Highly Anticipated Restaurant Pink Bellies Inches Closer to Opening

Vietnamese restaurant Pink Bellies opened for takeout on Sunday, March 28, and has had a line of eager orderers ever since, which has led many to ask: When will owner Thai Phi actually open his King Street dining room? The pandemic hasn’t made it easy to open a restaurant — between waiting for staff vaccinations to supply chain issues, Phi is still waiting for the right time to welcome patrons for dine-in meals. He recently addressed this in an email to his Kickstarter backers:

Thank y’all so much for all the support, we are getting very close to opening for indoor dining! When that day does come, we’ll be inviting our kickstarter backers in before opening to the general public!

Currently, we’re still working through many things including supply chain issues and making sure our kitchen crew is consistently and smoothly sailing in our open kitchen!

Many of our national food suppliers are working through limited production as a result of the pandemic - causing shortages for the ingredients we routinely use such as egg noodles for the garlic noodles.

The indoor menu will be much different than our takeout menu, one that reflects my summers at my grandma’s house in Saigon. We can’t wait to share this side of Vietnamese cooking with y’all!

From food truck to food stall to pop-ups, a large fan base has followed Phi around Charleston, and are eager to try out his permanent location at 595 King Street. In the meantime, Pink Bellies is open for takeout on Thursday through Sundays.

• All Pink Bellies Coverage [ECAR]