These days, local diners in search of hard-to-find ethnic cuisine know Havana Street is the place to go.
But when Ba Forde opened her Vietnamese restaurant on South Havana Street 28 years ago, that wasn’t the case.
Forde’s Kim Ba Vietnamese Cuisine was one of just a couple Vietnamese restaurants in town back then, a sort of ethnic-dining oasis tucked in a nondescript strip mall at Havana and Parker Road.
“Now it’s so diverse, restaurants kind of mushroom everywhere on every corner,” Forde said.
This summer, Forde celebrated 40 years since she immigrated to the United States from her native Vietnam.
Her restaurant at 2495 S. Havana St. is also now part of a sea of ethnic restaurants on the boulevard. Her shopping center alone boasts a Mediterranean restaurant and a Japanese restaurant in addition to Kim Ba.
Gayle Jetchick, executive director of the Havana Business Improvement District said ethnic restaurants like Kim Ba have thrived on Havana because they cater to local immigrants who want a taste of home, and to eaters who crave something exotic.
“They support their own community but then they also support Aurorans who are more adventurous with their palates,” she said.
Forde said seeing the rapid growth of ethnic dining over the past 28 years has been both good and bad.
On the one hand, the city’s reputation for hard-to-find cuisine means diners travel from across the metro area to eat in Aurora. For Kim Ba, which is tucked on the west side of it’s shopping center, well away from the heavy traffic from either Havana and Parker, that exposure is nice.
“Nobody finds it by accident,” she said. “Most of the advertising has been word of mouth by customers.”
But, there are only so many eaters looking for ethnic cuisine, and they can only eat so much. That means heightened competition for diners, Forde said.
“It’s nice to see them grow like that and see a lot of diversity,” she said. “But it has slowed down the business, it has divided it out.”
Forde said that when she started the restaurant in 1986, she never dreamed that she would still be at it 28 years later.
In those early days, Forde was the cook, waitress and manager all rolled into one.
“I was just a one-man band,” she said with a grin.
And while she worked long hours at the restaurant, she was also a single mother to two sons. Sometimes Forde said that meant her sons doing their homework at Kim Ba so she could keep an eye on them.
The menu back then had just a couple pages, but today it has grown to more than 80 items with Vietnamese staples like pho and spring rolls still popular among Forde’s loyal customer base.
Looking back, Forde said she isn’t sure she would have jumped into the restaurant game as enthusiastically as she did if she knew just how much work it could be.
“If I knew then what I know now, I’d probably hesitate to start it,” she said. “But I just jumped in with both feet and I learn as I go.”
But, even with 12-hour days and the stress of running a business in the uber-competitive restaurant world, Forde said she loves it.
“I love what I do, so that keeps me going in the long haul,” she said. “This is a job, but it’s my life.”