Hughie’s came about by desperation and as a last life line. We neither imagined being in the hospitality industry nor have any experience in it.

The saying, “everything happens for a reason” is very much true.

Hughie’s is family owned and operated, and has remained the same. Aunt Irene, the youngest of her siblings, and a brilliant woman. She was entrusted with retirement money to invest in a property, where the original Hughie’s is located. In order to purchase the property, she had to purchase the previous business with it, a knock off Dairy Queen, called Queen Burger. It was a hemorrhaging business. With any business that is slowly dying, it needs to be revived from with within or it must be given a last life line. At the same time, Aunt Kim, who was a janitor at the local ISD, is one of our “James Beard Award” chef. Well, one among the many aunts who masterminds the menu. Uncle T, who was a full-time manager and cashier at Valero, knowing family needed help, he juggled both and helped give birth to Hughie’s. Paul, a nephew and an engineer, was transitioning companies, also seeing family in need, came to assist. Phillip, an ex-seminarian.

Aunt Irene proposed a radical plan to use the remaining retirement fund to give the property a last life line. The original plan was to run Queen Burger for several years, break even, and then demolish the building to build a shopping strip for a steady income for the retirement. However, God had other plans. We sat down and began to conceptualize Hughie’s within a few months.

The name Hughie’s reflects us as second generation Vietnamese-Americans. Irene’s youngest son is named Hugh. Growing up, we called him Hughie. She wanted to incorporate our origin into the logo. “Binh Minh”, which means aurora or sunrise, was incorporated, hence the lower case red “i”. Our younger sister hand drew the logo and we had to figure out the font as we were getting it digitized.

Clearly, the aunts know Vietnamese food and we grew up eating their cooking. At the same time, born and raised in Houston, we grew up eating American food. Hughie’s embodies the melting pot of Houston. Phillip knew a little bit about craft beer. The menu was put together from family recipes, we added beer, prayed and winged it. After 12 years, with that leap of faith, we have met many friends who have become like family to us. We cannot count all the blessings because they’re still pouring in.