-My brother dragged me out
because it's the last day that Viet-Wah's open.
It's a very iconic location.
When I first came to America,
I used to go here with my grandparents,
my parents. I grew up in the CID
(Chinatown-International District).
(beeping and package wrinkling).
-This is where I shop.
Where?
Where...I'm not going to ride to
Renton. (speaking in Vietnamese)
Everything is closing. Viet-Wah!
-We've been planning for this for several years.
Like we knew it was coming.
And so on some level, we've,
like, mentally prepared for it.
But now that it's actually here,
it is hard to be like, Oh, today really is the last day.
-We will see you soon.
-Seeing customers
say bye to our staff, that's been really... (speaking sadly) Oh, see!
-My customer, my coworker, everybody just like family.
Team work very good.
And then now we have to.
-The first couple years, we lose money,
you know, and then we overcome those problem.
And they will
come in every day and make sure the door is open.
Everyday thing, you know, in the morning
sometimes I overslept.
Oh my god!
You know,
I really miss those guy and then miss seeing people
and my highlights also, you know, and
and missing seeing all those customer and fan.
-I think my fondest memories have been in grocery stores.
We can't just say, Oh, we'll find another store
to replace them eventually.
You can't really replace
businesses that have built relationships
and community like this. -I say bye.
Yeah. -Thank you for supporting us. Yeah.
-It's been really touching to know
that our business has affected people in this way.
Because you think of a
grocery store It's like it's just food, but
food is so important to our lives.
To be a place
where people can go and feel at home
and feel like they belong here,
and to see things that they're familiar with
and remind them of home or remind them of their past
or their culture or their family.
It's really powerful, I think.
-Okay! It's seven. Yeah. No, no.
-I don't think this is ever going to exist in the same way
in this neighborhood again.
(gate closing)
After 40 years, that's been a pretty good run.
But I also feel ready to to move on now.