San Antonio foodies’ ears likely pricked up during Thursday’s Democratic debate when candidate Andrew Yang gave a shout out to local restaurateur Sean Wen.
Wen is the co-founder of Pinch Boil House and Bia Bar, a downtown eatery specializing in the Viet-Cajun seafood boils served along Texas’ Gulf Coast. He’s also a graduate of Yang’s nonprofit Venture for America, which provided training for entrepreneurs in San Antonio and other U.S. cities.
“I spent seven years starting and running a nonprofit that helped train young entrepreneurs around the country, including Sean Wen, who’s here in the audience tonight,” Yang said from the debate stage.
Yang added that Wen left “a gilded Wall Street job to become a food entrepreneur in San Antonio. Sean, I hope I made the process a little bit easier for you than it was for me.”
A few hours after the mention, Wen tweeted back his thanks.
“Not only did you make the process easier, you created an entire family of people that supported me and empowered me to do something I have always dreamed of doing,” he wrote, ending his tweet with the hashtag #YangGang.
Wen and Andrew Ho launched their concept as a pop-up before establishing it as a permanent restaurant in 2017.
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This article appears in Sep 11-24, 2019.
