The time corner
The gramophone, radios, antique fans — every object a piece of old Saigon.
Ban Co, Saigon — the café edition · Since 1946
A house's daily paper
Cà Phê Đỗ Phủ — a house's daily paper, since 1946
Coffee — Korean-style broken rice — a living relic of the Saigon Commandos
Lead story
Eighty years on, one house still brews coffee
In 1946, Mr. Đỗ Miễn and Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Sự raised a three-room wooden house in Ban Co and opened a café. Twenty years later, that same house became a secret base of the Saigon Commandos — a weapons bunker under the floor tiles, an escape route behind the wardrobe.
Today the Đỗ descendants keep the house as it was: phin coffee in the morning, kimchi broken rice at noon, and walls hung with records of an unforgettable Saigon.
The dish that made its name: Cơm tấm Đại Hàn — broken rice with house-made kimchi, a recipe Korean soldiers passed down in the 1960s.
From the archive
Artifacts in the house
The house dish
Two-item broken rice 55,000₫ — the kimchi recipe of the Korean soldiers of old.
The balcony
In the morning sun, sit here and watch Ban Co street wake up.
Timeline
1946 → Today
- 1946The house is builtMr. Đỗ Miễn and Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Sự open a café in the three-room wooden house.
- 1964–68The secret baseA courier station and weapons bunker of the Saigon Commandos — under the floor tiles, behind the wardrobe.
- 2018The bunker opensThe relic is restored and opens to visitors.
- 2025A living relicProposed for city-level historic-site ranking.
Visit
The newsroom address
Address
287/72 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Ban Co, Ho Chi Minh City — the whitewashed wooden house with the green signboard.
Hours
7:00 – 22:00 daily. Weekend mornings are busiest.
Please note
The shop is also a relic — please keep quiet around the bunker and wardrobe.