A strategic investor withdrew from Aha Café

Aha Cafe’s strategic investor declared withdrawal. Accordingly, from 21st July, 2018, a series of 6 coffee shops in Hanoi at the very heart of different parts of towns in the system will no longer operate under the Aha Cafe brand.

Aha Cafe is known as a chain of coffee shops with “pavement coffee” style in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City established over 10 years ago. Initially, Aha Cafe chain representative once claimed to follow the “slow and steady” pathway to ensure service quality and would open 1 new shop each year only, say no to franchising and only use long-term employees.

In the past year, Aha Cafe, which is no exception from the commercialization “storm”, has cooperated in the form of wide range franchise, opening the door for many investment partners to participate and develop the brand chain, bring its coffee shops to “prime” locations, enhancing identity in the market.

However, recently, a strategic investor who owns a series of 6 Aha Café shops at prime locations in Hanoi announced investment termination for Aha Cafe to develop a new brand, which would focus more on developing core values, improving product quality and service to customers.

Accordingly, from 21st July 2018, the Aha Cafe shops at several addresses including T5 Time City, No. 212 Ba Trieu, Lot 20 C12 Dinh Cong, No. 2 Hang Buom, No. 2 Le Van Linh and No. 26 Tue Tinh will no longer operate under the Aha Cafe brand.

According to representive of Street Coffee Trading and Service Joint Stock Company (the investor of the above-mentioned 6 coffee shops) Mr. Tran Xuan Diem investment in the coffee shops at the above locations will be diverted to a new brand. Kafa Café with the Vietnamese “coffee street” model will go into clean coffee products to serve Vietnamese customers, tourists and exporters.

“With Kafa Café, we expect this will be the brand to successfully “scale up” the street coffee model towards international standards in branding, products and service processes, for customers enjoy a cup of clean coffee at “pavement price” but excellent service quality that is not inferior to any big brand ” – Mr. Diem said.