At 3030 Bernal Avenue in Pleasanton, a nail salon and a wine bar now share a wall, and both belong to the same woman. Tammy Nguyen spends her mornings opening T’s Nail Bar, while Fusion Wine Bar operates next door, a Vietnamese-and-American restaurant she launched after decades of doing nails as a single mother raising two kids.
Nguyen signed the lease for Fusion Wine Bar in 2023, and the road to opening involved permits, furniture and equipment purchases, and line-cook training before she ever served a plate, according to Pleasanton Weekly. Pleasanton’s Commercial Tenant Improvement Guide identifies office, retail, and restaurant as examples of tenant-space uses that applicants must describe. The restaurant had a couple of weeks of soft opening before its grand opening on April 12, 2026, while the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce held an official ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 28, 2026, according to the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce. The menu itself reflects Nguyen’s roots: banh mi with barbecue pork, pickled radish, and special sauce; spring rolls; prawn nest salad bites with shrimp and wonton cups in fusion sauce; and a Vietnamese mango salad built from mangos, mint, fried shallots, shrimp, cucumbers, red onion, basil, and peanut, per the same account.
From a Boat Off Vietnam to a Bernal Avenue Storefront
Nguyen’s path to Pleasanton began decades earlier and far from the East Bay. She fled Vietnam at age 16 in a small boat, was stranded at sea before a Chinese vessel rescued her, and then lived in a Hong Kong detention center before reuniting with family in Oakland, according to ACES Golf. She went on to work for years in nail salons while raising two children as a single mother before eventually opening her own salon and, later, the wine bar next to it.
The restaurant’s dishes lean into Vietnamese flavors while borrowing from Japanese and American traditions too, including an agedashi tofu cake made of silken tofu coated in starch and deep-fried, topped with fried mushroom flakes instead of the traditional bonito flakes, and a rangoon filled with diced shrimp and Japanese imitation crab with minimal filler, per Pleasanton Weekly.
Wine From Next Door, Not Just Napa
Rather than leaning on Napa labels, Fusion Wine Bar built its list around Livermore Valley, the wine region bordering Pleasanton in Alameda County. The bar stocks bottles from Rubino Estates Winery, Ruby Hill Winery, McGrail Vineyards, Darcie Kent Estate Winery, Wood Family Vineyards, and Wente Vineyards, according to ACES Golf. Livermore Valley diner Angie Casillas praised the Vietnamese crispy wings with garlic fish sauce and diced white radish, per Pleasanton Weekly’s account…