Chefs of Aurora Summer Speaker Series at the Aurora History Museum: Chef Thoa

 

This summer the Aurora History Museum is doing a speaker series that is bring in local chefs to talk about their life experiences and food. The great thing about this series is that the speakers that the museum are bring in come from all different backgrounds and cultures. I had the chance to catch one of these which hosted Chef Thoa who runs Bánh & Butter Bakery Café. 

Notes From Lecture:

-Bánh & Butter Bakery Café is an Asian fusion café. (I have been talking about food fusions for years and many people think I'm crazy that do not have connections to the food industry. Food fusions are where foods from different cultures are mixed together to create a new food that may or may not resemble either of its parts.)

-She was at the family restaurant growing up more then she was at home. Many of her childhood memories are from the restaurant and these have impacted her life.

-She started her formal education at John & Wales University before it went out of business. Then she went to France to do a 5 month intensive program.

-She said that you always have to think about financial stability.

    ~She had to take a job at Whole Foods to get her financial stability back & to regain her love of baking back after some life issues had impacted her love of food.

-She started teaching remotely at Escoffier.

    ~covid changed everything: it encouraged people to learn in different ways and to teach themselves.

-She focuses on creating job opportunities.

-Supports other local businesses by sharing her space with local artists and other businesses while not taking a cut of their sales.

For a sample from her café she brought in mini eclairs.

 At one point during her talk she talked about trying to figure out the pricing on her products because she chooses to use high quality baking goods instead of standard baking goods. She talked about how her family's restaurant on Federal may charge $6 for a Banh mi sandwich because of the competition on Federal when it comes to Asian foods, but that she felt like in her are she could charge $13 and be fine. To me this showed a real disconnect with the community where her shop is. First off there is a lot of competition in Aurora when it comes to Asian food. I have spent most of my life in Aurora and have watched it evolve from a highly Hispanic community to a highly Asian one. It now seems that every week we have a new Asian restaurant, desert shop, or boba place opening and our market is supersaturated with Asian options. With this all the restaurants have to keep their prices competitive in order to keep customers since there are so many options in Aurora. The second part of that is how much money the community has. Aurora is actually very similar with the Federal area for how much money the people have. It is not a wealthy area like say Cheery Creek North where charging $13 for a sandwich would be fine. The people of Aurora are not in that wealthy area and with inflation having higher prices will scare off customers. This is why Chef Thoa really needs to reevaluate her prices in relation to her area since there is a major disconnect. Her café is located in the same location where Third Culture used to be and they had to close down because people were not willing to pay high prices. They ended up killing their own business in that area. I have heard that they are doing well on the West Coast where there is the chance for customers with more money. 

If nothing else this panel was at least interesting and showed how life in the food industry isn't a straight path and that in order to be in it people must be flexible and willing to make major changes in their lives in order to grow as a Chef.

Also as a side note, the Aurora History Museum also had an exhibit up that was looking at local restaurants and businesses. I liked how they made sure to include some, like this Mmart one, that showed the diversity of Aurora.