Sonca Luu wants Block & Brew Cafe to serve as a meeting place for the crypto-curious—it even accepts cryptocurrency as payment. Luu also owns Saigon Social House, located next door in the Michigan Theater building. | J. Adrian Wylie
Twelve years ago, Vietnam native Sonca Luu was a single mother with only $18,000 on hand when she navigated the paperwork for an SBA-backed loan to start BeeQ Salon & Spa on W. Stadium.
She now owns three Ann Arbor beauty-related establishments, two restaurants, and a café. The latest additions are Saigon Social House and Block & Brew Cafe, formerly operating as Taste Kitchen and Red Lotus in the Michigan Theater building (Marketplace Changes, August).
Related: Taste Kitchen and Red Lotus Will Become Saigon Social House
“So right now, my time is kind of tight, but I’m happy what I’m doing,” she says as she whips up a salted cream iced Vietnamese coffee and cheerily extols the merits of cryptocurrency, which Block & Brew accepts as a payment alternative.
Her brother in Vietnam persuaded her to buy into Bitcoin about a decade ago. Not understanding much about the bankless currency stored on a decentralized digital ledger, or blockchain, she invested just $3,500. When its value swelled to $12,000, she sold it to help grow her salon business.
If she’d held on, she says, “right now I’d have $3 million. I didn’t, but I learned.”
Luu wants the café to serve as a locus for the crypto-curious, with meet-ups and seminars for prospective and active investors. Block & Brew still accepts dollars, but she believes taking payment in the more stable digital currencies—Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana—sends a signal about their legitimacy and inevitable mainstream adoption. (Detroit recently began accepting Bitcoin for city tax and fee payments.) Customers can scan the store’s QR code to make a transfer to its digital wallet.
“I want people [to] know it’s of value. It’s not just fake money or a scam,” she says.
She says she was sad to learn that chef Danny Van’s backer had pulled out, taking his liquor license with him and jeopardizing Van’s fine dining restaurant, Taste Kitchen, and its adjacent vegetarian offshoot, Red Lotus.
Though she had recently purchased South University stalwart Kang’s Korean Restaurant from a relocating friend, she mustered the wherewithal to take over Van’s establishments as well.
Finding the E. Liberty neighborhood trending more student than townie, she and Van decided to rebrand as more affordable concepts, pursue a new liquor license, and focus on cuisine from Vietnam, Van’s birthplace as well. He says he’ll eventually move to Hawaii, but he’s staying on for a few years as a consultant, helping develop and adjust the Saigon Social House menu to find its sweet spot in the market. Luu is an eager taste tester and has been offering ideas on presentation.
Small plates options include several banh mi sandwiches, while signature dishes from $17 to $27 range from bouillabaisse to laksa noodles to three varieties of phở, the hearty rice noodle soup that Luu says she could eat several times a day.
“That’s the main thing in Vietnam. Every family eats that,” she says. “When we’re sick, we want it. When we’re hungry, we want it. Weather hot, we still eat it. Weather cold, we still eat it all the time.”
On the Block & Brew side, Luu sources her coffee from her brother’s Vietnam-based company, Nguyen Chat Coffee, and hopes to spearhead the brand’s distribution in the U.S. She generalizes Vietnamese coffee as bolder than most, with a blend more robusta than arabica, sustaining a variety of sweet flavors.
They also offer a broad range of teas, matcha drinks, and house-made yogurt—a particularly smooth version made with condensed milk, enjoyed plain or with fruit.
Saigon Social House, 521 E. Liberty. (734) 369–4241. Wed., Thurs., & Sun. 11:30 a.m.–8 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11:30 a.m.–8:30 p.m. Closed Mon. & Tues.
saigona2.com
Block & Brew Cafe, 529 E. Liberty. (734) 746–4403. Tues.–Thurs. 9 a.m.–6 p.m., Fri.–Sun. 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Closed Mon. blockandbrewcafe.com
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