Carol Nguyen’s life quite literally changed overnight last November.
She found herself sitting in a Houston music hall watching fellow restaurant owners make their way to a stage to receive awards at Michelin’s inaugural Texas Guide ceremony.
Weeks earlier, she saw an email in her inbox inviting her to the Michelin awards ceremony and she thought it was spam. She ignored it, along with five other similar emails that followed. It wasn’t until a Michelin representative called her restaurant, Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen, she realized she was, in fact, on the invite list.
As the awards ceremony went on and the seats around her emptied, Nguyen assumed she would go back to Dallas empty-handed.
Eat Drink D-FW
Carol Nguyen opened Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen in Dallas’ Lower Greenville neighborhood in 2020.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
But then Ngon, the restaurant she opened in 2020 to honor her grandmother’s recipes, was called.
“It was unreal,” Nguyen said. “I didn’t even know what it meant. I said, ‘What’s Bib Gourmand?’”
Her Lower Greenville restaurant was just one of seven in North Texas last year to receive Michelin’s Bib Gourmand designation, which is given to restaurants that deliver great value for money.
Nguyen said the award, which her restaurant received again this year, had a sweeping impact on her business.
“Our sales have been up 40 to 60% since last year,” she said. “In the first two months after last year’s ceremony, we were up 75%.”
Ngon’s menu is made up of recipes from owner Carol Nguyen’s grandmother, like this pho tai gau bo vien.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
Those early months with a Michelin award under their belts were nearly unsurvivable, Nguyen said. The dramatic, immediate and sustained increase in business was crushing.
Nguyen and her small team worked for weeks on end without days off to keep up with the surge.
“I said, ‘If we keep busy like this, we’re going to die,’” she said. “It was overwhelming. After our shifts, we could not feel our legs.”
During those months, Nguyen clocked an average of 25,000 steps a day. She stopped going to the gym. There was no need to.
Eventually, traffic to the restaurant leveled out and became more manageable, Nguyen said. She also hired three more people in the kitchen and three more in the dining room.
Ngon’s owner Carol Nguyen (left) prepares a delivery order in the restaurant’s kitchen.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
This year’s Michelin ceremony came after an especially slow September for Texas restaurants, according to the Texas Restaurant Association. Nguyen said September was her slowest month this year, but thanks to Michelin, sales were still up from last September. After last week’s awards ceremony, Ngon saw an immediate 30% boost in business.
Much of Ngon’s business is made up of regulars like Emmily Rojas, who was there for a late lunch on a recent Friday.
“I was really excited for them when I heard [about Michelin],” Rojas said while waiting for her veggie curry. “I know it’s women-owned and Vietnamese-owned, so it was exciting.”
Among its regulars, though, Ngon now has many customers who say they learned about it through Michelin. That newfound recognition, Nguyen said, is a double-edged sword.
Restaurant owner Carol Nguyen prepares a plate of Bun Cha Ha Noi, on Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, at Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen in Dallas.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
Some diners come in with no understanding of the difference between a Michelin star and a Bib Gourmand award. They think they’re in for a fine-dining experience and are instead greeted by bowls of her grandmother’s pho and laid-back service. The mismatched expectation is not always well-received.
“Michelin brought a lot of good stuff,” Nguyen said, “but also challenges.”
Ngon, which Nguyen named after her mother, serves the kind of Vietnamese food she grew up eating. Each dish is made the way her grandmother and mother made it, like her favorite Bun Cha Hanoi, a plate of chargrilled pork patties, pork belly, vermicelli, herbs and fish sauce.
The restaurant never struggled before Michelin came, Nguyen said, and it’s certainly not struggling now. Business has been so good she is opening a second location. By the end of the year, she’ll have another restaurant in New York City’s Lower East Side.
Her motivation to open the second location, she said, was to be closer to her daughter who lives in Manhattan.
Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen was one of seven North Texas restaurants to win a Michelin Bib Gourmand this year and last year.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
“When I opened the first restaurant, I thought of my mom,” Nguyen said, “and with this restaurant, I am thinking of my daughter.”
Since Michelin came to town, nothing has changed at Ngon — aside from the number of customers and employees.
“Everything is the same,” Nguyen said. “Same quality of food, same prices, same portions. I told the whole team the most important thing is consistency.”
Getting Michelin’s stamp of approval is hard to believe, considering she just started cooking Vietnamese food a few years ago when she wasn’t able to find the kind of Vietnamese food she wanted in North Texas, Nguyen said.
“My family never expected that I can cook,” she said, laughing.
Now, with a second Bib Gourmand award secured, Nguyen said she feels she achieved her mission of putting the Vietnamese food of her childhood on the map.
Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen is located at 1907 Greenville Ave., Dallas. ngonvietkitchen.com.