• Jackie Nguyen, owner of Café Cà Phê, pouring a drink from behind the counter

Jackie Nguyen

Owner, Café Cà Phê
Fun decorations in the window of Café Cà Phê including a disco ball plant holder, lucky cat and dragons
Cultivating Community Through Coffee
One cup at a time, Jackie Nguyen is serving as a beacon for Asian culture. By Weston Owen
Jackie Nguyen, owner of Café Cà Phê, posing in front of a "Support Small Biz" mural

Kansas City is a tapestry of unique stories — individual threads that, when woven together, create a strong and beautiful community. Jackie Nguyen, owner of Kansas City’s first Vietnamese coffee shop, Café Cà Phê, is one of those threads. While her path to our Midwest gem of a city was unexpected and born in a time of uncertainty, her positive impact now radiates, shining a light on Asian culture and marginalized demographics.

In March of 2020, Jackie — who’d been an actor in New York for a decade — was traveling across the United States for her Broadway role in Miss Saigon, a gig she’d worked incredibly hard to land. She received a call that, due to the pandemic, her show was going to be closed indefinitely. Devastating for her and her castmates, she committed to remain resilient and found her way to Kansas City for what she believed would be a temporary stay.
 

When she arrived, she knew she wanted to carve her niche, yet she found there wasn’t as much Asian diversity or representation as she’d grown up with in San Diego as a first-generation Vietnamese American. That’s when she tapped into a former life — nearly 10 years of being a barista in New York — and started selling Vietnamese coffee in Westport. One cup at a time, word began spreading and Café Cà Phê was born.
  • Employee holding a purple specialty drink at Café Cà Phê

Photo Courtesy of Travis Young

Understanding how much people were enjoying her coffee, which is deeply rooted in Vietnamese flavor profiles, she took the remaining money she had from Miss Saigon and purchased a food truck, which allowed her to travel throughout the Kansas City metro, expanding her visibility and building the brand’s culture. Her product’s popularity continued to grow at breakneck speed, eventually affording her the opportunity to open her own brick-and-mortar storefront in Columbus Park.

Kansas City is so supportive of its small business owners. I have never experienced such compounded, genuine support from a community. The people here definitely are what make Kansas City my favorite place I’ve ever lived.

  • Boxes stacked up at Café Cà Phê
And Jackie’s commitment to KC is even bigger than coffee. Recognizing a need, in 2022 she also founded the AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander) Identity Festival, which has grown exponentially each year since its inception. In 2024, the groundbreaking festival celebrated its first year in another trailblazing venue — CPKC Stadium, home of the KC Current and the first stadium purpose-built for a women’s sports team.
Jackie Nguyen, owner of Café Cà Phê, standing outside her business in front of a Coffee mural

While Café Cà Phê has become a local favorite by many in Kansas City, it’s the exposure and acceptance that Jackie found — and created — in KC that has made all the difference. “It’s incredibly moving and inspiring being somewhere that building a community around culture and inclusivity can be reality.”

Jackie’s path to the Midwest may have been unscripted, but her legacy is now woven into the Kansas City story — strengthening this region as a place of belonging and where together, everyone can find their voice. 
 

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