First Pics: Owners of Cafe Nhu Y open Lee’s Cafe and Bistro at 522 Washington Ave.
A new Vietnamese cafe and bistro from the owners of Cafe Nhu Y — the teensy bahn mi cafe whose closure sent us on a quest for a new go-to Vietnamese hoagie spot — is now open at 522 Washington Ave.
The new place serves everything from Vietnamese hoagies and desserts to French pastries like croissants.
In 2014 we reported on Cafe Nhu Y closing up shop at 802 Christian St. and being replaced by Lyas Cafe, but we had no real lead to what the future for the hoagie shop was. Turns out Cafe Nhu Y has been renamed and moved to a much bigger location under the name Lee’s Cafe and Bistro.
It’s unclear as to exactly when Lee’s Cafe and Bistro officially opened, but by the looks of the Grand Opening sign outside of the shop, it seems to be a pretty recent development.
Seating in the Cafe is very limited, with only one table to sit at if you’re planning to dine in, which is actually an improvement if you were familiar with the old shop.
The food selection is pretty large with plenty of pre-prepared foods, in addition to a menu of items like the much-loved Vietnamese hoagies.
Lee’s Cafe and Bistro’s is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. through 10 p.m. Contact the Cafe at (267) 273-0922 for more information.
–Taylor Farnsworth, @tfarnsworth3
Those are definitely/unmistakably Artisan Boulanger delicious pastries, which is certainly a win for folks a little further north.
Good spot! I was in there yesterday chatting with Lee and confirmed this. Even more exciting (in my opinion) is that the rolls used for the bahn mi are also from Artisan Boulanger. This is huge!
The design(menu, signage, etc) of this place is fucking ugly
Umm.. Yeah… Thankyou for saying it before I did and caused a bunch of people who read too much of The Secret to go batshit crazy on me…
Ugly as can be. Hope the food redeems it…
Ugly? So says the guy who thinks red velvet wallpaper is classy and that a track suit is fancy attire.
They say they’re putting in a full chinese/vietnamese restaurant upstairs
When this place was on Christian St., it was filthy. I found a long black hair in my bahn mi once. A year later decided to go back and found an effin used band-aid in my bahn mi. It sucked giving up those delicious bahn mis but I wasn’t going to get burned a 3rd time.
These people worked really hard to make this place special and the way they wanted it to be. It really doesn’t matter if you think it looks tacky because as a long time supporter of the tofu hoagies at the old spot, this is great news!
Also the owners are not claiming the pastries to be made on premises so don’t think anyone is solving some expose by noticing that.
Pastry superb