Tonee Nguyen and his wife Phoenix Pham know their restaurant, Retro Cafe—located on Hwy. 290 near Mueschke Road in Cypress—is not a typical Vietnamese restaurant at first glance.
When customers walk in, the first thing they see is a large mural of classic cartoon and video game characters painted by one of Nguyen’s friends. The walls are decorated with shelves featuring items from Nguyen’s vintage toy collection, which includes everything from Marvel and “Star Wars” figures to Korean and Indian versions of the original Nintendo Entertainment system.
“At most Vietnamese restaurants, you can tell you’re in a Vietnamese restaurant,” Nguyen said. “When you step inside our restaurant, you see the menu, but you see the toys displayed. All the toys are original from the ‘80s, still sealed.”
Despite the nontraditional look, Retro Cafe’s menu is made up of Vietnamese staples, including banh mi sandwiches, pho and vermicelli. Recipes can be traced back on both sides of the family, Nguyen said. His father used to run pho restaurants in Seattle, and Pham’s mother owned several Vietnamese sandwich restaurants in Tomball in the 1990s, he said.
