It feels like having coffee on the street

At Bien Bao, traffic signs are put from the entrance to the path leading to the shop, the fence row and rest rooms. They also appear on the menu, cups, glasses and even the uniforms of waitresses.

What is interesting about these traffic signs is that they are all real items that had once been used on the streets.

Photographer My Dung, owner and founder of Bien Bao coffee shop, says: “I want guests to my coffee shop to see traffic signs whenever they are in the shop so that gradually they can remember those signs without having to try.”

A regular visitor to the shop recalls how he first came to Bien Bao out of curiosity, only has ever since kept coming here and introduced the place to friends as he appreciates the efforts of the shop owner. “By sitting here, I’ve learned of all traffic signs by heart without realizing it,” he says.

In order to “decorate” the coffee shop with real traffic signs and used vehicles, Dung had spent almost a year finding those items everywhere he could.

Then, he arranged and designed those items for months to make them beautiful and useful stuff for the shop.

Coming to Bien Bao, both children and adults are excited when sitting on the chair created from an old bicycle and having drinks served on the table made of an old steering wheel, or relaxing on arm chairs created from old car wheels.

Windshields and windows of old cars are put together to become a small glass house with its walls full of registered number plates of cars that were involved in accidents and not allowed to run on the streets anymore.

The glass house serves as a message to raise awareness of traffic safety among vehicle users.

The item which arouses curiosity of visitors the most may be the iron cage holding honks. It is put in the middle of the shop to reflect the shop owner’s dream of a peaceful city without honking.

Bien Bao is also the place where the original version of the first bicycle riding license of Vietnam is put on display. Dung himself has got the license from its owner, a friend of him.

It is not always easy to put completely different things in one place and create a harmony between them, but at Bien Bao, that has happened when noisy and crowded streets along with traffic signs which usually make people feel stressful appear in a relaxing atmosphere of a coffee shop.

Vietnamnet