Khanh Nguyen, left, and his wife Ha Nguyen work in the kitchen of their Garden City, Kan., restaurant Pho Hoa for the dinner hour In this May 7 photo. Nguyen left Vietnam in his early adulthood to pursue a better life in America.

Garden City ? Their dream was to come to America for a better life.

But standing in a small, struggling Vietnamese restaurant on the outskirts of Garden City in the late 1980s, Khanh Nguyen and his wife, Ha, began to question whether their American dream would come true.

It had been nearly 10 years since the couple fled their native South Vietnam by boat — four years after the Vietnam War ended. They spent a year at a Malaysian refugee camp before getting the opportunity to go to Houston, where Khanh worked shucking oysters and later as a machinist.

Startup dreams

He always wanted to own his own business. Ha’s family had told them there was a need for a good ethnic restaurant in southwest Kansas.

With a little money in hand and the help of a friend, a cook, the Nguyens opened Pho Hoa in Garden City.

However, one day nearly two decades ago, Khanh and Ha were prepared to move themselves and their two children, Dat and Huyen, back to Houston. Friends who moved to Kansas with them had already left.

During their last days in Garden City, they dined at another Vietnamese restaurant, which also was closing its doors. Not wanting to give up, Khanh decided it was the signal he needed to stay and give the restaurant business one last try.

“I thought, this is a sign to try again,” Khanh said.

Success and recognition

Now, in 2009, at age 53, Khanh can’t help but grin as he tells his story through his daughter, Huyen, a pharmacist at the local hospital. One can measure Pho Hoa’s success through Huyen. It paid for her six years in college.

Its recent notoriety, however, came last month when it was named one of 24 finalists for the honor of “Eight Wonders of Kansas Cuisine.”

The program, a competition sponsored by the Inman-based Kansas Sampler Foundation, is to promote Kansas and encourage travel across the state, said Marci Penner, the foundation’s executive director.

The public can determine the top eight by voting online at 8wonders.org or by paper ballot through June 15.

“Traffic’s been quite busy,” Huyen said of the family restaurant. “When (Kansas Sampler’s WenDee LaPlant) called me, it was such a shock. My father was like, ‘How does this happen, what does this mean?’ It means a lot of people around the state still recognize us for what we do here at the restaurant.”

A growing clientele

Her parents getting to this point didn’t happen overnight, she said. They served mostly Asians until one day, Donna Skinner, with Garden City Community College, walked through the doors.

“She was very good at educating the community about the new immigrants,” said Kansas Sampler’s LaPlant.

Khanh and Ha started to see an influx of customers, both regulars and new ones. The ethnic cuisine was catching on in a town surrounded by feed yards fattening beef for slaughter.

“We’d go to Pho Hoa at least once a week,” said LaPlant, who lived in Garden City for years before moving to Inman. “I remember tasting the food for the first time and how different it tasted but how good it was. I’ve tried Vietnamese food on the West Coast (and in) Lawrence, but I’ve never found anything better.”

Today, Pho Hoa is a Garden City staple, said local Terry Percival, who said he eats at the restaurant at least four times a week.

“I’ve never had a bad meal,” he said. “It’s all fresh. They start cooking when you order.”

Part of the community

Now located off Fulton Street in Garden City, Ha cooks and Khanh greets. Huyen, 27, said she and her brother spent their childhood years working at the restaurant — something at the time she detested.

“I wanted to be out going to a movie, doing things my friends were doing,” Huyen said, noting she now realizes the work ethic her parents instilled in her.

Huyen said after attending college, Dat returned to help his parents at the restaurant. Huyen works at St. Catherine Hospital in Garden City.

LaPlant said she once asked Khanh about a tip jar by the cash register. He told her it was for his children’s college tuition.

She said after Huyen’s graduation from Kansas University with a pharmacy degree, Khanh and Ha invited dozens of their regular customers to a special meal at Pho Hoa in honor of their daughter’s achievement as a way to thank the community for supporting their dreams.

In August 1999, Khanh, Ha and Dat passed their United States citizenship tests and were sworn in as American citizens.

But sitting in his restaurant, Khanh said it was the honor of being part of the Kansas cuisine contest that has meant a lot to him.

Now, he said, thanks to the residents that make up this stretch of the High Plains, he and his family feel like they’ve been accepted.