Not So Original

Starting a restaurant in Ho Chí Minh City’s backpacker zone can be a tricky business. Restaurateurs have to manage the daily grind of cooking, serving, and soliciting customers—and in HCMC, there’s the added threat of a copyright lawsuit.

The owners of “The Original Bodhi Tree” restaurant and “The Original Buddha” have been locked in a feud for years over the claim to the “Original Bodhi” name. Current “Buddha” owner, Hýu Thß, claims that his restaurant was set up in 1995 at the current “Bodhi” address. He says that after he moved addresses, the new owner of his old plot took the name of his restaurant, bought the rights, and delivered a nasty letter to Hýu demanding that he change name.

But Phåm Thanh Há, current “Bodhi” owner, says that “Buddha” was never at the Bodhi address. Instead, she says, the current “Buddha” was set up in 2000, seven years after her “Bodhi” was allegedly in business. And Phåm says she has been the victim of a vicious publicity campaign by the duplicitous “Buddha” owner.

In an area changing as rapidly as Phåm Ng´ Lão, history can be hard to maintain. Some locals do seem to recall that the original “Bodhi” has moved, perhaps corroborating Hýu’s side of the story. But whichever side is true, one thing is certain: the publicity has not been bad for business.