The community of Semans recently had the former Coop grocery store reopened. The store upon closure from Last Mountain Coop was then operational through the Village of Semans. The Village then looked to sell the grocery store, and just a few weeks ago, Tam Nguyen and his partners came in and took over the operations of the building. Tam came to Canada in 2013 from Vietnam to study biomedical engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. He has very big plans and visions for his future that include running the store and the former Brickhouse Café in the small Village. The café is slated to reopen in March. Tam and his wife had wanted for some time to raise their daughter in Western culture, so they chose to move to Saskatchewan. They had lived in other parts of the world before this, including Thailand, Australia, United States, France and Vietnam.
Tam shared a story with me about when they lived in New Jersey and did not have a car. They had to ride their bicycles or take the train everywhere they went. Tam and his family are permanent residents of Canada now and reside in Regina. He sees opening the store and café as an opportunity to rejuvenate the small Village and a way to successfully maintain the population. Tam spoke about how friendly everyone is and has already started building friendships within the Village. He referenced that in the big city, it is so hard to adapt, but in a small community, it is very different. Everyone knows you, and that is a good thing. Small town life is not as competitive as living in a big city when dealing with businesses he mentioned. Tam is looking into the future. He's considering the possibility of expanding this store purchase into another in a different community. He hopes one day to be able to network and create relationships with farmers or to even own a farm. This desire stems from his knowledge of quinoa, and it's popularity in his former country of Vietnam. He looks at rural Saskatchewan and sees many opportunities to produce the grain and maybe even process it into quinoa products. Welcome to the community, Tam!
