What mobile pho kitchen was carried on shoulder poles by early vendors? It was the gánh phở, a portable pho stall carried on a shoulder pole.
The Vietnamese word gánh refers to a shoulder-borne load or the carrying apparatus used by vendors. A gánh phở typically held the equipment and ingredients needed to sell bowls on the street, including pots, bowls, utensils, broth, noodles, and toppings. Vendors balanced the load across a wooden pole resting on their shoulders.
This arrangement made pho mobile and allowed sellers to serve customers in different parts of Hanoi and elsewhere. Early pho vendors worked from the street rather than from permanent restaurants, making the dish accessible to workers, travelers, and residents.
Gánh phở should not be confused with xe đẩy, which means a pushcart. Nor does the term simply mean a bowl or a cooking pot: it describes the portable vending setup and, by extension, the street-selling tradition. Gánh phở declined as stationary eateries became more common, especially from roughly 1936 to 1946.