Inside the up-to-date Saigon Coffee in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood. All photos courtesy of Saigon Coffee.
Coffee’s journey from farms in southern Vietnam to farmers’ markets in San Diego has taken a up-to-date turn, with an 11-year-old opening her first brick-and-mortar coffee shop Saigon Coffee.
Saigon Coffee founder Tu Duong told Daily Coffee News that the layout of the radiant, white, 46-square-meter space was inspired by the In-N-Out Burger model: elementary and spotless, allowing customers to easily move between tables and place orders.
Meanwhile, the walls of the up-to-date North Park store are spirited with colors and images nod to the company’s Vietnamese roots.
“We’re very Vietnamese inside the cafe,” Tu Duong said. “We incorporated murals of retro Vietnamese paintings from the 1970s, and we even have a immense mural that says, ‘Xin Chao San Diego,’ which means, ‘Hello San Diego.’ You can really taste the Vietnamese coffee.”
With a love for phin coffee, Tu Duong moved to San Diego for college in 2010 from Vinh Long, Vietnam, south of Saigon. Finding few public phin coffee options in Southern California, she decided to fill the void by opening Saigon Coffee with a booth in Hillcrest Farmers Market and we have since expanded into other markets.
The up-to-date cafe is managed by Tu Duong’s brother and his business partner, Vinh Duong.
Vin Duong and Tu Duong utilize extra-large phin coffee machines at their up-to-date Saigon Coffee in San Diego.
In all locations, the company specializes in serving Vietnamese-grown coffee, brewed the Vietnamese way, but using California King-size equipment to speed up service. Duong sourced the extra-large brewers from a specialist manufacturer in her home country.
“This is the only place in the world where we’ve been able to find a phin this size, which allows us to do our business and have this special process,” Duong said. “In Vietnam, vendors typically utilize a compact phin and make each coffee to order, but that means the customer has to sit and wait for the coffee to be brewed at their table, which can take 15 minutes or more. By using the immense phin, we can make compact batches and pre-mix the coffee so it’s ready to pour over ice and serve to the customer immediately.”
The brand’s signature phin beers are now made in a glass-walled brewing booth in the up-to-date café, where 20 massive breweries churn out three-litre batches of concentrate throughout the day.
“Combining very warm water and letting it steep very slowly in the coffee means we’re extracting all the flavor from the coffee, without burning it,” Duong said of the brewing process. “It also makes the coffee thicker and more caffeinated than if you used a machine or another process.”
Sweetened condensed milk is added to the hefty brews to create the signature Original Saigon Coffee. Another menu option is Phin, a drink blended with coconut milk, similar to the Hanoi-style drink made with coffee blended with beaten pasteurized egg yolks. The company works with a local supplier who sources and roasts its single blend.
“We just want to serve our faithful customers in a way that we can maintain our very high quality and unique experience,” Duong said. “We just want to amaze people with how great and enjoyable Vietnamese coffee can be. We want to maintain the local character of our product and what we do.”
Saigon Coffee is located at 3994 30th Street in San Diego. Tell DCN editors about your up-to-date café or roastery here.
Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the deputy editor of Daily Coffee News at Roast Magazine. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
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