How a Viral video helped save a BICH NGA, Vietnamese woman's restaurant

Owner of Cafe BICH NGA, Mrs. Lieng

Julian Becerra posted a video on Tiktok and Instagram about going to Mrs. Lieng's restaurant and he highlighted how generous and kind she was. This video was posted on April 23 and amassed over 9.5 million views on both platforms. Initially Julian wanted to try this restaurant that was empty and he was greeted by the owner who gave him a meal on the house. After he finished eating he tried to give her an hundred dollar tip that she would not accept, despite him being the only person who had come into the restaurant for hours. He ended up having a dish called Pho dac biet which he described as meal "made with pure love." At the end of the video he asked for people to give the place a chance and pack the restaurant if they lived near Pinellas Park, Florida.

The video ended up becoming a series where Julian posted about how the day after he posted the video he called the restaurant to see how long the wait was and it was over an hour long. Mrs. Lieng does not have social media so she was unaware of how big the video had gotten and just how much people loved her. Julian planned on going back to the restaurant to tell her about the video. In the next video that he posted he found out that Mrs. Lieng was homeless and set up a GoFundme to buy her house. Mrs. Lieng explained that she stays with a friend and comes to work every day. Over the next two days the GoFundme earned 128,000 dollars and currently it has reached 85% of it's goal.

Mrs. Lieng started the restaurant back in Vietnam where she grew up and she uses all the same recipes in Cafe Bich Nga. She lost her husband in 2003 and a few years ago she had a stroke which caused her to lose her license. Despite all of that she showed up to work with a smile on her face and wouldn't hesitate to prepare a meal for a customer. In the last video that was posted, Julian calls Mrs. Lieng's granddaughter who expresses her gratitude and how happy it made her to see this happen for her grandmother. During the call Julian and Mrs. Lieng's granddaughter, Susan plan to keep the Gofundme a secret. Julian tells her that he wants to give her grandmother a townhouse that is fully furnished and the rest of the money from the GofundMe she can have.

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