The future home of Trung Nguyên Legend Cafe. | Paolo Bicchieri Trung Nguyên Legend Cafe is bringing its phin-brewed coffee to Powell Boulevard One of the world’s buzziest cafes is launching its first Pacific Northwest location in Portland. Trung Nguyên Legend Cafe is a behemoth in its native Vietnam, with four factories and more than 110 cafes. It also has three locations in Shanghai and one in the U.S., a Los Angeles shop that attracted a lot of press when it opened in 2023. (It has exported its coffee to the U.S. for over 20 years, however.) The second U.S. shop will be at 8435 SE Powell Boulevard; the franchise owner, Brad Tran, says he hopes to have the cafe fully functional by the summer. The menu here will feature European espresso drinks, but Vietnamese coffee drinks are the main attraction: phin coffee made with condensed milk, rich egg coffee, and cà phê chon, otherwise known as kopi luwak, are all on the menu. (Kopi luwak can be divisive — it’s coffee that’s passed through the digestive system of a civet cat, and the animals are sometimes held in abusive conditions.) All the coffee beans come from Vietnam, flown in from Buôn Ma Thuot, a city in the Central Highlands, according to Eater Los Angeles. The Portland cafe is 1,800 square feet and will occupy a space that used to be a billiard hall and restaurant called Pho Le II. Tran says there will be specials beyond the franchise coffees. There’ll be a full restaurant menu that will include bahn mi, pho, and rice platters. Tran says fried chicken could also make an appearance. “We’re still fine-tuning the food,” he adds. Vietnamese coffee has been growing in popularity all over the Pacific Northwest and particularly in Portland, where a bevy of cafes serving phin-brewed drinks have opened in recent years, including Phin Caphe & Boba, Cafe Ume and Gạch Viet Teahouse. And this may not be the only Legend Cafe to open in the Portland area. “I’m working to get a Beaverton location,” Tran says. “It’s still in negotiation.” Trung Nguyên Legend Cafe (8435 SE Powell Boulevard) will open in summer 2025. ...read more read less