Pho TJ, Stittsville’s newest restaurant, opens for business today at 11am.
Located at 1151 Main Stittsville Main Street, the restaurant specializes in authentic Vietnamese food, with a focus on pho, a flavourful noodle soup usually served with beef, chicken, or pork.
“If you’re hungry for bbq flavour, we have the real thing,” says Tyson Nguyen (pictured above), head chef at the restaurant. “We try to focus on fresh food, no preservatives, and we don’t use any peanut products. ”
(Nguyen says the restaurant is not officially “peanut free”, but that the kitchen is sensitive to customers with allergy concerns.)
Nguyen has spent the last few weeks working long hours to get the restaurant ready, with help from family and friends from Ottawa’s Vietnamese community. Nguyen himself moved from Vietnam to Canada about 12 or 13 years ago, when he was ten years old.
The owners of the restaurant are Thi Pham and Binh To, and the “TJ” in the name come from the first initials of two of the owners’ children, Troy and Jaden. Nguyen, along with the owners, live in Barrhaven but chose Stittsville because of the rapidly growing population.
“We wanted to expand our cuisine further out. Stittsville is a growing area, very family oriented,” he says. “It’s a place we wanted to be.”
The restaurant will be open for lunch on Friday, but closed from 5:00pm-9:00pm for a private function. Starting September 6 the restaurant will be open daily from 11am to 9pm.
Where do you like to eat in Stittsville? Tell us your favourite restaurants in the comments below or send a note to feedback@stittsvillecentral.ca
Best of luck! It’s great to see new options coming into Stittsville.