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139 Anyone and Everyone Is Welcome As told to Francis Lam by Sue Nguyen My name is Sue Nguyen; I’m thirty-two years old. I’m the owner and operator of Le Bakery Café. I was born and raised in San Diego—I say raised, but actually I grew up in Biloxi, so I consider myself a Biloxian. When we moved into the Point Cadet neighborhood, it was very welcoming . I really did enjoy growing up in that neighborhood. I think that was probably the biggest lure of me staying after the storm, because of the sense of community that I have here in Biloxi. Years after my parents moved down here, they opened an Asian market with imported foods and whatnot. And throughout the years the business changed. With the passing of my father, I more or less took over the family business. We added in a bakery, and it just kind of took off on its own. I think it came in as an added bonus to the market; it was something that I was able to do as a passion. The demand took off on its own. I’m very blessed that it worked out this way. I never realized how much the bakery and café would change the business. To begin with, our customers were the Asian community, and then we had a lot of Hispanics that came through that wanted certain ingredients that we had at the market. And of course you’d have your food fanatics that came in and wanted to try different ingredients. So by adding the bakery to the market, it was kind of like the launching pad there. It was a built-in clientele right there. As the bakery and the reputation of the bakery grew and people started coming by for the breads, you would see different cultures and different echelons of people—from economically to racially. It was as told to francis lam by sue nguyen 140 completely mixed. I think that was kind of the lure of coming to this bakery. You should get the sense that anyone and everyone is welcome. I think the binder between it all was the breads. We mainly do a lot of the French breads. The breads are more of the traditional style, where it’s crusty but yet soft on the inside. It’s got a wonderful crumb and flavor to it. I think the lure of our breads here is that they are reminiscent of a lot of different cultures’ breads. We get that all the time. Like, “this is just like Cuban bread,” or “this is just like the bread I get in Puerto Rico,” or “this is just like the bread . . .” It’s funny, because we hear so many different things. We have a lot of Europeans that come in here, and they love the crust on the bread. And of course, these are the breads that the Asian community is used to. So it’s pretty interesting how everybody seems to think that our bread was made somewhat reminiscent of what they used to have growing up, you know? The name of the bakery is Le Bakery. It’s kind of a play on words: my mother’s name is actually Le—it’s spelled L-E. The restaurant my mom and dad ran in California was called Le Garden, which was named after my mother also. So it was kind of like the natural progression for me to name the bakery after my mom. But it also has a French connotation. Everybody always says, “Yeah, the bakery on Oak Street,” or “the bakery down on The Point,” and that’s us. I think a lot of people refer to us as the Vietnamese bakery, which yes, we are, but it’s not just Vietnamese food. It’s a bakery in which we carry different cultures’ types of pastries and breads. You know, fortunately for us there’s only one bakery here. Right after the storm, I think we were in more or less a survival mode. I lost my house, and we lost the business here. We own the building, and of course you’re faced with: Do you relocate? Do you not come back at all? No matter what, we had to start cleaning out the building. And then to see the community outpouring of basic support. . . . And I had people who actually came by my house to make sure we were OK...

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