It's been nine months since Hai Chinese Food opened its doors on Tucson's South Side, but customers still sometimes get confused.
They occasionally walk up to the restaurant's window and start ordering Mexican food. Never mind the Chinese menu out front.
Owner Hai Khuu does his best to steer the disoriented diners in the right direction.
"I say, 'Comida China,' " Khuu said.
Usually they stick around, and often they come back.
Such confusion is easily understood. Khuu's restaurant is in a 1980 school bus that once served as a Mexican food stand.
It sits in a lot on South Sixth Avenue, just north of Irvington Road. There, it neighbors two other stands that serve Mexican food.
In an area where Mexican food stands can be found every few blocks, Khuu's Chinese food is a subtle surprise.
People are also reading…
"It may be the only Chinese food cart in the city," he said.
A native of Vietnam, Khuu, 43, has been living in Arizona since the mid-'80s.
In Vietnam, Khuu said he planned to become a photographer. His uncle was a photographer, and he even briefly worked with him.
But he left the country when he was 17, arriving in Indonesia as a refugee. There, he said, he lived in a camp for three years before moving to the United States.
At first, he lived in Minnesota. But he moved to Arizona to reunite with his brother who had immigrated a year after Khuu.
A career in food service followed.
He worked in the kitchen at Furr's Family Dining in Tucson and Yuma, where he said he learned to cook a bit of "everything."
He also worked at Hometown Buffett and an area Tokyo Rice Bowl, which explains why his menu features teriyaki chicken.
Vietnamese food is not on the menu because he said he doesn't know how to cook it.
Hai Chinese Food is small and modest. The bus — which cost about $15,000 — is painted red, white and blue. Health code certificates and city permits are posted outside.
Inside, a photo of Khuu's goddaughter hangs on the wall. He has a small kitchen with a wok, a range oven and sinks, and he does all the cooking himself.
With the restaurant so new, he admitted business is shaky. He's already refinanced his home twice to support it.
Still, word is slowly getting around, and he's building a base of regulars.
"It's different, the food is good," said Arturo Leyva, who stops by once or twice a week and ordered fried rice and chop suey Wednesday.
The restaurant was just an idea that popped in Khuu's head about a year ago, but it has turned into his dream.
One day, he said, he would like to open a restaurant built on a foundation instead of wheels.
"But I don't have enough money," he said. "Everything starts small."
Faculty concerned about changes to U of A admissions policy
