Bourbon Grill sits on the corner of Colfax Avenue and Pearl Street. Even at four o’clock in the afternoon, there is an incessant line. As I wait to talk with Lien Vo, the founder, owner, and chef of the iconic Colfax establishment, I watch her husband, Tom Leiber, dish out heaping portions of Cajun-Asian-American food: mac and cheese, spicy noodles, vegetables, and bourbon-style chicken over fluffy white rice, topped with a savory dark sauce. The green chairs host a broad assortment of customers: people wearing badges from the nearby hospital; gaggles of teenagers watching music videos as they eat; and parents splitting two combination orders amongst the whole family as their toddlers waddle around the bright and airy space. 

Lien grew up in Vietnam in the ’60s and ’70s. Her mother owned a French restaurant and catered—with the help of neighbors—for Americans on the military base: egg rolls, curry, noodles, and other Vietnamese dishes that fit the American palate. Lien recalls the whole neighborhood gathering around to share food and news. Her father, who worked for the American embassy, would bring in singers and other performers to entertain the base.  

When Lien and her family started a new life in America, restaurants—and hard work— were major threads in the family fabric. “I worked whenever I could,” she says. Lien landed jobs in restaurants across the country—in Florida, Texas, Missouri, Hawaii, California—learning from cooks and customers’ tastes along the way.

In New Orleans, Lien found her love for Cajun food and a warm community that welcomed her family. Her face lights up when she remembers her friends there and the thrill of a neighborhood seafood boil. 

“I lived in the heart of the Cajun people. I had small children at the time and the fishing people adopted me—they gave me soft-shell crab, and the women would come and eat biscuits. My friend was in charge of the whole levee. His grandma spoke French, and I got to know them and the way they cooked. They had a fishing boat. When the fish came in, the whole neighborhood would come and eat.”

When Lien first moved to Denver, she ran a stand in a Littleton mall’s food court. After losing her lease to a McDonald’s in 2002, she opened her one-window walk-up restaurant on Colfax near Park Avenue, where she stayed until 2017. From the beginning, her food was a hit—the line snaked down the sidewalk, as a mural at the current 571 East Colfax location forever immortalizes. Lien, Tom, and their unique menu quickly became celebrity items.

“We do very well on Colfax. People first told me ‘It’s so scary, don’t go there.’ I thought I’d give it a try. If I make enough money—just enough for living—it’s OK. Since we opened our first day, we have never had a losing day.”

For many customers, Lien’s food is serious business. Young people tell her that if the restaurant closes, they will kill themselves. One man admitted to Lien that his death wish is to be buried with two combinations. People bring boxes of her food through airport security. Lien remembers a woman bursting into the new restaurant location in tears. “I thought you closed your restaurant—my mother and I sat together and cried. And now you’re here!”  Lien chuckles as she recounts these devoted customers. “I love people,” she says.

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Lien. She’s faced racism. “When I first came to America, people would say things just like on TV now,” she says somberly. “They’d say ‘You go back where you came from.’” She explains that it was hard to stand up for herself, but she was resilient. “I grew up in the Vietnam War. I’ve been through a lot, I’ve seen a lot of things. So little things like that won’t destroy me.”

“My first restaurant was in a food court. In the South, people say that a sample is worth a thousand words. So I do samples and I get people—I did very well. One day, one of my neighbors came to my stand and he’s yelling at me. He said because of the samples and the smoke of the chicken, he lost all his customers. He went and complained to the landlord, Mr. Murray Turner. Mr. Turner told that guy, ‘She does well because she works very, very hard. She shows up every single day. You have the right to do samples just like her.’  He said ‘If you ever go over there and cause trouble, I’m going to kick your butt out of the mall.’ I’ve had bad things, but I’ve also had people stand up for me.”

Lien came to America in 1975, after the Fall of Saigon. She lowers her voice as she recalls the constant fear she felt in high school during the war, witnessing a friend’s death, her family’s evacuation, tent cities, and the toll of war on her country.

“It was like you see on TV—all the chaos, but even greater and bigger. A convoy of military police came to evacuate us. They told everyone to stand up so they could load lots of people on the plane. I was 19 years old. I had just started college. Lots of people got on boats…lots of people died.  

We went to the Philippines, to Guam. The soldiers built tents for all the refugees. In the mornings, we would line up and get food, like soldiers. We wanted to go to California because so many Vietnamese people were there already. We first went to Fort Jeffrey in Arkansas. We lived on an American base. It’s where refugees waited for their American sponsors.”

Lien experienced the trauma of war first-hand. She still sees echoes of her experiences in the headlines today. She speaks empathetically and passionately about how war impacts all sides—how it ruins entire countries, how the poor suffer, and how the soldiers suffer. “War creates no good,” she says.

“When I watch the news, I think about war. We hear and see all the politicians talking about war, but it is the regular people who suffer. Think about a country constantly fighting—how will you build that country? Think about all the money Americans spent on being in my country: millions and millions of dollars. What did that earn? One tank could be a college.

Growing up, we had lots of friends who were American soldiers. My mom had businesses and they’d come over and hang out.  My sister learned to speak English very well because of them. I feel sorry for the soldiers. They went crazy—they killed a lot of Vietnamese people, but think about 18- to 19-year-old kids—you send them to a war zone. They’re just kids.”

Lien is proud of her American Dream story. As we chat, football plays on the restaurant’s biggest TV screen and the CNN anchors discuss the latest political drama. Her food and diverse clientele—both a mashup of many backgrounds— show that Bourbon Grill is, perhaps, the most quintessentially American restaurant on Colfax. 

Lien creates peace on Colfax in the way that she knows how—through good food and community. Lucky for Denver, Lien—and her food—are not going anywhere. “In my language, there is a phrase—‘If you have a peaceful island, birds will come and land there,’” she says. She repeats the phrase in Vietnamese. “If the land is good for you, you come and you stay.”