Oklahoma Food Blog Restores Business For OKC Bakery

After months of slow business, the Quac Bao Bakery was facing tough times. 

The owner, Euc Bao Wen, or Bao for short, said the donut and Vietnamese sandwich shop would go hours without a single customer. 

On Sunday, Jeniffer Bui, the Lawton woman behind the Okie Dokie Foodie Facebook page, stopped by for dinner while visiting Oklahoma City. 

Outside of her day job, Bui is a photographer, and recently created the Okie Dokie Foodie page to feature restaurants and shops that have struggled since the start of the pandemic. 

The page quickly drew a following after Bui began sharing thoughtful stories of the restaurants she visited, and the people working inside. 

After her visit to the Quac Bao Bakery, Bui shared a post asking the foodie community to help Mr. Bao. 

 The next day, Bao said he was flooded with customers. 

“Came in Monday morning, oh my goodness, that’s a lot of people,” he said. 

Since it was posted, Bui’s call to support the bakery has been shared more than 5,000 times. 

“There’s people that are traveling from Texas to come see him,” she said. “I find that pretty amazing.” 

In the weeks before Bui’s visit, Bao said he had to layoff his employees. The rush of customers was so great immediately after the post, Bao was so busy with orders that a customer jumped behind the counter to help work the register. 

“I’m still in shock that I have that much influence to help businesses and that motivates me to feature more restaurants and help more people out,” Bui said. 

Okie Dokie Foodie has garnered an international following of more than eight thousand people. Some proposed sending money to Bui to support Bao, so she started collecting donations. So far this week, Bui said she’s collected more than $2,400. 

“It was really beautiful to see this call and response in our community,” Kris Dahlgren, an avid fan of Bao, said while waiting outside the crowded bakery during the lunch rush. 

Because businesses across Oklahoma and the country have dealt with lost revenue recently, Bui said she hopes foodies support as many restaurants as they can to help them stay open. 

“Look at a restaurant or an establishment that looks like they don’t have any cars in their parking lot. They need help too.”