Habits turn 8-year-old lottery ticket seller into owner of 20 beef noodle shops

In 1993, there was an 8-year-old girl from Hue who wandered the streets of Ho Chi Minh City every day selling lottery tickets to earn money to support her family in the countryside.

More than 32 years later, few people expected that the girl with difficult circumstances, living in a cramped boarding house, would be the owner of 20 beef noodle shops in Ho Chi Minh City and many other provinces and cities.

From a girl selling lottery tickets, Ms. Hanh became the owner of 20 beef noodle shops in Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ngai,... (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

"Thousand bowls" beef noodle shop

Early in the morning, Ms. Truong Thi Hanh (39 years old, from Hue City) was present at the beef noodle shop at 136 Hiep Binh (Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City). Although there are 20 beef noodle shops with more than 40 employees, the owner still does not let herself rest.

Seeing the guests come in, Ms. Hanh smiled and greeted them, signaling for the staff to come and advise on the dishes. The owner, with her sleeves rolled up, was always ready in the kitchen area, making hot bowls of noodles.

"This dish is best eaten hot. I don't feel comfortable letting someone else make it, I have to cook it myself," Ms. Hanh laughed.

The shop is busiest in the early morning and late afternoon, when workers go to and from work (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

The noodle shop owner said that each bowl of beef noodle soup costs between 40,000 and 60,000 VND. Each day, her 20 noodle shops usually serve more than 4,000 bowls. However, compared to the time before Covid-19, sales have decreased by 30-40%.

"To have a delicious bowl of beef noodle soup, the broth must be perfect. The specialty of my restaurant is the use of shrimp paste as the ingredients. The cook balances the broth so that it is not too strong but still retains its rich flavor.

Ms. Hanh said that delicious beef noodle soup depends on the richness of the broth (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

I also bring noodles and beef from my hometown. Central region cows are mostly fed grass, straw, and stubble and are not too old, so the meat is very fragrant and tender," Ms. Hanh shared.

According to Ms. Hanh, the indispensable thing when cooking beef noodle soup is the seller's heart. For each pot of broth, each kilo of meat or each stalk of onion, Ms. Hanh meticulously prepares.

Most of all, when seeing workers in difficult circumstances coming to the restaurant, Ms. Hanh also proactively gives them a little more meat so that they can eat their fill.

Ingredients such as beef and noodles are all taken from her hometown in the Central region (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

Compassion and diligence

Always smiling, Ms. Hanh suddenly became pensive when talking about her difficult past.

Born and raised in Hue, Hanh is the eldest of two younger brothers. At that time, her parents worked as traditional bamboo weavers, earning only a few thousand dong a day. They could only make up for their children’s lack of material things with love.

At the age of 6, Hanh went to the market to help her mother sell bamboo baskets. Realizing the difficult situation, the girl from Hue then took the initiative to drop out of school to help her parents.

Having a difficult childhood, Ms. Hanh never complained but considered it a motivation to rise up (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

A few years later, she followed her aunt to Ho Chi Minh City and started selling lottery tickets and boiled peanuts on the street to earn money to send back to her hometown to help her parents raise her younger siblings. Every day, she earned 10,000 VND from this job. Thinking that it was easier to make money in the city than in the countryside, she wrote a handwritten letter to her parents, asking them to come to Ho Chi Minh City with her.

"At that time, I sold lottery tickets, and because of my dark appearance, I was often looked down upon by others. I also felt sorry for myself many times when I saw children of the same age having a full life, being pampered by their parents, and being taken here and there. But I never blamed my fate because from a young age, I knew I would rise up," she confided.

At the age of 14, Ms. Hanh came up with the idea of ​​opening a pho, bun rieu, and bun bo stall to sell at Da Kao market (District 1). Thanks to her mother teaching her how to cook from a young age, her dishes have been supported by many diners.

After carrying the cart for a while, the 14-year-old owner experienced the difficulties of Saigon's unpredictable rain and sunshine.

Ms. Hanh: Anyone has the opportunity to escape poverty, the problem is to seize the opportunity that comes to you (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

"When it's sunny, I get sick, when it rains, I have to find a place to run. Many times, there was no shelter, my whole stall and I got soaked, the sticky rice was ruined and the popcorn was ruined. At that time, all I could do was cry. Because I was a street vendor, I was fired many times, it was very difficult," Ms. Hanh tearfully recalled her dream of opening a shop.

When she got married and gave birth to her first child, she could not forget the moment she borrowed money to buy a cart and took her child to sell noodles on the street. It was only later, when she was pregnant with her second child, that Ms. Hanh "bit the bullet", rented the first premises and named her beef noodle shop.

The good news spread far and wide, Ms. Hanh's beef noodle shop at that time sold hundreds of tons of noodles every day, with customers coming in and out continuously. Seeing that her relatives in the countryside were in difficult circumstances, she immediately used her own money to rent another space so that her relatives could come to Ho Chi Minh City to make a living.

Diners enjoy Hue beef noodle soup (Photo: Nguyen Vy).

Gradually, from 2 branches, her brand has now expanded to 20 branches owned by her family and 20 branches franchised by her. She also created jobs for more than 40 people, most of whom are relatives in the family, who from difficult circumstances can now take care of their children's education.

To get to where she is today, Ms. Hanh revealed that it is thanks to a "habit" that is hard to break.

"That means doing your best in everything you do and always being optimistic about tomorrow. Moreover, I believe in the law of cause and effect. As long as you treat others well, you will definitely get the results you expect," the Hue-born owner confided.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/an-sinh/thoi-quen-khien-co-be-8-tuoi-ban-ve-so-thanh-ba-chu-20-tiem-bun-bo-20240221161922957.htm