Not long after arriving in St. Louis as a refugee with her husband and young son, Lee Tran opened Mai Lee (8396 Musick Memorial) in 1985. Tran had no professional restaurant experience, little knowledge of English, and no background in running a business. What she did have was a passion for both her Vietnamese culinary heritage and hospitality, which she turned into one of St. Louis’ most beloved and essential restaurants. Now, 40 years into Mai Lee’s run, Lee and her husband, Sau, reflect on how far they’ve come and what they hope to give back to the St. Louis community they feel has given them so much.
You had an unimaginable journey from Vietnam to St. Louis. Can you tell us the story?
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Sau Tran: I was in the South Vietnamese Army before the Communists took over in 1975. After that, I had to stay for a few years, but we wanted to leave. It was very difficult; my brother and my uncle were killed, but it was difficult to get out because you had to escape in secret by boat. It cost a lot of money to do that, and we didn’t have any, but our friends and family got some together so me, my wife [Lee], and son [Qui] could leave. It was very dangerous. We had to leave at nighttime and got on a boat with 163 other people to a refugee camp in Malaysia, but they were overcrowded and turned us away. We had no working motor on the boat, no food, no water, and were out to sea for four days. We didn’t think we would survive and all started praying together because we didn’t know what else to do. On the fourth day, we saw dark clouds—it rained, and we were able to gather the rainwater in our shirts and wring them out, so we had something to drink. Then, we saw a big ship in the distance coming toward us. It was the Indonesian navy. They stopped for us, gave us food and water, and helped fix our boat, so we were able to make it to the Indonesian refugee camp. We feel so lucky we survived. Most people who left Vietnam by boat did not survive.
What was it like once you got to the United States?
Lee Tran: Neither of us knew any English, but we were sponsored by the Unitarian Church on Waterman and Kingshighway. They helped us a lot, especially a church member, Jean Dean, who came to our home and taught us all English.
How did you come to open Mai Lee?
LT: I was working at a tie factory downtown, but I knew I wanted to do something more, especially because I wanted to help my family back in Vietnam. I’d made friends here with a woman named Mai, and one day, she called me up and told me that she wanted to open a restaurant. She knew English better than me, but I knew how to cook—not professionally, but I was a good home cook. We teamed up to open Mai Lee, but Mai decided to go in a different direction pretty quickly, so I ended up taking over the restaurant completely.
Mai Lee was originally a Chinese restaurant. What made you add Vietnamese cuisine to the menu?
LT: When we first opened, business was not good at all. About a year in, I thought it would be a good idea to expand the menu and add Vietnamese dishes because I wanted to show my culture and heritage.
ST: At the time, there was no one really serving Vietnamese food in St. Louis. Because of that, Joe Pollock from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch came in to try it and write a review. He said it was very good, and we got a lot of new business after that.
LT: It was a turning point for us. After that, business got really good, and we had more and more people coming in for the Vietnamese dishes.
Forty years is a long time for a restaurant to be open. What do you think is the reason for your success?
LT: Family is very important to us, and we wanted to create an environment and atmosphere where people could feel loved and welcomed. When I cook, I put all of the love into the food like I learned to do from my mother and family who taught me. We also truly love to host people and take care of people. It means everything to us to take care of our customers and watch as their families come in over the years. Some of them have been coming for our entire 40 years in business. They were children, and now they have children.
ST: They know us, and we know them. Sometimes, we just sit and talk with them like they are family—a lot of the people who come here call me “Dad,” we are so close. We really feel that we owe so much to the people of St. Louis. They’ve helped our family in so many ways. We’ve worked hard and do the best that we can, but we feel we owe our success to the people of this community.
What still keeps you going after all of these years? I know you haven’t slowed down.
LT: Not at all. I still work six days a week, sometimes 14 hours a day. It’s hard work, but I love what I do, and I hope my health stays strong, so I can keep doing it for a long time. The amount of support we get from our community is what keeps me going. Seeing people come in every day and making them happy is what makes it all worth it.
How do you plan on celebrating your 40-year anniversary?
ST: Time goes by so fast, and now that I am retired from Jamco, I’m able to be here all of the time to help her and spend time with our customers. We’re still working out what we will do to celebrate, but we definitely want to do something for the people who have supported us for so many years. When we think back on the struggle to get here and then being able to make it here, even though we didn’t know what path our life was going to take, it makes us so thankful.
LT: We are just so honored and happy that our customers still support us. We are also grateful for our employees who have helped us through the years and that our children—Linda, Qui, and Sara—are all still involved in the business. There was no blueprint for what we did, but it worked, so we want to do something to let St. Louis know how much we appreciate them.
