VIỆTVANA PhởNoodle House, in Square on Fifth at 848 Spring Street NW, is reopening as VIỆTVANA Coffee House on November 18, 2022, the restaurant announced in a press release.
This is the debut of the café concept, with plans to grow the VIỆTVANA–branded Coffee House to multiple locations across metro Atlanta and the Southeast — and the first franchisees of the VIỆTVANA brand will operate the Midtown location.
This Coffee House concept will focus on a café-style experience featuring grab-and-go baked goods, boba tea and coffee beverages, according to the release, yet anyone craving the noodle dishes and banh mi VIỆTVANA is known for won’t be disappointed as those will be available as well.
The idea for the café-style approach was born after husband-and-wife team Dinh Tran and Khanh Dang opened a food stall at Ponce City Market. “Our customers love the menu so much, we wanted to continue with the simpler menu and add Vietnamese pastries to our offerings,” Dang said.
Customers at the new Midtown VIỆTVANA Coffee House will be able to pick up grab-and-go pastries, or diners can linger over a freshly prepared hot meal. Special coffee blends will be provided by local coffee roaster Alma Coffee of Canton and Vietnamese brand Trung Nguyen.
The franchisees are Tuan “Justin” Le, a native of Vietnam who attended Georgia State University and ended up making the United States his permanent home, and Nam Nguyen who moved here to go to college at Georgia Perimeter and also stayed. They met working in the kitchen of beloved Lee’s Bakery on Buford Highway, where they each got the spark for restaurant life. They worked and invested in restaurants across metro Atlanta but now are ready to be part of the VIỆTVANA family.
“We’re excited about the VIỆTVANA concept now because we love the food and the mission, and we see so much opportunity for growth,” Le said in the release.
The Midtown VIỆTVANA location originally opened in 2020. The restaurant is being redesigned to have more shelving and coolers for pastries, beverages and quick-serve items. The eatery still will have seating for dine-in customers and QR codes on the tables for quick ordering.
“We think this new concept will be popular with people at Georgia Tech, Tech Square and nearby Midtown workers and residents,” Nguyen said. “And the café style reflects how we eat in Vietnam, where dining is often a casual affair, even while our cuisine is well honed, with centuries-old recipes.”
Tran creates VIỆTVANA’s recipes with his mother, Tina Nguyen (no relation to Nam), who often can be found in the restaurants’ kitchens. The founders prepare dishes the way they enjoy them in their families’ kitchens back in Saigon — recipes perfected over hundreds of years from different cultures and regions across Vietnam, according to the release. This ideal sent the restaurateurs on a quest to create their own fresh phở noodle, pioneering a unique noodle machine, and banh mi bread, with both prepared fresh daily.
Tran says the Vietnamese pastries also will be made with the highest quality ingredients and made with the same attention to flavor and authenticity as their other dishes.
Tran and Dang, a millennial couple, are dedicated to having the freshest products — the way they remember meals in Vietnam. The flavors emanate from the meat and vegetables instead of sugar and salt. They also meet with their suppliers — almost entirely Georgia-based – ensuring high quality meats and veggies delivered daily are the main ingredients of their dishes.
“We know exactly where all of our ingredients come from,” Tran said, “including the beef, chicken and vegetables that go into our phở broth. And we’re proud to support local, Georgia farmers.”
