There are many Vietnamese coffee brands, but only PhinDeli has the backstory of "buying an entire American town and changing its name to its own brand." This coffee, from Ho Chi Minh City, is known along with the anecdote that its founder won a small town in Wyoming at auction and turned the whole town into a signboard. Follow the story behind a single cup of coffee and the outline of the brand PhinDeli comes into view.
The man who bought a town with a population of one
話は2012年4月にさかのぼります。アメリカ・ワイオミング州に、人口1人という記録で知られる町バフォード（Buford）がありました。1992年からこの土地を所有し、自らを町長と名乗りながら一人で暮らしていたドン・サモンズ氏が、20年以上を過ごした町を手放すことを決め、オークションにかけたのです。10エーカーほどの土地、ガソリンスタンド兼雑貨店「バフォード・トレーディング・ポスト」、住居などがひとまとめになった出品でした。
The one who won this auction, which drew bidding hopefuls from 46 countries, was Pham Dinh Nguyen, a Vietnamese businessman living in Ho Chi Minh City. The winning bid was 900,000 dollars. A single Vietnamese who had never even been to America became the new owner of "the smallest town in the US" across the Pacific. Nguyen's reason for wanting the town was neither real-estate investment nor immigration. He simply wanted a stage to pitch his coffee in America, nothing more.
The day the town's name became the brand's name
In September 2013, about a year and a half after the winning bid, Nguyen held an unveiling ceremony in the town he'd bought. With state and county officials, local residents, Vietnamese American guests, and the press looking on, he announced he would change the town's name to "PhinDeli Town Buford." Sammons, the former owner, was invited on as "co-mayor" and entrusted with the town's day-to-day operation. It was widely reported at the time as a rare case of an American town changing its name to sell a foreign product.
The brand name "PhinDeli" is a coined word combining "phin," the metal drip filter indispensable to Vietnamese coffee, and "deli" (delicious), meaning tasty in English. Vietnam's extraction culture and the wish to reach the world are put right into the name. PhinDeli itself was founded in Saigon in 2013, starting out by declaring it would deliver Vietnamese coffee first to consumers in the US and Canada. The buzz of buying a town was a bold business card of sorts for an unknown Vietnamese brand to knock on the door of the North American market.
The brand philosophy shown in the idea of "buying a town"
Buying a whole town instead of buying ad space is no ordinary idea. This choice captures the character of the company PhinDeli well. Vietnamese coffee, while among the world's largest in production volume, has often been handled as a raw material or for commercial use on the shelves of consuming countries, with limited chances to step forward as a brand. Turning that structure to his advantage, Nguyen's way was to create for himself the story that "a coffee from Vietnam carved its name onto the map of America."
Behind this is a stance of not hiding one's origins but rather making them a selling point. He takes Vietnam's very way of drinking into the name and puts Vietnamese beans front and center. It can be read as an attempt to stay memorable by strongly putting forward Vietnamese character, rather than diluting individuality to make it work in the global market. Before selling a single cup of coffee, first get remembered through story. That way of thinking ran through PhinDeli's starting point.
The Vietnamese character in the cup
What PhinDeli values is a flavor rooted in Vietnam's traditional way of drinking. When it comes to Vietnamese coffee, the well-known brewing method sets a metal filter called a phin on top of a cup or glass, pours hot water, and extracts slowly, drop by drop. The contrast of a strong, powerful flavor from a deeper roast and the sweetness paired with sweetened condensed milk is a way of drinking beloved in the hot climate. As the brand name flies the phin flag, PhinDeli places this extraction culture at its foundation.
When it started out for North America, it was in the form of delivering roast-and-ground (roasted and pre-ground) products to local coffee lovers. Later, as the footing shifted to expansion within Vietnam, the flavor-making, recipes, and product line were also touched up. Still, as long as it's a brand that flies the phin name, the richness continuous with Vietnam's brewing method is carried on unchanged as the flavor's individuality. Whether iced or as a cup paired with sweetness, you can enjoy the drinking-worthiness characteristic of Vietnamese coffee.
From town to street corner. Where you can drink today's PhinDeli
A few years on from the Buford anecdote, the PhinDeli brand entered a new phase. In 2021, Nova Consumer, which handles the food and beverage business under Vietnam's major group NovaGroup, acquired the PhinDeli brand. Taking this opportunity, it revamped the design, recipes, and products, then began full-fledged store expansion within Vietnam as a café chain flying the craft-coffee banner. The brand, once the signboard of a faraway American town, transformed into a coffee you can drink every day on the street corners of Ho Chi Minh City.
If a traveler is to encounter PhinDeli, the café locations spread across Ho Chi Minh City are the entry point. Opening mainly at city-center locations, you can savor the brand's worldview right there, from standard Vietnamese coffee to a cup made with a filter. Order a cup knowing the premise "the coffee of the man who bought a town with a population of one" and a plain strong, sweet Vietnamese coffee might taste a little different.
Summary
PhinDeli is a brand that expressed the wish to deliver Vietnamese coffee to the world through the unconventional act of "buying an American town." The story of founder Pham Dinh Nguyen, who won the population-of-one town of Buford for 900,000 dollars in 2012 and changed the town's name to his own brand, was the very stance of not hiding its Vietnamese origin but turning it into a weapon. Now that it has restarted as a café chain under Nova Consumer, that story quietly lives on in the cup on the counter too. If you visit Ho Chi Minh City, savor a PhinDeli coffee while calling its origin to mind.
🗺️ For PhinDeli's basic info, signature menu, map, and reviews,Shop guide (card)where we've put it all together.
🗺️ If you also want to compare it with other cafés,Vietnam's 30 Popular Cafés: A Thorough Comparison Guidelets you browse from a single list.
