedom ultimately led him somewhere he never expected - back home and into the family business his mother had built from the ground up. Long before Trung stepped behind the counter of All Chay, the vegan Vietnamese restaurant his mother created, he watched his parents build a life in Salt Lake City from very little, work tirelessly for their family and, most importantly, give their children the freedom to determine their own futures.

All Chay, which means “all vegan,” opened in Rose Park in March 2015 when Trung’s mother and uncle decided to take a chance on a restaurant space in a building she already owned. Other businesses had occupied the space before them, but none had lasted. By then, taking chances was hardly unfamiliar territory. Trung’s mother fled Vietnam with her older brother, spent a year in Taiwan, and was eventually sponsored to come to the United States. His father also escaped Vietnam, arriving in Utah, where an aunt was already living. His parents met through mutual friends while attending Salt Lake Community College, married and raised Trung and his older brother in Salt Lake City.

Their early years here involved whatever work was available. Trung remembers his mother working factory jobs, including sewing, while his father studied electrical engineering. His father could build and repair anything, while his mother had the entrepreneurial instincts that would eventually lead the family into real estate and small business ownership. “My parents are a great team,” Trung says. “The brain, the hard work, the mechanics of it all.”

After Trung’s brother was born, his mother began looking for a way to work for herself and have greater flexibility to raise her children. She started acquiring property and becoming a landlord. One of those properties was the small commercial building on 500 North where All Chay sits today. It was also a neighborhood Trung knew well. Next door, his parents once operated DNTSales (named for their sons) selling toys. Trung spent hours there after school, growing up in and around the businesses his parents were steadily creating. “They’ve always been go-getters,” he says. “I feel very lucky.”

That determination extended far beyond their immediate household. Trung’s maternal grandmother had thirteen children in Vietnam. His mother and her oldest brother were the first two to leave, and over the years, his mother worked to help bring her other siblings to Utah. Most eventually settled here, while Trung’s grandmother, who visited the United States but preferred Vietnam, returned home. There, she built a large house with enough room for her children and grandchildren to return whenever they could. His father, who came from a smaller family, similarly helped other family members make their way to the United States. For Trung, their story is inseparable from the way he understands his own life. His parents never pressured either of their sons to follow a particular path or take over the businesses they had created. 

And Trung’s dream had nothing to do with restaurants. As a child growing up near the Jordan River, he loved being outdoors, riding his bicycle and drawing. His father was artistic and would ask Trung to name an animal, then draw it for him from memory. Trung began drawing as well, eventually becoming fascinated with anime, character design and, increasingly, what those characters were wearing.

By middle school, Trung was drawing paper dolls and designing their clothes. One teacher noticed and told him something that would alter the direction of his life - people did that for a living. “What do you mean?” Trung remembers saying. “She told me that there are fashion designers. And that really stuck with me.” An after-school program through YouthCity gave him his first opportunity to sew. At West High School, he took every sewing class available, undeterred when one teacher gently pointed out that he was the only boy in the room. "I didn't care."

When Trung exhausted the school’s sewing courses, he went to his guidance counselor looking for something more. That led to an internship with Ballet West during his senior year where he spent hours working with costumes and tutus while earning school credit. From there came a scholarship to Salt Lake Community College and its fashion program. Trung was not ready to leave Utah, and SLCC gave him time to develop both the technical skills and confidence he needed. Eventually, he headed to Parsons School of Design, initially studying for a year at its Paris campus before transferring to New York. Paris provided experience and exposure - New York pushed him creatively. Trung immersed himself in fashion, interned with a company he admired, and appeared to be headed toward exactly the career he had imagined since middle school.

Then came 2020. Trung graduated during the pandemic without the traditional culmination of a fashion education he had anticipated. Classes moved online, collections went unfinished and the fashion show that would normally showcase graduating students’ work disappeared along with so much else. At the same time, he found himself thinking increasingly about Utah.

