$200K Raised To Lift Pinellas Park Restaurant Manager Out Of Homelessness

PINELLAS PARK, FL — What what was expected to be a simple meal out to try a new restaurant last month turned into an act of “divine intervention” and a mission to transform the life of an 85-year-old Vietnamese restaurant operator without a home, Julian Becerra, influencer and owner of a regenerative men’s health company in Tampa, told Patch.

After learning that Lieng Le, who runs Café Bích Nga in Pinellas Park, is homeless, usually sleeping in the restaurant’s lobby, he raised nearly $200,000 via GoFundMe to rent a home for her.

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The funds should cover about three years of rent, as well as the purchase of all the day-to-day items she might need and a small monthly stipend, Becerra said.

City Furniture is also donating $10,000 worth of home furnishings to Le, and the money raised is being held for her in a trust managed by the nonprofit Helping Hands Ministries.

“It’s one of the craziest things that’s ever happened in my life,” he said.

One April 23, Becerra planned to grab a bite to eat at his favorite “hole-in-the-wall restaurant” near his Tampa home and make a video about the experience.

“Just to bring them a little attention. It’s a restaurant I always go to, and they were supposed to be open, but they were closed,” he said. “So, I went to another that I sometimes go to around my house, and they were also closed an hour early, randomly.”

He keeps a running list of restaurants he’d like to try, and while looking it over that day, landed on Café Bích Nga.

It’s about a 35-minute drive from his house, and its Google Business profile listed the restaurant as closed that day.

“It said they were closed online, but for some reason, I called anyway, and I was met with Lieng on the phone. She said, ‘Come in, come in, come in,’” Becerra said. “So, I went to this restaurant with this funny-sounding name. But no one had ever made a video or content on how good the food was; they just made content on how funny the name was.”

It’s pronounced "Bit Nya,” Le said in the first video that Becerra shared to Instagram about the eatery. A “beautiful name for [a] woman,” she added.

He was surprised to find the restaurant empty when he walked in and even more surprised to learn it had been hours since Le and her staff had seen a customer.

So, Becerra chatted with her about the restaurant, recording his conversation with her. He was also wowed by his meal, cooked by Le.

“She was so good, kind-spirited about it all … She wouldn’t even let us pay for our meal, let alone let us tip her. We had to forcibly give her a tip,” he said.

That evening, he posted a video of his experience on Instagram.

“And it blew up, even just overnight, it got tons of views, more than any of my other videos,” Becerra said.

He returned to Café Bích Nga several days later and learned that business had picked up since he posted the video.

During this visit, he chatted with Le some more and learned that she was homeless. Though at first she said she was staying with friends, Becerra learned that she actually sleeps at the restaurant.

“I think she was embarrassed and that’s why she first said she was staying with friends,” he said. “Where people sit in, like, their lobby area, as far as her waiting area, it turns into a bed. And she showed me it turning out into a bed, and she brought me in the back where she has all her stuff and clothes and whatnot. It was kind of sad to see all that. It wrecked me.”

This was when he decided he would help Le get a home of her own and launched the GoFundMe fundraiser for her.

Originally from Vietnam, she ran a thriving restaurant there before moving to the U.S. Her husband died more than two decades ago in 2003, though she has extended family in the region.

While Le knew that Becerra has raised some money for her, she doesn’t know the extent of his plans for finding her a home.

“The plan now is to handle everything on the backend, including making sure that her utilities, her rent, all that stuff is paid for, and then just handing her over keys to the house,” he said.

Then comes the last step: taking her home to Vietnam to see her family.

“She hasn’t been in years,” Becerra said. “I was asking on my last visit [to the restaurant] if she wanted to go and she was like, ‘No, it’s too expensive. I would love to go, but it’s too expensive.’”

He plans to accompany her on this trip.

“I’ve never been to Vietnam myself, so it will be cool to go with her and go see her original restaurant, visit her hometown, where she grew up, all that cool stuff,” he said. “So, that’s the next arc to all this, but that’s after we give her the keys to the house.”