Pho restaurant opens on Broadway after two years of it ‘coming soon’
A "deconstructed" banh mi charcuterie board and a Vietnamese espresso martini set Pho Social apart.
admin
The family behind Pho Social admits the “coming soon” banner they hung from their restaurant two years ago has, for too long, been a tease for drivers and pedestrians on Broadway.
Phuong Tran, who owns the restaurant with her husband and chef brother, was optimistic they’d open quickly after purchasing the building, at 333 Broadway, in 2023. She couldn’t wait to share the family recipes that arrived with them from Vietnam 25 years earlier.
In reality, Pho Social opened last month.
“We were not on vacation,” Tran said Tuesday. Two different contractors they hired to remodel the space both failed to complete the job after already getting paid, she said, hurdles that set them back by months at a time and nearly forced them to abandon the project.
“It was draining, mentally, financially, for all of us,” she said. Tran stayed on with the city in her job as a public health practitioner, and her husband, Tuan Nguyen, returned to his job as a medical laboratory scientist at Children’s Hospital.
Through the uncertainty and with encouragement from neighbors in Baker, they found a third contractor that completed the remodeling job in six months, Tran said. The restaurant sued the other two builders for fraud in Denver district court last year, and the litigation is ongoing.
Her brother, Andy Tran, fine-tuned his family’s broths and dishes at his own restaurant in Castle Rock. The same dishes are at Pho Social, Phuong Tran said.
The specialty is Bun bo Hue ($19), a spicy and savory noodle soup traditional to the Vietnamese city of Hue from which Tran’s family emigrated. Her mother, Hoa Nguyen, makes the cha sausage used in the dish from home, grinding the meat and steaming it in banana leaves.
A more modern plate is the banh mi charcuterie board ($25), which comes with all the cured cold cuts, pate, veggies and mayo to make your own “deconstructed sandwich,” as Tran called it.
There is also a cocktail menu listing fusions such as a tamarind margarita, a lychee Moscow mule and an espresso martini made with Vietnamese drip coffee.
The jet-black interior of Pho Social, the cocktail blends and the restaurant’s name itself are meant to draw all kinds of clientele through the doors, this time for real.
