In a time where there are virtually no tourists, the coastal cities are being constantly bashed by very harsh weather and most businesses fail to garner any customers at all other than deliveries (which are few in number) there is one business that is busy every single day.
They didn't even open until it looked like it was all doom and gloom for the tourism oriented area that I live in and all of us that still remained at the time were thinking the same thing: "what the hell are these idiots thinking opening a new business now?"
There are a few popular places that have certain days of the week where they manage to pull in some customers due to quiz nights, or if some sort of popular Australian sporting event is on (other sports are popular too but time zones make the Aus ones more attractive ) or maybe the restaurant / bar will have some sort of happy hour that results in the people going there for just those 1 or 2 hours and then moving on. Yet Roadhouse packs people in every....single.....day..
So why is this? The building isn't terribly inviting. As a matter of fact they don't even have any indoor seating and it is rainy season right now. That doesn't mean you get rained on because they do have retractable roofs that at this time of year are always not retracted. So it definitely isn't the street appeal because the place has very little of that.
The menu isn't different either and at first glance I just walked straight past this place because they advertised that they have burgers and pizza... which is something that literally every other restaurant in this area also has. So it isn't the inventive items on the menu that are doing it either. I'll tell you what the answer is and the other business owners need to take this to heart:
They give a crap whether you enjoy yourself or not and every menu item is made as best as it can be
There are at least a dozen places in a the My An area and many of them offer burgers. The burgers do not look like this though and even though this photo is actually a photo from their own FB page, I can tell you from having ordered there on multiple occasions that the burger you actually receive is just as impressive. It is the main thing that people go there for because word has spread very quickly that these guys seriously know what they are doing.
So you would expect such a luxurious burger to be expensive right? WRONG!
Keep in mind that $1US is approximately 25,000 VND so their cheapest burger, hilariously named Single Dad is less than 2 bucks. It is also a monster of a burger. I ordered their most expensive burger one day for takeaway and it took me more than 2 sittings to finish it and I am not a small guy nor am I afraid of a big meal.
This isn't even the best part about the place though. There are 3 partners in the ownership: 1 Vietnamese and 2 foreigners. They are always there with very few days off. They remember your name (most of the time) they know how to make cocktails quickly and with great presentation skills, and their Huda draft (Huda is a very popular Vietnamese lager) is a mere 15K VND a pint. Guys.... this is 70 US cents for a pint of beer.
If you roam around the My An area of Da Nang at night you are going to see a lot of places that are open and most of them just seem sad because there are usually just a few regulars in the places. On the other hand, the scene at Roadhouse looks like this every night
So there you have it folks. I've never owned a bar or restaurant but I do know that having a combination of fast and friendly service with really good burgers (who doesn't like burgers?) is probably a good place to start. I highly recommend going to this place.
Here is the location on Gmaps