In the searing hot summer, manual labourers struggle to find a cold drink but one woman has come to their rescue.
It was 10am and a group of workers at a construction site in Nguyen Van Linh Street, down District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City, were having a break under the blazing hot sun. One of them took out his mobile phone and ordered some iced coffee. Just three minutes later, a heavy-loaded motorbike arrived to serve them.
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| This mobile cafe is waiting for orders |
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| And another is serving a taxi driver. |
This is one among many special mobile cafés which have sprung up here. Before, it was difficult for these manual labourers and construction workers to find a cold drink during their break. They certainly do not have the money to enter the luxury cafés in this new urban area. Now, after just a short phone call, their thirst will be quenched in a few minutes.
According to Phan Thị Loan, owner of one mobile café in this area, her “coffee shop” was the first to open. “I come from Chau Phu District in the Mekong Delta’s An Giang Province,” Loan says. “Before, I used to collect scrap-iron around these construction sites. I often saw many workers and manual labourers here going a long way under the blazing hot sun to buy a cup of coffee or some other iced drinks, so I came up with the idea.”
With a motorbike and a big barrel of coffee, ice fastened behind, a basket for cups, bottles, and other utensils placed in front, and of course a mobile phone, Loan’s Mobile Café is ready to come to customers. Her café often operates on such streets as Nguyen Van Linh, Nguyen Thi Thap or around construction sites and industrial zones where low-budget customers are always waiting.
Seeing her café doing well, many other people are also entering the business. Now mobile cafés (or alo café as local people call them) have become popular among lower-income people. But according to Loan, not many of them can stay long.
“If you expect to earn big profit you should switch to another business,” Loan says. “I have had a long time working close to the workers and being in their situation so I sympathize and know what is suitable for them. I felt like they were being robbed when they paid VND 10 thousand for a cup of coffee. So I opened this mobile café and charge them only 3-4 thousand. For each cup, I can only get a profit of VND 1-2 thousand.”
Vu Dinh Nguyen, a young worker at Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone, is a regular customer of Loan Mobile Café. “Mobile café is really convenient and suitable for us,” he says. “Here we do not have so many small cafés like in Sai Gon so mobile cafés are exactly what we need everyday.”
There are many of them now but not all of them are good quality, says Nguyen Van Manh, owner of a motorbike repair-shop. “Some of them use low-quality coffee or under-boil the water to earn more profit. But these are the ones people will stop using first.”
“The popular stores like Mrs Loan’s, they are really doing a good job,” Manh continued, “Their slogan of ‘Slake your thirst with just a little money’ is what we, who are struggling, need here.”
