On a typical weekend lunch rush, Grand Century Mall rumbles with hundreds of hungry bellies. Elders sporting their spiffiest hats go on food court dates, deepening their love over broken rice plates. Young couples pushing strollers analyze what patrons are eating in search of dining inspiration. Virtually every teenager in the building wields a beverage: coffee topped with foamed cream, fresh sugarcane nectar, pandan milk tea.
For 25 years, this 150,000-square-foot mall has been a fixture of the Little Saigon neighborhood in San Jose, the city with the largest population of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam. But the shopping center is on the mend from the pandemic, when food court tables were threaded with caution tape and several businesses shuttered. Many of those vacancies remain today.
In recent years, Grand Century Mall has evolved its food offerings — comprising about a 10th of the building’s 100 spaces — to adapt to the tastes of a new generation of Vietnamese Americans. Among the new options are a choice cơm tấm kiosk and two full-service restaurants: one specializes in bánh cuốn, the other in contemporary street food marvels like rice paper salad. With this tasty new cohort, I can’t help but feel like the mall is finding its groove again…