A  fashion company had, in fact, offered him a position, leaving Trung with a decision. He could remain in New York and begin the career for which he had trained. Or he could return to Salt Lake where his mother was ready to step away from All Chay, and another generation of the family was preparing to take over. “I had to decide, do I want to stay with this emerging brand, which was pretty cool, or do I want to go back to Utah and be able to take over the restaurant?” He chose home, and was quick to add, “I don’t regret it."

Trung returned to Salt Lake and became co-owner of All Chay with his cousin, Thinh Nguyen. Neither transition nor restaurant ownership was instantaneous. Trung spent the first months learning every piece of the business, working constantly, and calling his mother whenever he was overwhelmed or simply did not know how to do something. Today, his mom is largely retired, spending time in her garden, traveling and returning to Vietnam for months at a time to be with Trung’s grandmother. She still visits All Chay, although her role has changed considerably. “I feel like she’s a little bit of a celebrity,” Trung says. Longtime customers recognize her when she walks through the door. These days, he jokes, she can come in to enjoy the garden and eat “her food” rather than cook it.

The menu she developed has remained remarkably consistent, built around vegan interpretations of Vietnamese dishes including pho, banh mi, noodle salads, rice dishes, spring rolls, and egg rolls. The pho is still one of Trung’s favorites, its vegetable-based broth simmering for hours to create the richness normally associated with a traditional beef broth. The banh mi sandwiches are especially popular in summer, while colder weather sends more customers toward steaming bowls of soup. What surprises Trung most is how many customers are not vegan at all. “Some people will come in and they’re very surprised, saying ‘Oh my gosh, your food is amazing. I didn’t realize it was vegan until the third time.’”

Trung's mother chose an entirely vegan menu in part because of her own beliefs and lifestyle, even when members of the extended family questioned whether such a restaurant could succeed. It did, and eventually other relatives opened their own vegan restaurants, taking what began at All Chay and adapting it in different ways.

At the original restaurant, however, Trung wanted to preserve what his mother had created while finding room for himself within it. His photographs from travels through Vietnam now hang on the walls. He designed the mural outside, and has organized art evenings, DJs, dance parties, and events featuring Asian artists. Local vendors have filled the parking lot, artists have displayed their work and, on at least one occasion, a tattoo artist set up in a corner of the restaurant. “I just really want to make a fun space.”

The building itself has evolved too, aided by city programs and grants that have helped bring a patio, lighting, an awning, new windows, signage and, most recently, solar panels. Trung is particularly grateful for the support because he knows how differently his mother began. “My mom started this clearly by herself,” he says. “So, it’s really cool to see people helping us if there’s a possibility.”

Most importantly, All Chay remains what it has always been - a family affair. Cousins have worked there while attending college and moved on when new opportunities arose, and younger cousins have followed behind them. Trung and Thinh share responsibility for the restaurant, allowing one another enough flexibility to travel and pursue interests beyond the business.

For Trung, one of those interests has brought his story impossibly full circle. A few years after returning to Utah, he received a call from Salt Lake Community College inviting him back - this time as an instructor. The school where his parents first met and where Trung himself learned the technical foundations of fashion design is now where he teaches intermediate and advanced sewing. Among the materials he uses is a sample book he saved from June, one of his beloved professors who has since passed away. Today, Trung teaches from the same samples she once used to teach him. “I have such respect for educators; I have a list of people who have really shaped who I am.”

Teaching allows Trung to remain connected to fashion without surrendering his life to it. He encourages his students to master the fundamentals, then gives them space to experiment, push boundaries and discover their own voices. Watching them produce their final collections and take part in fashion shows provides some of the creative fulfillment he once imagined finding exclusively through his own work.

Trung continues to design when inspiration strikes and participates occasionally in Salt Lake’s fashion community. At All Chay, meanwhile, his creativity appears in entirely different forms - a photograph, a mural, an event, a rearranged room, or a gathering that turns the family restaurant into something unexpected for an evening. It is not the life Trung imagined when he left Utah for Paris and New York, but increasingly it feels like the one he was meant to build. “I think this is part of my dream now,” he says. “I’m happy setting roots in Salt Lake. That is when he reminds himself exactly whose son he is. "My mom did this. I can do it too.”