Roll’d celebrates 100th store in Melbourne as founder shares its Vietnamese refugee legacy

The son of Vietnamese refugees turned his mum’s cooking into a massive success which started from their Melbourne kitchen.

As Bao Hoang, the founder of Roll’d Vietnamese, celebrates the opening of their 100th store in Melbourne, he reflects on how it all started from his mum making thousands of rice paper rolls from their home kitchen to deliver to a small shop in the CBD.

The food was being prepped by Bao’s mother Phien or “Mama Hoang” at their Oakleigh home while his father would deliver the home-cooked Vietnamese food to their lunchtime kiosk.

Bao “always thought there was an opportunity” to turn his mum’s cooking into a business as she shared the traditional Vietnamese recipes with him.

“For years I watched people walk around eating sushi rolls, including my own kids. I’d think about how great it would be if they were eating a Vietnamese rice paper roll,” he said.

“I was keen to knock the sushi roll off the pedestal. I wanted to share my family traditions and shape the way Australians interacted with Vietnamese cuisine and culture.

“We were motivated to show Australians all the beautiful flavours of Vietnamese food, a cuisine considered one of the healthiest in the world.”

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Bao Hoang started Roll'd in 2012 inspired by his mother’s home cooking. Picture: Supplied

TAKING A LEAP WITH ‘ZERO’ EXPERIENCE

Bao was working as a physiotherapist with nine franchises at the time but decided to make a huge shift and partnered up with friend Ray Esquires and cousin Tin Ly to give the business idea a go.

The three of them pooled together $150,000 and took over a little Italian cafe in Melbourne’s CBD with “zero hospitality experience” aside from Ray’s one-day fast tracked barista course.

They initially only had two items on the menu to begin with – rice paper rolls which they call “soldiers” and traditional Vietnamese phở noodle soup.

After the landlord raised an eyebrow at the limited menu, they added bánh mì (Vietnamese baguettes), bún (noodle salad) and gỏi (salad).

With a printed A4 menu stuck to the window as their only marketing, they opened the first Roll’d Vietnamese in 2012 in Melbourne’s CBD.

“We finished the shop fit-out at 5am that morning. We opened late to a queue of about 30 people, and by 2pm we were sold out,” Bao recalled, adding there was a lot of “playing Tetris in the fridges” as they tried to make all the food fit.

“Our first day of trade was a huge success for us, maybe not in a traditional sense, but the buzz within the team and with customers was amazing,” he said.

“With continuous tweaking and innovation, we were serving more than 800 customers in a two-hour lunch window.

“Of course, we made a lot of mistakes,” Bao admitted. “We’re still always adapting our business and innovating to provide more options.”

His parents came from Vietnam after escaping as refugees in 1981. Picture: Supplied

ROLLING OUT 150 STORES

Since then, they’ve invested more than $5 million of their own money into the business plus injections from other founders and multiple investors.

“From an initial investment of about $150K, we began Roll’d with sales of about $500K in 2012 and have now grown it to circa $80 million of sales group-wide,” Bao said.

“We expanded rapidly very early on, and now celebrate our 100th store opening. This is a huge milestone for our brand.

“We’ve got an aggressive international agenda coming up, with New Zealand on the horizon,” he added.

“Local and international growth is very much a cornerstone of the Roll’d brand in 2021. We believe that we will get close to 150 stores close to mid-2022.”

The father-of-four said “it would be a lie to say it doesn’t take a lot of hard work and a village around you”.

“There are and will be long hours, weekends and days of absolute torture, but you tend to come out the other side stronger and smarter,” he said.

Roll’d opened its doors to its 100th store this week in Melbourne, where it all started.

FROM VIETNAM TO MELBOURNE

The success of Roll’d is a far cry from where his parents came from, growing up in a small village in Vietnam to escaping on a refugee boat in 1981 in their 20s.

The 26-year-old teachers, Phien Hoang and Quay Hoang, were forced to leave their home when “their village became under threat”.

“They spent nine days on the sea before spotting a fruit cargo travelling to Bangkok,” Bao explains. “They then spent seven months in a refugee camp before they were accepted into Australia.”

Bao was born in Melbourne where his family, including his two older brothers, settled.

“My parents were very hardworking but with very little English skills, Dad’s first job was picking strawberries,” he said.

His parents then went into the “rag trade” and opened a small sewing business they ran from their home garage and also worked in factories.

“They would spend at least 14 hours a day, other days more, and I spent many holidays helping out, pressing garments, and cutting threads,” Bao explained.

His parents are involved in the Roll’d business today and continue to share recipes and stories from the past.

“I remember asking my mum about using her recipes for the business,” Bao said, adding she had one condition which was for him to promise he would give back to the people in Vietnam “that weren’t as fortunate as our family”.

He kept that promise, including partnering with the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in Vietnam to extend support to Vietnamese children in need.

Bao Hoang was previously a physiotherapist before he decided to take a leap in a new direction.

‘WE KNEW WE HAD A HUGE OPPORTUNITY’

“Once we saw how positively customers responded to our offering, we knew we had a huge opportunity, and were really keen to revolutionise the fast-casual lunch beyond sushi and sandwiches,” he said.

Bao had prior experience with franchises, so the idea to expand was a given when the business was clearly meeting consumer demand.

“At one stage, we were receiving over forty inquiries a week for new franchisees, which definitely boosted our confidence,” he said.

They opened their second Roll’d store in the same year and a further 14 stores across Victoria, Queensland and the ACT in the following year.

“We credit this growth to our simple but naturally healthy food, strong sense of culture within our teams, and support for our community. And without our ‘village’ – family, extended family, friends, school parent networks – we absolutely could not have had the capacity to grow the business, nor the family of six we have now,” he said.

“We are so pleased to see Australian’s embrace and enjoy a slice of our family traditions.”

Roll'd introduced new delivery options including Roll’d Runner and Roll’d Run during the pandemic.