Community and Culture

How I learned to stop worrying and love being a regular

There is a moment in a person’s life when they start to become a fixture in a particular spot. The “spot” can be anything from the gym, a park, an event, or a cafe. What matters is your presence there is expected by staff and other guests. If you’re not there, people frown and wonder why today feels off. It is subtle, but noticeable. 

I’ve become a regular at Chloé Cà Phê. I used to hate being considered a regular. There was a moment, years ago, when I stepped into a store run by the green apron coffee giant and a barista greeted me by name. I didn’t return for months. When I finally went back, the barista was no longer there. All felt right again. I was anonymous once more; I preferred it that way.

My perspective on being a regular has shifted through the years. To me, being a regular used to mean being greeted by name as I walked into the shop. As a bonus, they might know your order. Chloé Cà Phê does things differently—not only for regulars, might I add.

To start, if you haven’t read the post about how Chloé sources their coffee, I recommend you go do that now. It lays out the foundational elements in the ethos of the cafe.

If you haven’t, there is a sentence in there that goes something like this: “Coffee is as much about community and connection as it is about the drink itself.” It’s followed up a few paragraphs down, expanding the original idea, offering up the notion that their coffee is “…about family, heritage, and the generations of people whose hard work and passion have made Vietnamese coffee what it is today.” They make you think it’s about coffee, but, in reality, coffee is just the mechanism to drive the most important part of the cafe: community and culture. 

It is easy to say you’re doing it for the culture. Lots of people say that. Just check any social platform for a few seconds and you’ll quickly know what I mean. However, when you start the entire business by paying respect to said culture, it’s hard to say you’re not putting your money where your mouth is. Chloé has the receipts, too.

Their commitment to exclusively sourcing ingredients from Vietnam—be it coffee, tea, matcha, coconut water, even condensed milk—is a statement in itself. Anything that can be brought in from Vietnam, will be. 

How’s that for representing the culture? 

By stepping into the shop, your preconceived notions about what Vietnamese coffee can be are confronted. I’ll even use myself as an example. 

My understanding of Vietnamese coffee was strictly limited to strong, robusta coffee mixed with condensed milk. I’m pretty certain that most Americans hold the same preconceived notion. I quickly learned that the drink I called “Vietnamese coffee” is properly called cà phê sữa đá. 

The more I showed up, the more I learned. Soon, I was taught about the different coffee varietals (again, you really should read that other blog post) and the regions they source from. The longer I stayed, the more I was gifted insight into Vietnamese culture as well. The shop is more than a place to just buy a cup and maybe a pastry; it is a place to share culture and see familiar faces.

It is the familiar faces that also draw me back to the shop. Strangers slowly, surely become people to share a moment or two together.

While a lot of other coffee shops offer that, what makes this place unique is that the shop owners and general manager are often the ones facilitating connections. They don’t necessarily invite you to shake hands with someone, but as one barista (Steven) puts it: “How often do you see cafe owners sitting down with people, having a conversation?” This simple act helps draw people together because they share the connection with the cafe and its people. They have an ear to the ground and fingers on the pulse of the city they call home. 

It’s easy to see this in action. Simply grab a coffee, take a seat, and watch. You’ll see them ping-pong from one corner to the next, talking with guests: either a regular, a good friend, or maybe a soon-to-be regular. Chances are they’ll come up to you, ask you how you enjoy the coffee, and answer questions that you have. If you find yourself consistently there when other regulars are, you’ll probably get to a first name basis. It’s networking, it’s community, it’s a shared space where it is easy to find your people. 
The shared space is also multi-use. It’s never just a café. At any given moment, the cafe can become a space for film screenings; cars, cameras, and coffee meetups; impromptu car shows; comedy shows; social events with custom beverages; bakery pop-ups; children’s book readings; the list isn’t exhaustive, nor is it completed. The white walls of the shop mean it is a gallery, ready to become a space for anything.

Anything, for this cafe, also includes a showroom car, placed center of the shop. It’s hard to miss. The moment you step through those double glass doors, you are first greeted by a piece of automotive art. Porsches, BMWs, Astons, an NSX, and beyond have graced the concrete floors of the shop. They are constantly rotating through the showpieces. It can be here one day and gone the next. You never know what car will greet you on any given day. You might as well go every day—to make sure you never miss a car. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.

Look, even if you can’t go to the shop that often, their Instagram is consistently active, as they show off all the events, cars, and people. They share their progress in deliciously well-crafted video form. You get to see everything: lugging large bags of green beans, the roasting process, transporting to and fro, hand removing the quakers (improperly roasted beans), bagging, and sending hundreds of packages worldwide. At first glance, it can be seen as hype, branding, or self-aggrandizing. You know, the usual suspects of any crafted content made for a business. 

It is this constant, dogged drive towards this vision—a dream of transforming the perception of Vietnamese coffee from origin to cup– that makes it such a rewarding experience to step into Chloé time and time again. Being a regular here means you get to see the constant evolution of the space—in real-time. The shop presents itself as quiet, but underneath is kinetic, agile energy. Everything can move and adjust; nothing is bolted down. Just like the car, one moment, the furniture will be one way, the next, in a completely different configuration. To those of you who grimace at this, remember that the space matters more than the way it’s arranged. Treat it as a refreshing breeze, brushing away cobwebs, letting you escape from deep grooves born by habit. 

Before you start rolling your eyes from the poetic waxing, I’ll bring it back down to earth. If you were to come up to me, ignoring all the words I wrote, and ask me why you should go to Chloé Cà Phê, I’d give you this: The people, the community, and the space. Oh, and the coffee is pretty good too.