Deo Nguyen is a familiar and happy sight for her customers at East End Restaurant and Variety.
She’s been serving up food and laughter at the Blake Street establishment for 30 years.
While her roots stem from Saigon, Vietnam, the only lesson the former teacher has now for clients is to have fun.
She's an integral part of daily routines for many folks who drop in for a bite to eat, or just to hang out.
Nguyen and her husband, who's also a teacher, were part of the wave of ‘boat people’ who fled their homeland after 1975 to find a better life.
And there are plenty of local residents who are happy they did.
“My English was not that good,” she says about the initial time in her new country. “When I first came to Canada, I started at the bottom. I cleaned houses and I did dishes in restaurants.”
But eventually the couple had the money to buy a business and the rest is east-end Barrie history.
“My customers are unbelievable,” Nguyen says while dropping off some soup to Nancy Dickey and her husband, Stewart.
“The customers helped me during my first day on the job,” she says, adding some of them had to scribble their orders on a piece of paper so she’d get it right. “They would show me step-by-step how to make it. See how kind they are?"
The business is really like a big family.
"When we go away for vacation, customers help look after the store,” Nguyen says.
Stopping in at ‘East End’ has been part of people's lives for years.
“Sometimes they come and they don’t necessarily eat too much, but that’s part of their routine. They see other people they love to talk with,” Nguyen says. “I’ve lost some customers after they get older and they’re gone, (but) there are so many memories.
Willard Kinzie, a former Barrie mayor who died last November at the age of 99, "would come and always sit on the same stool,” she adds with a smile. “People (who were sitting on that stool) would see him in the door and knew they had to move.”
Nancy Dickey and her husband, Stewart, enjoyed a bowl of soup at the Blake Street eatery recently.
“It’s like Cheers. Everybody knows your name,” Nancy says. “It’s the ambience. It’s good food and a great atmosphere. Everybody cares about each other and everybody remembers the ones who are no longer with us. We keep them here in spirit.
“I’ve been coming here a long time. It’s a safe place to come,” she adds. “Anybody can walk in here, sit down and have a coffee and feel the camaraderie being around everybody else.
“It’s always been the same. Dee knows exactly what you want as soon as you walk in,” Dickey says.
“I don’t know if they like me or not,” Nguyen says while customers howl. “They feel like I am a crazy girl. They enjoy chit-chatting and talking and laughing. That’s the way it should be.”
Nguyen says she had “no choice” but to leave her homeland.
“I had to go. We had to go so my daughter and my son could have a future. I risked my life on that little river boat,” she says. “But it’s so amazing to be alive. It’s like heaven here.
“You come to this country and it’s about fairness,” Nguyen adds. “You work hard and you have your goals and you achieve them. There are no limits.”
