A Tuesday afternoon fire had reduced Midtown restaurant Saigon Le to rubble by Wednesday morning. (Thomas Bailey Jr./The Commercial Appeal)

SHARE March 8, 2016 - Memphis firefighters battle a blaze at the Saigon Le in Midtown Tuesday afternoon. (Nikki Boertman/The Commercial Appeal)

By Jody Callahan of The Commercial Appeal

A large fire swept through the Saigon Le Restaurant late Tuesday afternoon, destroying a place that has, over two decades, become a Midtown institution.

Although several employees and customers were inside the one-story building at 51 N. Cleveland St., all managed to get out safely when the fire erupted a little after 4 p.m., Memphis Fire Department spokesman Lt. Wayne Cooke said.

“It was heavily involved when we got here. Fire was coming from the roof,” Cooke said, adding that MFD sent 19 pieces of equipment and 47 firefighters to the blaze.

More than an hour after the fire started, crews were still trying to control the blaze, which had caused a partial roof collapse. Brown smoke and water cascaded out of the back of the building.The cause of the fire was undetermined, but believed to have begun in the kitchen. Damage was estimated at $132,500.



Benjamin Ward was leaving his volunteer shift at the Friends for Life building next door when he saw flames spurting from a vent on the roof.

“I went over and told the people about the fire,” Ward said. “They were trying to get the money out of the cash register.”

The Le family opened the Vietnamese restaurant in April 1993 with Hoa Nguyen, the mother, as chef and her daughters working the front of the house. While it didn’t introduce Memphians to Vietnamese food—Lotus opened on Summer in 1980 — the abundance of fresh herbs, homemade broths, creative dishes such as the bird’s nest egg rolls, and a bit of hipster appeal helped it gain popularity. It was one of the first of numerous Vietnamese restaurants to open on Cleveland, which has been home since to perhaps half a dozen or more, as well as the Asian grocery store Viet Hoa.

On March 3, 1995, a fire destroyed the restaurant, but the Le family rebuilt and reopened six months later.

Tieng Le hoped Tuesday that the same would happen again.

“Pretty bad. It’s going to be a total loss,” he said. “We’d like to rebuild.”

Food writer Jennifer Biggs contributed to this report.