Customer leaves $500 tip at vandalized Sacramento Vietnamese restaurant. ‘Faith in humanity.’

Tây Giang, a Vietnamese restaurant in south Sacramento, has allegedly been vandalized repeatedly throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, a customer stepped up to help out.

A Tây Giang customer ordered khoai bi chen (cassava fries), bun cari chay (vegetable curry) and hu tieu cai (tofu-and-vegetable soup), totaling $34.64 with tax. Then they dropped an extra $500 in the tip line, 1,443% the price of the total bill, with a heart and a note: “To help with the broken window.”

Twitter user CaroWyn, the niece of Tây Giang owner Dai Chi Luu, posted a picture of the receipt Saturday. Her post had more than 1,700 retweets and 28,500 likes as of 4 p.m. Monday.

“Recently, my uncle’s restaurant has been victim to a string of vandalism. Every time he fixes the window, it’s only a matter of days before it’s broken again,” CaroWyn’s tweet read. “A few nights ago a patron left this note. Faith in humanity restored.”

An employee of Tây Giang — near Cosumnes River College at 7321 W. Stockton Blvd., Suite 100 — declined The Sacramento Bee’s request for comment on the vandalism or tip.

Violence against Asian Americans and their businesses has surged throughout the coronavirus pandemic, both locally and nationally. The Sacramento Police Department investigated 11 cases of anti-Asian discrimination in 2020, up from four in 2017. People reported 2,583 incidents to the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center from March to August 2020, with more than 40% coming from California.

Tây Giang, which opened in 2015, has not reported any incidents of the vandalism to Sacramento police since the pandemic began, said department spokesman Officer Karl Chan.

This story was originally published May 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM.