As St. Paul officials ponder the fate of 799 W. University Ave., a two-story commercial building badly damaged by a fire two years ago, a historian has waged a one-woman campaign to save the century-old structure from potential demolition.
So far, history appears to be in her favor, with City Hall heartened by promises from new owners to restore it for an as-yet-undetermined use.
“This was the place where everybody in Rondo would go for weddings and funerals and pack the place,” said Karen Sieber, who has researched the building’s history back to its earliest days. “It has connection to Black sports history. The very first year the Twins existed, they brought the Twins there for one of the first meet-and-greets with the team.”
Chef Eric Pham had been in the process of acquiring the vacant building, the former home of Ngon Bistro, from prior owner Hai Truong when fire left it uninhabitable in August 2024.
Pham said his parents — the longtime operators of Quang’s Restaurant on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis — may have culinary plans for 799 University Ave. down the line, but he’s effectively washed his hands of the property. He’s focusing on his St. Paul restaurant, Khue’s Kitchen, which landed instead on Raymond Avenue and was recently featured in the New York Times’ annual list of the nation’s best restaurants.At 799 University Ave., “I’m actually not the owner. My parents are. I deferred ownership to them,” said Pham on Wednesday. “Because it’s so damaged, they just want to clean it first. That’s as far as the planning has gone. It’s so unbelievably disgusting in there, I could not imagine opening a restaurant in there or anything to do with food until it has been cleaned and fumigated. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.”
For now, after at least eight months of back-and-forth discussion with the former and current owners, the city appears to have put the brakes on any discussion of potential demolition of the property. On Wednesday, a hearing over the building’s fate drew several concerned community members, as well as some reassuring words from the new owners and city officials.
“We know that it’s not going to be torn down, because the owner is meeting all of the conditions requested of the hearing officer,” said Mai Vang, a legislative hearing coordinator for the city, in a brief phone interview Wednesday.
History of 799 W. University Ave.
Decades before it was known as the upscale Vietnamese restaurant Ngon Bistro, 799 W. University Ave. was home to some of the best barbecue food in the Twin Cities, as well as one of the hottest predominantly Black jazz clubs in St. Paul, at least according to those who can remember dancing there until 3 a.m.
It also doubled over the years as a meeting space for Black labor unions and advocacy groups such as the Urban League, the Prince Hall Masons, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Dining Car Employees Credit Union, said Sieber, the historian.
The building opened in 1923 as a grocery operated by German-born grocer William Menold, who lived upstairs from the ground-level market with his family.
Around 1950, local radio pioneer Maurice Goldberg, the son of Jewish immigrants, became the majority owner, with the goal of opening a restaurant and lounge. Black businessman Chester “Chet” W. Oden invested a smaller amount but took on more of the operations, Sieber said. Oden’s role would grow with time, allowing him to buy out Goldberg’s shares.
Oden, a former waiter and Pullman porter, came to run Road Buddy’s Bar-B-Q — also referred to as Road Buddies — on the building’s ground level. The name was an apparent reference to his experiences working train cars. Among his promotions, he’d buy players with the St. Paul Saints a dinner whenever they hit a home run. He also operated a second Road Buddies site in St. Louis Park and the Key Club in Minneapolis.
While being situated in a Black neighborhood, “they had a very large white clientele, because it was really one of the only barbecue places in town,” said Frank White, who grew up in the Rondo neighborhood and has chronicled the neighborhood’s history at length. “It was a little upscale. The tables had white tablecloths. It also had valet parking. It was like ‘the place.’ At the time, there weren’t many barbecue places in town.”
“This was one of our legacy places of Rondo,” White added.
The Ebony Lounge, the Rumpus Room
Over the decades, the building also drew finely dressed couples to its second-floor club, which was alternately known as the Ebony Lounge, the Rumpus Room and La Bonga. National acts such as Ray Charles followed local performers, including Black musicians and white musicians who took the stage next to each other, even during more segregated times.
“It was like top entertainment up there,” recalled White, who enjoyed seeing performers like Bobby Lyle — a nationally recognized musician who is still active in the Twin Cities jazz scene — play jazz piano, as well as other established local acts like Doris Hines and national touring groups.
The club was one of the first in the state to feature go-go dancers in 1965. Oden drowned in 1966, but other barbecue chefs continued its cultural and culinary legacy through the 1960s and ’70s.
Around 1969, the club sponsored a men’s basketball team that White played on after college. “We’d go up there after games and have a beer,” he said.
Starting around 1981, during the early days of Southeast Asian immigration to St. Paul, the building at the edge of both the Frogtown and historically Black Rondo neighborhoods became home to a string of Asian restaurants, the last of which was an upscale Vietnamese dinner bar.
In 2007, chef Hai Truong and his wife, Jessica Ainsworth-Truong, acquired the building from Truong’s parents and opened Ngon Bistro, which they closed in 2023.
“It’s consistently served a culinary purpose,” Sieber said. “It’s always been a grocery store, a restaurant, a club — always something in that realm.”
Over the past seven months, Sieber has urged the city to give the property owner time to get it restored. The building has been the subject of historical surveys but has never been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places and carries no official certification as a historic property.
So far, city officials appear to be well-aligned with her point of view, and heartened by the efforts of Pham and his family to acquire the property in advance of a partial rebuild.
Delays and next steps
Pham had been in the process of buying the site, with the intention of installing Khue’s Kitchen, in August 2024 when the devastating fire left the structure uninhabitable. Khue’s Kitchen, named after his mother, opened instead on Raymond Avenue, where it’s drawn a dedicated following and national attention.
The 799 University building, which suffered fire, smoke and water damage, currently lacks electricity, natural gas and water service. The building’s roof and shattered glass windows need substantial repair, according to city reports.
During a hearing before a city legislative hearing officer in January, Truong’s attorney Adam Hagedorn asked the city for more time to bring a potential buyer — the Phams — on board.
“The former tenant told me they’re interested in purchasing the building,” Hagedorn told the city at the time, according to meeting minutes. “They’ve been going in so they can put together an idea of cost. Insurance … concluded it was wiring. That took months because the insurance company was a mess.”
“We have this estimate and someone interested in purchasing,” Hagedorn continued. “That restaurant just won Restaurant of the Year, Khue’s Kitchen. They’ve been in twice to get estimates. Their attorney is out of the country until the end of the month, I just spoke with him last night. We want to negotiate something, but that is where it stands.”
On Wednesday, Pham said the sale had indeed gone through, but the property is now in the hands of his parents.
“I told them, if the city wants to bulldoze it, let them, because this place is so gross,” Pham said. “I told my parents, ‘If you guys want it, you can have it,’ because I need to focus on my restaurant.”
