Racist graffiti affects local Dayton mom and pop restaurant
Local restaurant affected by anti-Asian vandalism, UD students show their support, photo courtesy of Xuan Vietnamese-Thai Cuisine Facebook.
Tori Miller
Contributing Writer
A locally owned and operated Riverside restaurant, Xuan Vietnamese-Thai Cuisine, is scheduled to shut down after an act of vandalism depicting anti-Asian graffiti art along with a speculated fire.
Owner of the restaurant, Noppagol Mangmeesuv (Nop), noticed there was an issue with the restaurant’s ventilation system and learned from his landlord that the police and fire department were called on behalf of vandalism on the side of the building.
The intent of this tampering with the ventilator caused a fire throughout the restaurant.
Nop’s initial reaction to the graffiti was inherently focused on problem solving and resolving the issue as soon as possible.
“I don’t want to deal with it,” Nop told his landlord with the intent of changing locations further down the line.
With the incidents that have occured, Nop shares that his restaurant will be waiting to reopen at a time where COVID has been alleviated and the country has recovered from the drawbacks.
“For right now I’m super scared to sign a lease and opening a restaurant again is kind of something we have to consider. Because it’s not something we think is safe enough to do right now,” Nop said.
With the devastation that has occurred at the Xuan Vietnamese-That Cuisine restaurant, UD students have shown support during this time.
Click to view UD students supporting the local restaurant.
Joseph Minde-Berman, an Instagramer (@jojomber) who happened to photograph the vandalism incident, shared the post in order to gain traction and awareness of the situation.
Click to view the Instagram post of the graffiti.
This post was later shared and spread by various UD students to show allegiance with the restaurant.
Minde-Berman said, “From my first impression I could tell what honest and hard working people they were who did nothing to deserve that treatment. I thought the least I could do was take to social media and try to shed some light on their unfortunate situation.”
Bringing awareness to the act of vandalism brought an influx of support from UD students and the community to the Xuan Vietnamese-Thai Cuisine restaurant.
Nop said that the support from the UD student body is the best thing happening to his restaurant at the moment.
“I don’t know what else to ask for. I appreciate all the UD students that have come to our restaurant and supported us. There’s not else – I couldn’t ask for more. We really, really appreciate it.” said Nop.
The continuous care and support from UD’s student body as well as the greater Dayton community will help the Xuan Vietnamese-Thai Cuisine restaurant reach the goal of reopening and symbolizes unity that will bring awareness in order to prevent anti-Asian racist acts from recurring.
Show your support by following @xuanvietnamesethaicuisine on Instagram.
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