Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 10, 1994 TAG: 9402110012
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The real Mr. Su, Nam Su, is a savvy, hard-working restaurateur who has parlayed a combination of luck and diligence into a successful business.
Su is one of eight children. He is tall, narrow and handsome. Not to mention sharply dressed in striped shirts, mod ties, pleated pants and loafers.
The son of a Chinese father and a Vietnamese mother, he speaks the languages of both parents with ease, but his English has a thick Vietnamese accent.
With a family that size, it's no surprise that Su runs a family business; at times, family and business seem inseparable.
All 10 Sus came to the United States in 1975, a rare circumstance. After drifting in a boat on the Pacific Ocean with hundreds of other refugees for five or 10 days - Su isn't sure how many - they were picked up by a U.S. Navy ship.
``It's kind of bad when you're trying to survive,'' Su said. ``People were climbing over top of each other to get on the ship.''
They were taken to the Philippines, then to Guam. Finally they reached Pennsylvania, where they stayed in a refugee camp for several months until they could find a sponsor.
They found one in Roanoke's First Presbyterian Church and Natalie Foster, now Natalie Foster Lemon.
At a church conference in North Carolina in August 1975, Lemon learned of the plight of the Vietnamese refugees on American military bases and immediately went to work to help.
``It was going to be winter soon, and we knew they'd be cold in those barracks,'' she said.
Ironically, Lemon said, the fact that the entire Su family was together kept them from being placed sooner. ``I guess nobody wanted to take a group that big.''
The Sus moved into a house owned by Lemon, who volunteered it to the church. Several Su family members still rent the house and will be buying it soon, according to Lemon.
Su was 10 when he came to the United States.
He's just 28 now, but he's been around the restaurant business for nearly half his life.
Lemon said Su is cut out to be a restaurateur. ``He's always been a personality boy.''
Su started in food service as a busboy at the now defunct Bogart's Restaurant on Franklin Road when he was in the ninth grade. ``I worked until two o'clock in the morning, two or three days a week,'' Su said.
He had a brief stint in community college and has worked in just about every aspect of the restaurant business; as a kitchen helper at Kabuki; a waiter at Hunan; and at 22, co-owner, with Willis Yang, of Shogun, which he claims was the first sushi restaurant in Roanoke.
In 1989, Su opened Mr. Su's Oriental Market on Kirk Avenue in downtown Roanoke, selling cooking staples, chopsticks and cassette tapes, among other items.
After a year and a half, the market became Mr. Su's Chinese and Vietnamese Restaurant. Su tired of making two or three trips a month to New York and Washington, D.C., for stock, and the small restaurant he set up in the back of the store quickly outran the retail part of the business.
Mr. Su's has been a family run business from the start. Su has two partners, his sister, Sue, formerly Ba, and her husband, Minh Dinh, another Vietnamese refugee.
A brother, Sung, also known as Sean, waits tables in the restaurant, and just about everyone in the family has helped out in some way, Su said.
Mr. Su's re-opened Oct. 24 in the old Wright Furniture building on the Roanoke City Market, still serving a mixture of Chinese and Vietnamese dishes.
Su picked up his Chinese recipes here and there in his restaurant career, but the Vietnamese recipes belong to his partner and brother-in-law, Dinh, who also is the chef.
They're authentic, ``the way we eat at home,'' Su said, not toned downed for Americans.
Mr. Su's is doing well in its new location, which, with its high ceilings, pristine white walls and rustic wooden wainscotting, seems cavernous compared to the Kirk Avenue location.
``So far, it's a total success . . . everybody likes it,'' Su said. ``It's a real uptown look. Everybody says so.''
Su spends 12 to 16 hours a day in the restaurant. Married in July, he joked that he is 65 years old already. ``I don't have time for my wife,'' he said.
But family and heritage remain important to him. His father, 94, lives with him and his new bride, Nhanh. Su remains active in the Vietnamese support group he helped found in 1992, though he doesn't have the time for it he once had.
``I wish I had stayed in [college],'' Su said.
For now, though, he's in the restaurant business.
The long hours are wearing on him, but he is persistent about his work.
``This is the final go for me,'' he said. ``I'd like to get out of it, but it's all I have. It's part of my family, so I want to help it be a success.''
by CNB