Buon Me Cafe

Vietnamese Coffee Thunders Into San Francisco with Trendy Pop-Up Nâu Coffee | Eater SF

"You’ll wait at least an hour in line on Valencia Street to try San Francisco’s buzziest Saigon-style coffee drinks: Instagram-friendly, tiger-orange concoctions topped with enough salted cream to guide spirits back to the grave. Inside Bernal Cutlery, the pop-up channels the cafe energy from back home with Vietnamese music, introducing Vietnamese expats to each other and spotlighting Vietnamese products and flavors, and it has sold out at each stop. The tight menu runs pandan, salted, Saigon, and still-popular egg coffees, brewed with a house blend they mix at home the day before service using robusta beans from undisclosed roasters in Buôn Ma Thuột. Lines are no joke, the baristas are tireless, and if it sticks around this could become San Francisco’s first specialty Vietnamese cafe; for now it has bounced from Studio Aurora to Bernal Cutlery and is headed to On Waverly while founders Hân Tran and Kiên Nguyen—Cal Poly alums who grew up in the same Saigon district, became “cafe addicts” here, and still work in consulting despite never having worked in cafes—focus on coffee and community-building." - Paolo Bicchieri