VietNamNet Bridge – Street cafes, in the thoughts of many Vietnamese, mean the shops where people sit on old chairs tasting the glasses of coffee with no clear origin. However, they are getting quite different now.

Street cafes living together with Saigonese

Enjoying coffee at street cafes is a habit of Saigonese for the last hundreds of years. Like the draft beer drinkers, they don’t like tasting coffee in luxurious rooms surrounded by glass. They just want to drink coffee while being close to the nature.

This explains why street cafés which welcome popular customers have always been “living well” though a lot of luxurious café chains have been set up which commit to provide high quality coffee.

However, the cafes have changed a lot to satisfy the increasingly high demand from customers.

There has been no official figure about how many street cafes have had “new faces.” However, it is obvious that they have been improved so as to both provide higher quality coffee and remain the favorite places for Saigonese to come.

The owner of Ciao street café on Nguyen Van Cong street in Go Vap district revealed that he sells 40 cups of coffee every day and other kinds of drinks, which can bring a profit of VND8 million a month.

Meanwhile, according to Le Minh Cuong, the owner of Milano café, if a café can sell 100 cups of coffee a day, the owner would make a profit of VND10 million a month, if he has to pay rents for leased retail premises.

Though the big guys Starbucks, Passion, Dunkin, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf all have been “conquering” the Vietnamese market, Vietnamese café for popular customers like Milano, Nguyenchatcoffee, 1858cafe or Ciao, still can cement their firm positions on the market thanks to the improved service quality and the products fitting Vietnamese taste.

The story of Milano café

Cuong of Milano said he has set up 250 Milano Coffee shops in 10 provinces so far. This seems to be the café chain with the largest network now operational in Vietnam.

He said “pure coffee for connoisseurs in good spaces” is the principle he has been pursuing, which is also the key to success.

A cup of fine coffee is priced at VND10,000 at Cuong’s café, a very reasonable price for those who really want to enjoy high quality strong flavor coffee. Especially, when the information about “dirty coffee” on local newspapers threatens consumers, the clean coffee committed by Milano can attract customers well.

Nowadays, some 30 tons of coffee is consumed at Milano’s chain, sourced from Lam Dong and Buon Ma Thuot, with 70 percent of robusta.

Modern, professional service, clean coffee

More and more cafés have been set up recently, which have been following different ways to exist and develop. However, the common thing of the cafes is that they serve fine coffee at reasonable prices.

Dinh Bach Duong, Director of Tay Nguyen Company in Binh Thanh district, HCM City, said though the company has been operating for four months only, it has attracted 150 investors to join the nguyenchatcoffee chain founded by Tay Nguyen.

1858cafe in HCM City, which began operating in 2011, now has 25 shops. Pihatt Coffee which became operational in August 2013 now provides coffee to 1,000 shops.

SGTT