Born and raised in Vancouver, Kevin’s story is as local as it gets.

“I was named after the kid in Home Alone,” Kevin shares. Growing up in the city, he went to school at UBC and gave the traditional corporate job a try, but it didn’t quite click. With a family background in the restaurant industry, he decided to follow his own path — diving headfirst into the food truck business.

That decision led to the launch of NaMí Vietnamese, a food truck that first opened in 2019 serving bánh mì and vermicelli bowls outside the old Nordstrom location. They operated for nearly a year before the pandemic hit, like many small businesses, they faced serious setbacks. “We tried multiple times to re-enter downtown but it didn’t really work out,” Kevin says.

Eventually, the team upgraded to a full-sized food truck and found new opportunities through partnerships with Hudson Pacific Properties at Bentall Centre and QuadReal at Park Place. These collaborations helped them reestablish their presence downtown. A Vietnamese coffee pop-up at Bentall Centre also connected them with Cadillac Fairview, which led to the opening of their first permanent café location at 855 W Georgia.

For Kevin, being downtown puts them right in front of their ideal audience. “We enjoy being downtown because it gives us the appropriate exposure to our target demographic” he explains. It’s also a chance to introduce Vietnamese food to people who may not have tried it before and showcase the “clean, fresh flavours and multiplicity of textures that the cuisine is known for.”

With foot traffic returning and downtown Vancouver buzzing again, Kevin is feeling hopeful about what’s ahead. “We’re excited to be coming out of the pandemic on the other side and steadily growing our business,” he says. “Maybe open another location in the next year!”

One of the biggest challenges — and proudest accomplishments — has been figuring out how to bring the food truck experience into the café setting. With restrictions on equipment like fryers and grills, Kevin had to get creative. “Through the power of modern age technology in culinary science, we were able to navigate around that, which brings us to our new lunch menu which features a lot of our food truck favourites as well as new ones.”

You can visit the NaMí food truck at various locations around the city (full schedule here) or their café location at 855 W Georgia. Make sure to try the strawberry matcha!

Check out our review of their new lunch menu and give them a follow on Instagram (@namivietnamese) for all the latest updates.