About Vinai

Vinai the restaurant (pronounced VEE-nye) is named after the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand— the place where Yia’s parents met and the place he was born. Ban Vinai, the refugee camp, served as a place of safety, reunification, and restoration.

Vinai, the restaurant, serves as a love letter from Yia to his parents. It serves as an homage to Hmong culture and history. And it serves as a place of restoration, a place where we invite you to celebrate, honor, and illuminate stories of your own through the universal language of food.

Throughout the process of designing, funding, and developing Vinai — as well as the process of opening and developing Union Hmong Kitchen — Yia has been steadfast in his vision:

“All roads lead to Vinai.”

We are honored and humbled to open Vinai after such a long and trying process. While we developed Vinai, we were furthering our experience within the Twin Cities restaurant scene. We built strong relationships with our community and we learned so much about how we want to share our food and our stories with all of you.

Our roots of the nomadic Hmong people, moving around and living off what was available to them has been true to our experience in opening and running restaurants.