Starting A Tiny Cafe In Vietnam

Have you ever had a dream to start a restaurant? What if I told you it is as easy as placing a sign outside the door of your home? Well, in Vietnam it is that easy, at least starting out.

Moving to Danang

In January 2021, my wife and I moved to Danang, Vietnam. We were looking to start our lives as newlyweds in a new city. We chose Danang because it was a relaxing beach town (with only 1.2 million people as opposed to Ho Chi Minh City’s 9 million or Hanoi’s 5 million), there are areas to hike and run close by, and we had friends who lived there. Wanting to live out in the “suburbs” to be away from the noisy city life and to do a bit of gardening, we chose a house with a small courtyard in front. As time passed, we cooked more of our own food, such as fluffy American pancakes, smoothies, kombucha, granola bowls, and so much more.

Beginning Our Tiny Cafe Journey

Our house was right next to a popular visa office, to which 30+ people visited per day. There was also a primary school nearby. Teachers, parents, and their kids walked down our street to a football field a couple times a week. One day, we started wondering what would happen if we put a sign and table outside. In Vietnam, most people run a business out of the first floor of their home, and live on the second floor. We wanted to keep our first floor private for an Airbnb, but we were already starting to transform our front courtyard into a beautiful garden. Why not make it a place to eat too? We cleared some space by moving a few kale plants to our upper balcony, and painted one of our coffee tables a bright yellow.

What To Sell?

Our neighboring visa office’s clientele entirely consisted of foreigners. So we decided to continue making what we were already making for ourselves! We were already brewing our own kombucha, toasting granola, blending healthy smoothies and cashew milk, and frying fluffy pancakes with homemade jam. We made these because it was difficult to find them in good quality around Vietnam.

Meeting Fellow Expats

Talking with people as they came in was the best part of running the cafe. People would stop by while they waited for their visas, or after picking their kids up from school. It was always great fun hearing people’s unique stories.

Scaling Up

Eventually, we started to make our own labels for packaging and started to ship to a distributor in Hoi An, a neighboring city. At first, we designed plastic labels, but then switched to more environmentally friendly cardboard labels. To improve our presence online and point people to our menu easily, we designed and engineered a multilingual website, which is still up at twofoxescafe.com.

Scaling Down

Eventually, the Covid-19 pandemic reared its unpleasant head once again in Vietnam. Strict lockdown procedures were put into place, such as military-enforced blockades between streets. Most restaurants were forced to close for months. We ended up closing the sit-down table in our front courtyard. We continued pickup and delivery of kombucha and granola for a short time until the restrictions became even worse and people couldn’t leave their homes.

A Wonderful Experience

As a software engineer and photographer, never in my life would I have thought that I would have started a cafe. What a wonderful experience it was. My wife and I cooked a lot together, we met many people, and we learned so much about gardening. Plus I was able to experiment with commercial photography :)