Houston’s beloved Vietnamese restaurant Kim Son will close its Stafford location

Kim Son — a Vietnamese restaurant mini chain many consider an institution in Houston for hosting countless wedding banquets, dim sum and more recently, as a trendy social media destination for its expansive (and affordable) buffet — is facing its first major closure. The original Kim Son restaurant opened in 1982 on Pease Street on the edge of downtown with just 40 seats but expanded to a handful of locations through the years. On Monday, however, the restaurant announced its second location in Stafford, 12750 Southwest Fwy, will close on Sept. 24 after nearly 25 years in business. The closure is due to rent nearly doubling since Kim Son opened the Stafford spot in 1999, said Tao La, the chief operating officer of the family business. “From the moment we opened until now, it’s been packed,” La said. “I know the customers are going to miss it, but it was a good run for us.” H-TOWN’S VIETNAMESE EATS: Xeo Yum, tucked inside Houston’s newest food hall, serves one of the city’s best Vietnamese crepes Houston is home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the country and has countless restaurants serving classics like pho, egg rolls, banh mi and combination rice plates. But Kim Son became a favorite early on and cemented its reputation, especially with the Asian American community, as the go-to wedding banquet destination. Kim Su Tran La immigrated to Houston from Vietnam in 1980 with her husband and seven children. The family folklore is that she memorized over 250 recipes passed down to her from her mother-in-law and opened the first Kim Son as a small neighborhood spot. Within a year, the La family moved the restaurant to a space triple the size on St. Emanuel and the original location then moved to Jefferson with nearly 400 seats; it remains open today. This is the space where Kim Son became a juggernaut for weddings as it served an eight-course menu: a soup, perhaps crabmeat and asparagus, as a starter, shareable entrees of lobster in ginger and scallion served with salted fish fried rice; delicacies including abalone; and not-too-sweet desserts such as a taro root pudding. In 1986, the La’s opened a second location at Beechnut and Wilcrest in what today is known as Asiatown. By 1999, the family decided to relocate what they consider their second Kim Son restaurant to Stafford, bordering another part of the Houston area with a booming Asian American population. In 2005, a sprawling, multi-story Kim Son opened along Bellaire with multiple banquet rooms. This location is where in recent years the restaurant’s affordable lunch and dinner buffet has become popular on social media platforms as food influencers (and aspiring foodies) documented a large array of Vietnamese dishes, from typical home-style dishes like caramelized pork belly to a variety of noodle soups. A Kim Son Cafe opened in The Woodlands for a few years in the mid aughts but it included items like sushi and wasn’t modeled after the original Kim Son, Tao La said. MORE FROM BAO ONG: Sriracha shortage and price hikes put the heat on Houston restaurants In a statement from the family released on Monday, the restaurant thanked its customers: “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Kim Son Stafford, after serving our community for so many wonderful years. We want to express our deepest gratitude for your loyal support and patronage throughout this incredible journey.” At the Stafford location, which introduced dim sum to the group of restaurants, there was a wedding booked almost every weekend, Tao La said. He added that many of the employees would transfer to other Kim Son restaurants or work for the family’s factory, which has grown in the past few years as they focused on a wholesale business that includes a new line of sriracha sauce. The La family may look for another location to replace the Stafford closing, but for now, the family plans to gather one last time at the venue and take photos as a souvenir. At the Bellaire location, Kim Son is planning to roll out a dim sum service at lunch starting on Oct. 2. bao@houstonchronicle.com

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