Microlender: Center for Rural Affairs
- Location: Grand Island, NE
- Loan amount:
Center for Rural Affairs
Pham’s Coffee & Boba in Grand Island, Nebraska, is not a typical coffee shop. From placing an order to taking the first sip, customers are in for an immersive, educational, and delicious experience.
When Tuan Pham opened his shop in August 2023, he wanted to give residents something they’d never tried before, and he succeeded, in part because of guidance and a loan from the Center for Rural Affairs. He’s now in the process of opening a second location.
“The Center has been an awesome resource,” Tuan said. “When we got a loan, there were requirements for a full business plan, projections, cost breakdowns, etc. I really appreciated that because it forced me to think deeply about things. It made us ask ourselves what success looks like for us. It was nice to be able to talk through that.”
Jessica Campos, the Center’s Women’s Business Center director, has been there to assist Tuan when needed.
“Tuan is an innovative business owner and ongoing entrepreneur,” said Jessica. “He has helped start a few family businesses and continues to grow as a small business owner.”
After purchasing property in April 2023 that contained both a house and a commercial building, Tuan and his now wife, Alyssa, contemplated the best approach to using the extra space. After much discussion, they decided to open their own business.
His desire to offer customers something new and different led him back to one of his favorite beverages: boba. Pham’s Coffee & Boba came to life several months later.
Tuan had worked with the Center for Rural Affairs several years earlier when he and his former business partner started a trucking company. He kept the Center in mind for future entrepreneurial endeavors, and he reached out for help again.
He got a loan in summer 2023 to buy inventory for his coffee shop at 614 N. Eddy St.
In the months leading up to opening the shop, Tuan spent a lot of time doing social media marketing. By the time the shop had its grand opening, many customers who had never tried boba before came because of the hype.
Since opening, Tuan has made an effort to stay connected with the community and offer support to other local businesses.
He has worked with the Central Nebraska Humane Society by making gift baskets filled with items from his shop to give as an incentive for people to adopt animals who have been there the longest. Tuan paid for some of the adoption fees, as well.
Tuan also collaborates with the local library and has taught a boba class to young children where they learned how to make boba, as well as where it comes from and its history. He did a fundraiser with a local nursing home, too. He donated a portion of sales to provide the residents with supplies that they needed.
In return, Grand Island has shown a great deal of support to his shop, Tuan said.
“These cooperative efforts not only help out local organizations, they also allow us to reach new customers through social media and have the opportunity to market our business and brand on the partners’ social media.”
Spreading the word to the community is only Tuan’s first step in building his customer base. The business owner also takes great pride in giving customers an education on what boba is, where it comes from, and helping them find the right flavor combinations.
Boba are bite-sized, chewy balls of tapioca in either juice- or tea-based drinks, combined with milk and ice. Sometimes people use the term “boba” to refer to the entire drink. Others call the beverage boba tea or bubble tea.
Boba drinks account for 80% of Tuan’s business, and customers can find a variety of fruity boba flavors on the menu. They can also order coffee drinks like lattes, Americanos, and more.
Along with boba, Tuan specializes in Vietnamese coffee. Vietnam primarily grows robusta coffee beans, famous for their strong taste and high caffeine content. Tuan adds condensed milk to make traditional Vietnamese coffee, served hot or iced.
Customers can also order specialty waffles, including Vietnamese pandan waffles and ube waffles. Pandan waffles are made with tapioca flour and are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside, while ube waffles are made from a purple yam native to Southeast Asia that has a nutty, vanilla flavor.
“It sounds like we have a small menu, but we decided to be very intentional about our selection and our boba drinks,” Tuan said. “We are trying to make really good drinks, and I think people appreciate that. This way, they’re not overwhelmed by the choices on the menu.”
Tuan has been extra busy recently as he renovates a space to open a second location of Pham’s Coffee & Boba on the north side of Grand Island at 2237 N. Webb Rd. The original location has very limited space, and allows only for customers to order and go.
“Grand Island is just big enough that it’s inconvenient for people to come from the north side to our current location,” Tuan said. “The new location will be much bigger, have lots of seating and designated office rooms for meetings or parties, and more working space for the staff.”
Tuan hopes to open the second location by the end of this year or early 2025. He employs four to five people, including himself and his wife, at the original location and plans to hire four or five new staff members for the second location. A couple will transition to the new shop.
One of Tuan’s goals has been to create job opportunities in Grand Island. He not only wants to hire people, he wants to make sure they make a fair wage and have career advancement options.
“That’s a big one for us: bringing people with us as we grow,” he said. “Being a barista may sound like a dead-end job to some, but we would love for a long-term employee to franchise their own location or become general manager eventually.”
Employees deserve to be paid fairly for the work they do, he said.
“We try to provide a healthy, fun, engaging work environment, and that shows differently through our staff members,” Tuan said. “You have to have happy staff members to have happy customers.”
He also dreams of adding a full kitchen to the second location at some point and offering more specialty food items. He feels grateful for how smoothly opening the shop has gone, and for everything he’s learned along the way.
“We’ve been pretty lucky, and we’re very fortunate to have had things work out,” said Tuan. “We didn’t know what we were doing at first, but no one really knows what they’re doing even if they look like they do. Learning along the way and making those mistakes have been much better lessons than we could imagine.”