When he arrived in the United States in the early 1990s, restaurant owner Minh Do remembers that $200 in food stamps bought his family a lifeline. Neither he nor the nine Vietnamese relatives who came with him spoke English, so they worked at farms and beef processing plants in the Midwest to make ends meet.

“That extra $200 a month [in food stamps] helped us stretch things quite a long way,” says Do, who now operates multiple restaurants in Broward County. “You have to be grateful. In Vietnamese, there is a saying: ‘When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.’ ”

As the now-longest government shutdown in American history lingers on, Do said he’s stepping up this week to offer free bowls of phó and bánh mì sandwiches to SNAP recipients who are anxious about their next meal i

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