Chef and Owner Hoang Lieng was born in South Vietnam to a family of rice merchants. During the Vietnam War, he moved to Saigon, and after the war, when his family lost their business, he joined a group of boat people to flee to Malaysia. He later settled in the U.S. and moved to NYC. After many years working in Chinatown restaurants, he learned all aspects of the restaurant business. Before opening his V-Nam Cafe in 2010, he served as chef for Ruby Foo’s in Times Square. In 1996 and 2010, he returned to Vietnam to offer financial support to men and women who had worked in his father’s factory.