Rolling to success

Sitting near the corner of Dan Patch Avenue and Cooper Street at the Minnesota State Fair is one of the fair’s most sought-after treats: an oversized, hand-rolled egg roll on a stick.

For a fiercely loyal following of fairgoers, stopping by the Que Viet Concessions stand is an annual tradition. 

On this day, Vy Bui, one of the stand’s four co-owners and a University of Minnesota alumna, is making final preparations before the 12-day fair blitz begins on August 27. But behind the long lines and the long days, Bui credits a University of Minnesota class project with helping her get her festival business to where it is today.

“It’s surreal to think about how far we’ve come,” she says. “It’s crazy to see the loyalty and fandom that we’ve created.”

All in the family

The enterprise traces its roots back to the Que Viet Village House, a beloved family restaurant in northeast Minneapolis that has been a neighborhood staple since Bui’s aunt founded it in 1980.

The restaurant was one of the first Vietnamese restaurants in the city and is famous for its authentic handmade egg rolls, which are a family recipe. The family has since opened up several other Que Viet Village House restaurants around the Twin Cities metro (Que Viet, Em Que Viet, VN Express).

But after a conversation with the owners of Dino’s Gyros, Bui and her family began wondering whether they could turn their sit-down food into a portable festival favorite.

“They said, ‘You guys should take this on the road,’” Bui says. “They said they did fairs and that they thought this would be a great product at the fairs. So they really encouraged us to test the waters.”

Bui and three of her cousins started Que Viet Concessions in 2010 with one ultimate goal in mind: earning a spot at the Minnesota State Fair. The quartet started small, working local county fairs, festivals and farmers markets. Along the way, they gained experience, sales and loyal customers.

‘Social Media On-A-Stick’

As Bui was helping grow the business, she enrolled in the University of Minnesota’s master’s in strategic communication program through the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Having already graduated with an undergraduate degree in communications from the University’s College of Liberal Arts, Bui wanted to further develop her skills and see how they could improve her growing business.

Tasked with developing a comprehensive marketing strategy for her graduate capstone, she decided to focus the project on her family’s growing festival concept.

Her project, appropriately, was named “Social Media On-A-Stick.”

“My project focused on the social media aspect of running these types of businesses,” she says. “I did it based on existing vendors of the fair, and I took what I learned in the classroom and analyzed these vendors’ viewers, followers, when they posted on social media, and all of that data to see what was working and what was not.”

She used the skills she developed in the strategic communications program to write a marketing plan to help grow the food truck business.

In 2017, after seven years of applying to the state fair, Que Viet Concessions was selected to be part of the Great Minnesota Get Together. The stand sells three items: a giant egg roll on a stick, garlic cream cheese wontons and Vietnamese iced coffee.

Continued growth

Now celebrating its milestone 10th year on the fairgrounds, the journey has turned into an annual 12-day marathon for Bui and her other co-owners. Bui, who works full time as a project manager, takes vacation from her corporate career to help run and manage the business during and around the fair.

Bui says she is still using the insights from her master’s degree every single day. 

“In the program, every day you heard case studies or real-life examples of what it’s like to work for a corporation or work at a certain job and just being able to hear those different experiences has really helped me,” she says. “I wouldn’t know how to do crisis resolution if it weren’t for hearing my classmates talk about what they did. So now, when issues come up, I know how to react.”

When it comes to social media, Bui continues the work she started in her capstone project. She and Que Viet Concessions have amassed tens of thousands of followers across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. One recent post showing Bui’s aunts walking into the production kitchen to hand-roll egg rolls, set to the music of Madonna’s “Vogue,” has more than 1.9 million views on TikTok.

“People want to feel something,” she says. “They want to be entertained, or they want to learn something. So on our social media accounts, we try to give people something that they don’t usually get.”

The plan has worked. Que Viet Concessions has now been a state fair staple for a decade and sales continue to rise. Throughout the 2025 fair, the business sold more than 50,000 egg rolls across the 12 days, and this year, they’re hoping for more. 

“I am just so grateful to be here at the fair,” Bui says. “It’s been a dream, and we appreciate every single customer that comes through to try our food.”