This Oakland Restaurant Is Giving Away Free Phở

Back in November of 2020, during those calamitous peak-pandemic days when nearly every Bay Area restaurant seemed to teeter on the brink of collapse, Tee Tran made one of the most consequential decisions of his cooking career: He decided that his Oakland restaurant, Monster Phở, would give away its phở for free.

For one day, anyway, Tran would serve free phở to regular customers, houseless folks, foodies, people who’d lost their jobs or were otherwise down on their luck, or anyone else whose day might be brightened by a free hot meal. No questions asked.

It should come as no surprise that free phở day, a.k.a. Phở for the People, was a hit. And over the years, the giveaway has become Monster Phở’s signature event. The annual tradition heads into its fifth year this coming Monday, Nov. 25, from 10 a.m.–3 p.m. — this time featuring a guest performance by Seiji Oda, one of the Bay Area rap scene’s rising stars.

The event is the one day a year Tran believes most directly expresses his values as a restaurateur and a son of Oakland.

“I just open the doors to everybody,” Tran says. “We have people who’ve never tried us before who stop on by. Less fortunate people still show up — they take buses here or they share a car. They bring their cousins and their little sisters.”

“This is what Monster Phở is known for,” he says.

Of course, back during the seemingly endless restaurant shutdowns of 2020, Monster Phở itself had months where business shriveled down to almost nothing. It was during those hard times, however, that Tran says he remembered how his mother, Tina Le — whose recipes are the inspiration for Monster Phở — had raised him since their family first settled in Oakland as refugees in 1989, when Tran was five years old.

“She taught me to be grateful for what we have, and if we have extra, we have to help other people,” Tran says. “She’s like my boxing coach on the corner. She’s teaching me and training me to be a better human being.”

So, even as he struggled to keep Monster Phở afloat, Tran started looking for ways he could give back to the community — to all the people in Oakland who were hurting at that time. According to Tran, Monster Phở had always prided itself in being the kind of place that would welcome houseless folks in for a free meal or drink from time to time. Now, during the pandemic, he formalized those efforts. The restaurant started giving away bags of free produce to elderly and immunocompromised people who were isolated at home. And right around Thanksgiving time in 2020, it hosted its first phở giveaway.

At least two notable East Bay residents noticed Monster Phở’s extensive community work: In a moving segment of the Tamron Hall Show, Steph and Ayesha Curry sang Tran’s praises and surprised him with a $25,000 check — ostensibly to help save his restaurant. Instead, Tran decided to use every cent of that money to give away even more phở. And so, over the course of about three weeks, Monster Phở gave away nearly 2,500 meals, many of them going to some of Oakland’s most vulnerable residents.

It isn’t lost on Tran, either, that what he’s giving away isn’t just any food item. It’s phở, a soup that’s so deeply comforting and wholesome that many enthusiasts ascribe to it almost magical healing properties.

“I think about it every single day. The process to make phở can take up to 24 hours to do it correctly — to cook the bones thoroughly and clean them, to taste and retaste and get everything to the right temperature,” he says. “It’s a rare amenity. To give that away? Oh my God, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

While $25,000 worth of free phở will be hard to ever top, Tran has looked for ways to make Phở for the People even more impactful with each passing year. This year, in addition to the phở giveaway, Tran is also hosting a toy drive at the restaurant during the entire month of November — inspired, he says, by the one he remembers from his first Christmas in the U.S., when his own parents didn’t have money to buy him presents.

Oakland rapper Seiji Oda was so inspired by the toy drive idea that he reached out to Tran and offered to help promote it. So, this year’s Phở for the People will be a concert too: The idiosyncratic, “lo-fi” hip-hop star will take the stage for an outdoor performance at noon.

Meanwhile, the phở giveaway itself will be set up outside, takeaway style. Everyone in line will get their choice of beef, chicken or vegetarian phở packed up to go, plus a bottle of water. “There’s no judgment,” Tran says.

Tran acknowledges that the tenor of the public conversations around issues like homelessness and public safety in Oakland isn’t always characterized by a lot of empathy, but he says he tries not to get involved in the politics of today’s news cycle. Instead, his goal is just to do “one good deed” — and hopefully, in the process, to inspire others, especially young people, to do the same.

“I feel like it’s my calling, if I have an opportunity to help the community that helped raise me,” Tran says.

Phở for the People will take place on Monday, Nov. 25, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. (or as long as supplies last) at Monster Phở (360 40th St., Oakland). Monster Phở will be collecting toys through the end of November. To nominate a child to receive presents during the restaurant’s Christmas event, on Dec. 15, email care@monsterpho.com or send the restaurant an Instagram DM.