Mary Nguyen Is Dedicated to Making Denver a Great City Again

Mary Nguyen is passionate about revitalizing downtown because she's a Denver native, born to Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in Colorado after the end of the war in Southeast Asia.

She's a graduate of George Washington High School and the University of Colorado Boulder, who began a career in finance before finding her sweet spot in hospitality, with a series of elevated casual restaurants under the Olive & Finch umbrella — opening three downtown since 2023, including Little Finch, a restaurant just off 16th Street at Blake Street.

As a small business owner and a member of the Visit Denver board, she says it's important — and personal — for her to support other businesses, and to represent Denver's struggling core. "Obviously, we've had challenges after COVID," she says. "We all want to see a vibrant Denver, and I think that it's great for us to sit around and talk about it, but I think we need to do something about it. ...So that's what I'm intentionally trying to do."

She considers herself a member not just of the broader Denver community but also the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander community, and celebrates the city's diversity and growing sophistication. "When we look at what creates a great city, you know, we definitely have to look at the amenities," she notes. "So if everyone's running away or talking badly, we're not helping anyone. We're just hurting each other. So I just really lean in and want to do my part, because I think it requires all of us to do a little something."

She's done more than a little. "I did the typical Asian thing, right?" she notes. "I graduated from college, went straight into investment banking, working in public finance. So I actually helped structure Coors Field, and did a bunch of bonds for DIA."
But "I always loved hospitality," she adds. "I actually had no experience in it, but I just loved hosting and loved building community, and I learned early on that my my love language is food. Yes, it's very Asian."

She quit her finance career in 2001 and started working several jobs in restaurants just to learn the trade. "I worked the morning shift at a coffee shop, then I was hired as a sushi chef apprentice at Hapa when they opened their Cherry Creek location, and then worked at the Beehive in Capitol Hill." She kept up this schedule, working from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, to learn every aspect of running a restaurant. Then she took a full-time position at Hapa Sushi, and when she quit to open her first restaurant, "I left as the only female executive sushi chef at the time in the country," she recalls.

After several other concepts, she's focusing on Olive & Finch. She doesn't see those restaurants as "fast casual" — she loves seeing all kinds of customers come in and sit with a coffee and their laptops, or dine with their families, or just grab and go. Instead, she thinks this style of eatery is essential to Denver's downtown revival.

"I just felt that dining out, at least for me, as someone who really appreciates food, has become such a commitment in time, diet and money. But I don't think that you should have a lot of money to eat well, or spend a lot of money to eat well. I don't think that those things should be related," she says. "My goal has been to create a space that was accessible and affordable, but also really community driven, really vibrant, full of energy, serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, because I wanted, personally, a place to be able to come in and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and for it to be just a place where you come as you are, no pretense."

Just like Nguyen...and Denver at its best.