Nguyen Van Thoi Dies; D.C Area Restaurateur

Nguyen Van Thoi, owner of the Nam Viet restaurants, hosted an annual dinner for American POWs. (Family Photo)

Nguyen Van Thoi, 57, a former Vietnamese prisoner of war who built a string of successful restaurants in the Washington area while forging a close bond with U.S. servicemen who fought in his homeland, died of congestive heart failure Dec. 15 at his home in Arlington.

Widely known as "Thoi" or "Mr. Thoi" by those who knew him, he developed a respiratory problem after receiving chemotherapy the day before his death, said his son John Nguyen.

Mr. Nguyen, who received a diagnosis of lung cancer last year, had until recently responded well to medical treatment, sometimes walking three miles a day on a treadmill.

Born in a small village near Can Tho in South Vietnam, where his parents were rice farmers, Mr. Nguyen was 18 when he was drafted into the South Vietnamese army in 1966. The fighting was escalating at that time, with U.S. troop levels numbering more than 200,000.

After serving seven years in the army, mainly as an interpreter and liaison to U.S. military advisers, he became mayor of Can Tho. His tenure was short-lived. With the fall of Saigon in 1975, he was placed in a re-education camp for two years before securing his release through negotiations and the payment of a ransom.

Working as a bicycle-taxi driver, Mr. Nguyen decided there was no opportunity to support his wife and two young children under the Communist government. He arranged for a small fishing boat to take him, his family and 40 other people clandestinely across the South China Sea to Thailand. When the captain of the boat was a no-show, Mr. Nguyen made a snap decision to proceed with the launch anyway. Using a compass, he navigated the vessel through storms while evading North Vietnamese patrol boats and pirates on a five-day voyage.

In Thailand, he worked as a translator for an old CIA acquaintance, who helped expedite the release of Mr. Nguyen and his family from a refugee camp. With assistance from Catholic Charities USA, he brought his family to Washington in 1979 in the belief that prosperity could be found in a nation's capital. Initially, he struggled to earn a living in a series of odd jobs.

After spending a couple of years in Texas, he came back to the area and in 1984 opened his first restaurant, My-An, in a part of Arlington's Clarendon neighborhood known as Little Saigon. It was a small restaurant with sparse decor but grew in popularity because of its traditional Vietnamese cuisine.

In 1987, a few blocks from My-An, he started Nam Viet Restaurant. He opened two other Nam Viets, one on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington and the other in the Mount Vernon section of Alexandria.

Although he was small in stature, standing just over 5 feet, he made a large impression on his regular patrons, employees, friends and family, John Nguyen said.

For the past 19 years at his Clarendon restaurants, Mr. Nguyen held the annual Tet dinner for American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict.

"He was an instantaneously friendly person," said former federal trade commissioner Orson Swindle, a former Marine pilot and POW in North Vietnam.

"He was incredibly sincere and loyal to his friends," said Swindle, who approached Mr. Nguyen in the mid-1980s about hosting the annual gathering.

Loyalty was a principle Mr. Nguyen often reiterated as a cherished quality for a good life, his son said.

"Never lie, cheat or steal from anyone to get ahead in life," Nguyen said his father wrote in a memo to his children shortly before his death. "Never let anyone look down on you."

In addition to his son John, survivors include his wife, Ngoc Thi Tran, and three other children, Michael Nguyen, Richard Nguyen and Jennifer Nguyen, all of Arlington; a brother; and a granddaughter.