Khanh Nguyen was eight years old when his family fled Vietnam in 1975. His father was a general in the South Vietnamese army and the governor of a mountain province called DaLat — and when the country fell, a communist assassin was sent to kill them. The family’s escape plan collapsed at the last minute. What saved them was a bowl of pho. The cook at a roadside restaurant outside the city recognized Nguyen’s father, fed the family, hid them, and helped them find another way out. They made it through the Philippines and Guam before landing in Texas. Khanh grew up here, went to UT law school, became a corporate attorney, then a software startup CEO, then looked around at forty-something and decided he wanted to make pizza.
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