Sometimes I feel frustrated by the questions that I get around Vinai. I’m often asked, “What is the concept of Vinai?” 

Honestly, I feel stumped. “What is the concept of Vinai?”

What concept categories are we talking about? 

Status: Fine vs Casual?
Service: Full vs Counter vs Fast?
Style: Theme vs Cuisine?

What if we began with a much more fundamental question? What is a restaurant? Why does the world have restaurants? Why does the world need restaurants? (Does it even need restaurants?) 

Why don’t we all just cook and eat by ourselves at home?

Historically, restaurants began when worn-out travelers were given not only room, but also board–a warm bowl of mutton stew with a crust of bread and butter.

But restaurants have grown from there, haven’t they? 

They’ve become drive thru windows for travelers who don’t have time to stop for the night–or even a meal. They’ve become premier destinations for our most special occasions. They’ve become status symbols for the elite who somehow always secure the best tables on the busiest nights.

So when you ask me, what is the concept of Vinai? I want to ask––What is any restaurant? What does society need a restaurant to be? And how does the Hmong identity answer that question?

The future of restaurants is found in the past. The very word “restaurant” was coined for its most fundamental, primal purpose–restaurer in French: Restoration. 

Communities around the world today share this one common theme: Brokenness & suffering are the true universal experience, and restoration is likewise the universal longing.

What is the concept of Vinai? It’s the same concept that Vinai was for my mom, for my dad, and for thousands of other Hmong refugees: A place of restoration.

So in the tradition of the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp of Thailand, Vinai of Minneapolis raises not the standard of Hmong food, but the banner of human restoration.

— Chef Yia Vang