Young people lined up from 6:30 a.m. and waited 7 hours to take photos at an ancient cafe.
Báo Dân trí•23/01/2025
(Dan Tri) - Many young people do not hesitate to come early in the morning, willing to spend about 600,000 VND to enjoy 120 minutes of taking photos at the ancient-style cafe that is "causing a fever" in Hanoi.
Young people take a number to line up to enter the ancient cafe (Video: Tien Bui).
Facing the attraction of the trend of taking photos in traditional costumes on the occasion of Lunar New Year, many coffee shops in Hanoi have quickly changed their appearance and invested in decorating their space to attract a large number of customers to experience and preserve meaningful moments. Present on Nguyen Van Giap Street (Nam Tu Liem District, Hanoi), Dan Tri reporters were surprised to see a very crowded ancient-style coffee shop, all the seats in the shop were full. Outside the premises, young people were coming and going busily. Coffee shop staff were busy coordinating, guiding customers to line up and posting queue numbers. To have the opportunity to experience taking photos, many people had to wait patiently for at least an hour.
Have to get a queue number when... entering the coffee shop
The cafe has an area of about 300m2 with two floors decorated in many different styles, from ancient Chinese costumes to spaces with strong Vietnamese influences. In particular, the makeup, hairdressing and costume selection areas are arranged separately, creating convenience for customers. Every day, the ancient cafe attracts a large number of visitors, fluctuating over 300 visits. Opening hours are 7am, but from 6:30am, many people lined up outside, waiting to experience the airy photo space. Nguyen Thi Hang (born in 2002) - store manager - said: "The shop only accepts 30 pre-bookings per day and serves about 300 customers at a time. If there are more customers than expected, we cannot accommodate them all. The busiest times of the day are from 10am to 11am and 2pm to 4pm. To ensure fairness, the shop applies a numbering rule for each customer upon arrival, helping everyone to experience the service comfortably." After the Mid-Autumn Festival ended, the cafe started preparing for Tet, deciding to skip Christmas decorations to maintain the typical ancient style. From August to September, the shop collected and ordered Vietnamese costumes and ao dai. By November, all stages including setting decoration and costumes were completed and ready to welcome customers during the peak Tet photo shooting season. The owner shared that he wants to focus on investing heavily in traditional Vietnamese costumes. With the diverse needs of young people, he prepared 150 Vietnamese costumes with an average price of 3-5 million VND/set, along with 250 different Ao Dai designs to help customers capture memorable moments.
Since December 2024, the ancient cafe has been constantly crowded. By chance, Hong Nhung and Duc Toan (born in 2001) found out about the ancient cafe on social media. They were quite impressed with the splendidly decorated space and many virtual living corners that few places have. With the desire to have satisfactory photos of Vietnamese traditional ao dai, the two did not hesitate to travel more than 10km from Ha Dong district to Nam Tu Liem district to experience it. Even though they arrived at 12 o'clock, Hong Nhung and Duc Toan still had to line up to get a number and wait for an hour outside the door. " This is the first time we've gone to a cafe and had to stand outside to wait for a number. Before that, when surfing social media, I was quite impressed with the shop when it combined many types of traditional costumes from countries such as Vietnam, Japan, China... I found this model quite new, we've never tried it before. The experience price here is also quite reasonable," Hong Nhung confided. Hong Nhung - Duc Toan chose the service package of 299,000 VND/person including 90 minutes of photo shoot, free makeup, hair, costume rental and two drinks of any kind. Apart from the minus point that the shop was too crowded, many photo corners required a long wait, both rated this experience at 8 points. Hong Nhung - Duc Toan impressed with the coffee model decorated in ancient style. Despite anticipating the crowded situation, Thanh Binh and Huyen Trang (born in 2004) still felt quite tired because they had to wait more than an hour to get in to take photos. According to the two "muses", the space inside did not really make a strong impression, somewhat normal compared to the videos shared on TikTok. Thanh Binh and Huyen Trang chose to buy a package of 130,000 VND/person including hairdressing, costume rental and drinks. Thanh Binh confided: "We had about 90 minutes to take photos. The hairdressing and preparation time was quite long, so we did not experience much. Luckily, they only started counting the time when the customers finished all the steps."
Booked in advance but still had to wait 7 hours to take pictures
The closer to Lunar New Year, the more often young people flock to and jostle each other at the ancient cafe, especially on weekends. Through short videos on the social network TikTok, many people know about it and are curious to experience it. To ensure that they don't have to wait too long, Thu Hien (born in 1997) decided to make an appointment a day in advance. However, when she arrived at the cafe at 10am, Thu Hien was suddenly informed by the staff that she would have to wait another 4 hours before she could go inside to do her makeup and hair. After completing the makeup steps and wearing Vietnamese costume, the girl born in 1997 had to wait another hour because the cafe's photographer was overloaded. During the 7 hours of waiting, Hien could only wander around the space inside and refer to the shooting angles in advance. "I once went to this ancient cafe with friends and used the basic package for 99,000 VND. That time, the whole group only had about 50 minutes to take photos freely and feel the space. Coming back today, I decided to invest in the most expensive package for 599,000 VND. In addition to the basic services, I also have 60 minutes of private photo shoot with a professional photographer," Thu Hien confided.
The "muses" transformed into many different ancient styles and were satisfied with the money spent. Having planned to take photos to celebrate Tet for a long time, Thuy Vy (born in 1999) has only now arranged the time. Introduced by friends to a famous ancient cafe in Hanoi, she did not hesitate to spend 600,000 VND in exchange for 120 minutes of taking photos with Chinese traditional costumes. Thuy Vy shared: "Seeing this place was famous online, I was quite curious and made an appointment in advance. I arrived at the shop from 11am but it was not until 2:30pm that I started taking photos with a professional photographer. Realizing that many people take Tet photos with Ao Dai, I wanted to choose Chinese traditional costumes, which is both different and a completely new image." According to the girl born in 1999, the crowd and the long waiting time outside made her experience not really complete. Vy rated this experience at 7 points. In order to meet the increasing demand for taking photos during the Lunar New Year, the ancient cafe is currently operating with a team of about 50 employees including waiters, bartenders, makeup artists, hairdressers, outfit guides and professional photographers. Each young person who comes to this location often stays quite a long time to take photos, on average about 3-4 hours. To control the number of people coming in and out and ensure the space is always comfortable, the cafe imposes a fine of 100,000 VND for customers who stay more than 15 minutes beyond the time specified in the selected package.
Comment (0)