Little Saigon isn’t one mall on Story Road. It’s a layered map — each plaza a different chapter of how a refugee community built a neighborhood, and how the next generation is now stewarding it. Bounded by I-280, Senter, US-101, and Owsley, this stretch holds more Vietnamese residents than any single city outside Vietnam. Walking the corridor from Tully to Story tells that story better than any plaque could.
Start at Lion Plaza, King and Tully — the original Little Saigon.
The 105,000-sq-ft center opened in April 1988 with Mission Revival arches and stone guardian lions out front, and the first Pho Hoa had set up shop nearby in 1984. Nearly 40 years later, it’s still drawing entrepreneurs. In August 2025, Tu Nguyen and Lan Vi Tang opened Bột Chiên inside the Sun Yat-sen food court, hand-making rice cakes from scratch every morning. “I had a restaurant with 73 items,” Nguyen told KQED. “What can I do to simplify this?”
Grand Century Mall, the 2000 anchor at 1111 Story Rd, is the cultural-hub chapter.
About 100 businesses inside — jewelry counters, herbal medicine, Vietnamese-language music, the food court — and a parking lot that’s become event ground zero. The Story Road Night Market launched there in July 2024, and the 365 Night Market now runs monthly through October. “It’s not just eight food trucks in a parking lot,” organizer Ryan Sebastian told KQED. Resident Michelle Vu put it more plainly to San José Spotlight: “It’s a cultural hub, and it’s very important in terms of community building.” Next dates: May 29–30 and July 26–27, 4–10pm, free…