Chau Cafe is a new name for the restaurant at 5052 Victoria Dr., but it's a name with a lot of history.
The new Vietnamese restaurant has replaced the vegan spot Chau Veggie Express, though Chau Café is more of a continuation, owner and chef Maria Huynh tells V.I.A. That's because her family also owned Chau Veggie there and at other locations over the past several years.
While the Granville Island location of the former Chau Veggie Express is still being revamped, the Victoria Drive location is open now with a few noteworthy changes, including the name, which has a lot of meaning for the Huynh family.
Chau restaurants in Vancouver over the years
"My mom and my dad escaped Vietnam after the Vietnam War and ended up on an island in Indonesia," Huynh tells V.I.A. "They lived there for two years, and they opened up a coffee and congee house in the refugee camp called Cafe Chau."
The original Chau restaurant, Cafe Chau, opened in 1978; a couple of years later, the family moved to Canada, eventually settling in Vancouver. It was in the Strathcona neighbourhood that Huynh's mom, Chau, started making and selling meatballs.
The meatballs became so popular that the Huynhs opened a deli in the neighbourhood.
"We actually were the first Vietnamese deli that supplied all the restaurants and grocery stores in Chinatown," says Huynh.
Over the years, the family were serial entrepreneurs; they sold the deli and started a series of other restaurants that they sold along the way, with names like Bao Chau or My Chao. Huynhh had her own place, Chau Kitchen and Bar, on Robson Street for a while.
"We just opened up all these random restaurants and then sold them off. So our background is more than just Chau Veggie," explains Huynh.
Most recently, the family ran Chau Veggie Express on Victoria and inside the Granville Island Public Market for more than a dozen years. Those restaurants closed at the end of 2024.
Transitioning from Chau Veggie to Chau Café
Following her father's death, Huynh felt it might be time for another change.
The change involved, fittingly, meatballs.
"I was with my kids and my mom, and she was sharing all these stories about the meatball itself, about her experience in Indonesia, and how she and my dad always wished to go back to pray."
Huynh and her mom made the journey to revisit the refugee camp. It is in a remote part of Indonesia, and while travel wasn't easy and they came back exhausted, the trip helped them find direction.
"We knew we were closing [the restaurants] and that we needed to close the chapter with Chau Veggie entirely," says Huynh. "It took us having to go on this trip to think about how we wanted to make a living, and also express ourselves."
The new Chau Cafe
They ended up evolving the idea of Chau Veggie, keeping much of the plant-based menu, but also adding some dishes with ethically sourced meat. Making dishes simple and healthy was also an important factor, Huynh says.
The chef says she and her mom "fight over the recipes all the time," mainly because Huynh prefers a "less is more" approach.
"We're trying to still make it tasty, but we want to make it healthier."
She notes that Chau is a place where her family eats, including her children, and she wants to feel good about what they're eating.
For now, Chau Cafe is continuing to evolve with the Huynhs spending time in the kitchen, working out dishes.
"We're trying to find that happy medium right now," says Huynh.
At the same time, Chau Cafe is also an expression of the family, though Huynh admits it's fun and scary to be that vulnerable.
"I wanted it to be an open canvas of 'this is who we are,'" Huynh says. "This is our story."
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