Local Restaurant Owner shares Her Story of Perseverance, Announces new Location

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Terrebonne Parish Offers Commodities to Low-Income Families
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Road Closure scheduled for Bowie Road in Thibodaux
August 24, 2021

Yupha McGonagill, the owner of Song Phi Nong in Houma, spoke at the August Women’s Business Alliance Luncheon about her experiences that led to her entrepreneurship.


 

She was born in Thailand and raised by her grandparents where she said she helped tend to her family’s water buffalos which helped pull the plow in their rice fields. She and her brother came to the States to join her family when she was eight years old. She said it was “an adventure” because they didn’t know English and grew up with no running water or electricity. She raved on her experience of being welcomed into the community and said the teachers were amazing. She remembered her mother growing vegetables in the backyard because the area didn’t have the produce needed for their Thai cooking. She remembered when the Thai population started growing in the area where people would trade and share the food needed to make traditional Thai cuisine. Her brother eventually went back to Thailand, realizing the U.S. wasn’t for him.

 

Fast forward to when she was in her early 30s, where she said she was at a crossroads. She had years of experience in General Management at a local retail store, but she wanted to find her place. The restaurant was an idea that came from a relative who had a restaurant in New Orleans. She said she was a college dropout who had no savings and was borrowing from her parents and her 401K just to survive. She said she was literally floundering in a quarter-life crisis. She said she decided to invest in herself and took the risk, “I knew it was very clear that you don’t own a restaurant; the restaurant owns you.” She said with the financial help from her mom, the advice from TEDA, and the guidance from Synergy Bank, she started planning. They found the current location to lease, and Song Phi Nong was born. 

 

McGonagill said every day was a challenge as the area was familiar with Chinese food, but not Thai cuisine. She said she second-guessed herself for the first two years. She said she started with two cooks in the kitchen helping her along with three servers. During the time, her husband already had his job, so she was on her own during the days and constantly wondered how she would get through it. What helped was a book she read that described a J-business model, where the company starts at the top where the J begins. A company always has a downfall or the bottom part of the J, but eventually, it would take an upturn which represents the curve of the J.


 

McGonagill said she learned three things from the J-business model: to have a good product, to have the right people around you that will help you to succeed and grow with more continued growth. She said she never received any different treatment because she’s Asian-American, but she has received some because she is a woman business owner. She has experience where a vendor would come to speak about a sale and ask to talk to her husband instead of her, but she laughed and said, “I tell them I make all of the decisions anyway, so you can talk to me.”

 

McGonagill also boasted on the retention of her staff and how important it is to support staff and offer them opportunities to be able to grow. She said her staff, on average, has been with them six years per person. Retention is important to her, “if you treat people well,” she said, “they will believe in you, trust in you, and continue to help you grow.”

 

McGonagill also spoke of her experience through the COVID pandemic. She said, unfortunately, due to being a small business and not being able to afford the proper benefits for her employees, she knew she had to do something to help them through the lockdown that came on March 17. She was thankful for TEDA along with other resources that allowed her to be able to support her staff during the hard times. “We have a single mother that doesn’t have the support of others to raise her child, she didn’t have benefits, and so we were able to help her continue to care for her child,” she said.


 

She also announced that the restaurant will be moving to a new location that will allow the space for an outdoor area and will grow their herbs. The new location will be located at 719 Corporate Drive and will allow them to continue to grow their business. She said, “We’re going to keep growing and become better people. We’re hoping to offer something different to the community.”

Feature photo by Tyler Duplantis