Saturday coffee for Saigon intellectual set

Patrons enjoy some intellectual conversation at Ca phe thu Bay coffee shop - Photo: Tuong Vi

Where do you go on Saturdays? Some spend time with family, while others share their weekends with friends or see movies. But if you want to talk about what’s going in the world, or just in your head, you are welcome to join the other intellectuals for a deep and meaningful’ at Ca phe thu Bay (Saturday Coffee). The cafe was designed to meet the demands of intellectuals who want a space to talk about music, literature, books, architecture, arts, cinema or theater.

Located at 37 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, HCMC’s District 1, Ca phe thu Bay has become a weekend regular meeting place. The café was given its name because every Saturday morning, it hosts programs on different aspects of the arts. Every Sunday at 8.30 p.m., the coffee shop screens a couple of good Vietnamese or foreign movies. Late evenings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, are for chamber music featuring pieces by Bach and Mozart etc.  

The manager of Ca phe thu Bay is a famous musician, Duong Thu, who is known for Vietnamese love songs. “I choose the music for Ca phe thu Bay,” he said. The selection  is mostly easy-listening. There is also a library containing over 200 book titles covering subjects such as philosophy, fiction, research, literature, arts, cinema, music, science and architecture. The library has a collection of 4,000 compact discs of Vietnamese classic films.

Thu said, Hanoi has Lam coffee shop for artists, while HCMC has internet cafés, book cafés at Phuong Nam bookstores, and Ca phe thu Bay. It’s a celebration of the Saigonese art of conversation. The shop is decorated in Vietnamese style with wooden furniture and a lotus pond at the entrance.

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, chairman of Trung Nguyen Corporation, which cooperates with the café, said he was considering setting up more such spaces in town.

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Saturday coffee for Saigon intellectual set

Patrons enjoy some intellectual conversation at Ca phe thu Bay coffee shop - Photo: Tuong Vi

Where do you go on Saturdays? Some spend time with family, while others share their weekends with friends or see movies. But if you want to talk about what’s going in the world, or just in your head, you are welcome to join the other intellectuals for a deep and meaningful’ at Ca phe thu Bay (Saturday Coffee). The cafe was designed to meet the demands of intellectuals who want a space to talk about music, literature, books, architecture, arts, cinema or theater.

Located at 37 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, HCMC’s District 1, Ca phe thu Bay has become a weekend regular meeting place. The café was given its name because every Saturday morning, it hosts programs on different aspects of the arts. Every Sunday at 8.30 p.m., the coffee shop screens a couple of good Vietnamese or foreign movies. Late evenings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, are for chamber music featuring pieces by Bach and Mozart etc.  

The manager of Ca phe thu Bay is a famous musician, Duong Thu, who is known for Vietnamese love songs. “I choose the music for Ca phe thu Bay,” he said. The selection  is mostly easy-listening. There is also a library containing over 200 book titles covering subjects such as philosophy, fiction, research, literature, arts, cinema, music, science and architecture. The library has a collection of 4,000 compact discs of Vietnamese classic films.

Thu said, Hanoi has Lam coffee shop for artists, while HCMC has internet cafés, book cafés at Phuong Nam bookstores, and Ca phe thu Bay. It’s a celebration of the Saigonese art of conversation. The shop is decorated in Vietnamese style with wooden furniture and a lotus pond at the entrance.

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, chairman of Trung Nguyen Corporation, which cooperates with the café, said he was considering setting up more such spaces in town.

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A coffee shop of recycled paper

A corner of Giay Café - Photo: Thanh Hang

As its name points out, almost every piece of furniture and all the decorations in Giay (Paper) Cafe are made from recycled paper and cardboard. The three-story coffee shop by the Nhieu Loc Canal can’t be missed with a floor to ceiling window showing the huge word COFFEE made from paper.

Visitors to the coffee shop will be amazed that paper was not only used to make the furniture, but literally used to construct layout on the first floor. There is a whole room that is walled by thousands pieces of paper. The shoe shelf outside the door leading into the air-conditioned room is also made from cardboard.

However, the most astonishing things are the many chairs and coffee tables in different shapes on the second floor – which is the main floor of the coffee shop. According to Nguyen Van Dung, a member of the group that designed the coffee shop, these chairs can hold up to 300 kilograms, depending on the chair. These chairs are constructed mainly from cardboard spools, cardboard and cloth.

Nguyen Van Dung, Truong Quynh Anh and Nguyen Le Thanh Nam were the three members of the designing team. All in their early twenties they came up with the idea to use recycled materials when Dung’s older brother asked him to design a coffee shop that was both cheap and unique. They had collected and experimented with many materials before choosing paper and paper spools. It took them two months to make the café once they had the idea.

Nguyen Van Dung told the Daily, “I have been interested in the environment and recycling for a long time. I have been making stuff from the things we threw away since I was a kid. So the ideas of a paper coffee shop came to me naturally.”

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