Crowdfunding Campaign: Pink Bellies

A Brief History

Pink Bellies is the brainchild of Charleston chef Thai Phi. Founded in 2014 as a food truck, this brand aims to create “comfort” Vietnamese dishes while still being very experimental by combining SoCal and Southern cooking styles. The brand went through several evolutions, from a food truck to a pop-up around Charleston. In 2020, Thai decided to purchase a spot in the heart of downtown Charleston in order to build a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

The Problem

Thai’s restaurant was being built when the COVID-19 pandemic was wrecking havoc to the F&B industry. I’ll let Thai explain in his own words:

“Collectively, we are facing and overcoming the coronavirus. As an upcoming restaurant, the major obstacles have been rising opportunity costs and budget costs - permit and inspection delays from the city, construction delays from subcontractors, and previous government-mandated working hours.”

The Solution

Thai decided to create a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for his restaurant. The campaign promised exciting rewards for its backer, from exclusive cooking courses to limited edition merch. Thai was also in need of a video that will tell the story of his dream in an engaging way with his audience. And that’s where I came in.

Despite many COVID restrictions, I managed to get footage of Thai at the restaurant’s construction site. Combine with old footage that I filmed of Thai in a previous event, I quickly created the following video in less than a week

The Result

The video was featured on the Kickstarter campaign and on Pink Bellies’ social media pages. The fundraising campaign went on and received a total of $31,431. I was also helping Thai in documenting the construction process of the restaurant, increasing the anticipation for the project. The restaurant hosted its soft opening in 2021 and is now fully open.