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Virgin Saigon Original Coffee
Tiếng Việt

The ward

Coffee near Bến Thành Market

Which gate to leave Bến Thành Market by, when to go at all, and why the nearest café to the market is rarely the one you want.

· updated · Virgin Coffee

An illustration of Bến Thành Market's clock tower and arched entrance in late light, with shoppers walking away down the pavement towards the quieter banking blocks.
An illustration, not a photograph. The south-western side, and the walk away from the crowd.

We are 509 metres from Bến Thành Market, about seven minutes on foot. That is a routed estimate rather than a walk we measured ourselves, and the ratio between the two on this grid runs from 1.19 to 1.53, so treat it as close rather than exact.

Here is the more useful version of that fact.

The nearest coffee to the market is rarely the one you want

Everything within about a hundred metres of the market’s four entrances is priced and paced for people who are about to leave. That is not a criticism — it is what that pitch is for, and if you want a drink in your hand in ninety seconds it is exactly right.

What it is not good for is sitting down. The tables turn fast because they have to, the noise is the market’s noise, and in August the ones with a fan and an open front are hotter than the street.

If you are stopping for twenty minutes, walk out of that ring first. Seven minutes gets you clear of it.

Which way to leave

The market has entrances on all four sides and they lead into different neighbourhoods.

Leave by the south-western side, towards Phó Đức Chính and the banking blocks, and the crowd thins within a block. This is where the Fine Arts Museum is, and where we are. The streets are wider, the pavements are usable, and by six in the evening it is genuinely quiet.

Leave by the north-east and you are into Nguyễn Huệ and the tourist frontage, which is busier, more expensive, and worth doing later in the day.

When should you go to the market at all?

Before nine, or after four.

Between ten and three it is hot inside, shoulder to shoulder, and every transaction takes longer than it needs to. The version of Bến Thành Market that people write disappointed reviews about is the eleven-o’clock version. Early morning is a working market and it is a different place entirely.

The short version of this walk is Coffee near Bến Thành Market; every other distance from the door is in the table.

What we are

A café at 42 Nguyễn Thái Bình, Bến Thành Ward, District 1, open daily. Air conditioned, free Wi-Fi, and quiet enough to sit in for an hour — which is the point of walking seven minutes rather than ninety seconds.

Bến Thành Market itself has no air conditioning. In this ward that is the difference that decides where an hour gets spent.

We serve Vietnamese coffee, matcha and chocolate, fruit teas and yogurt — 35 drinks, and no food — so if you are hungry, eat at the market and come here afterwards. That is the honest order.

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