New to East William St., Paris Bánh Mì cafe and bakery celebrated its grand opening last Friday, bringing the Bánh mì sandwich to Ann Arbor. The Bánh mi dates back to 1950s Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, after the French baguette was introduced to Vietnam during French colonialism.
Aiming to highlight Vietnamese dishes, desserts and boba, founders Hien Tran and Doan Nguyen opened their first restaurant in Orlando, Fla before adding more locations across the East and West Coasts, with their most recent location opening in Ann Arbor.
The restaurant made more than 1,700 sales for their opening weekend, with dozens of people filling the space to try the food and pastries. Amid the commotion, the Ann Arbor location owner Phong Dinh told The Michigan Daily about his excitement for the new customers and his plans for additional Vietnamese dishes such as pho that will be added to the menu soon.
“We are very, very excited to put this Vietnamese food out to introduce to everybody in the town,” Dinh said. “Bánh mì, I think, is very popular right now in America. Pho is hot beef noodle soup, (and we will) start pho and everything on the full menu sometime this weekend.”
When Dinh visited the original Paris Bánh Mì location in Orlando, he saw the popularity and wanted to capitalize on the franchise. He said the cafe’s food preparation process is lengthy but essential for the freshness of the menu.
“It’s a lot of time because we do a lot of different food,” Dinh said. “In the bakery, we make everything fresh, and then all the protein, we make fresh every day. When we start (making) pho and some other Vietnamese desserts or appetizers, it will also be all fresh.”
Many students from the Vietnamese Student Association visited Paris Bánh Mì’s over the weekend, looking forward to more Vietnamese food options in Ann Arbor. LSA freshman Bao Huy Pham, VSA programming intern, wrote in an email to The Daily that he found the restaurant to be a great way to expose people to authentic Vietnamese cuisine.
“I think having a Vietnamese restaurant right in the center of Ann Arbor is a great way to enrich our campus culture and introduce it to others,” Pham wrote. “While there are many fusion restaurants that feature staple Vietnamese dishes, like Tomukun Noodle Bar and One Bowl, to my knowledge, there hasn’t been an authentically Vietnamese-owned restaurant focused solely on Vietnamese cuisine.”
Pham wrote that he is always looking for ways to immerse himself in Vietnamese culture, and he hopes the opening of Paris Bánh Mì can provide that introduction for many people.
“Having a Vietnamese restaurant in Ann Arbor doesn’t just allow the Vietnamese community to bond over something new, especially something they all love, but it also provides an opportunity for others to learn about Vietnamese culture and join the community,” Pham wrote.
LSA freshman Devin Hieu Vo, VSA programming intern, said in an interview with The Daily the opening of a more authentic Vietnamese restaurant in Ann Arbor means a lot to him and the Vietnamese community, and the significance goes beyond the good food served.
“It’s about having a place that actually gets the flavors we grew up with, where the food isn’t watered down to fit mainstream tastes,” Vo said. “It feels like home, like something made for us. And more than anything, it’s a spot our community can talk about, share and feel proud of, somewhere that brings us a little closer to the flavors and memories that mean so much.”
Daily Staff Reporter Kaelyn Sourya can be reached at ksourya@umich.edu.
