Pham Manh Dung, founder of Chef&go: From a small bakery to ambitious large chain

From a specialty bakery located in Hai Phong, Pham Manh Dung shaped Chef&go as a streamlined F&B model, taking quality and reasonable cost as the key to market expansion.

Pham Manh Dung, founder of Chef&go.

Specialty 2.0 of Hai Phong

While many young entrepreneurs seek opportunities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Pham Manh Dung chose Hai Phong as his starting point. "Lower rental costs and a less saturated market compared to larger cities mean that entrepreneurs in the food and beverage (F&B) sector like me can still find our own niche," Dung explained.

The founder, born in 1997, said that after working in the F&B and service industries in various positions, from waiter to manager, he thought about "doing something of his own." Coincidentally, at the end of 2024, Dung "had the good fortune" to connect with an older brother who used to be a head chef at a 5-star hotel in Hai Phong. Thus, one with experience in operational management and another with expertise in culinary arts joined forces to open a specialty pastry workshop right in his hometown.

Hai Phong is a land with many specialties, but there isn't yet a truly outstanding chain of specialty cakes. If I do well, I can expand to develop more traditional specialty cakes from other localities. I believe this is an opportunity for me,” Dung affirmed.

Based on the Hai Phong specialty baguette, the two brothers researched and upgraded it to create the beef pate baguette – version 2.0 of the baguette, with many outstanding differences such as: the crust is made from natural yeast, making it firmer and crispier; the pate filling is made from glutinous rice liver and beef, giving it a rich and savory flavor. The beef pate baguette is considered the "soul" of the workshop, and also the dish that Dung is most proud of.

Besides the pâté bread rolls, the bakery also produces many other Hai Phong specialties such as pâté, baguette, Katka bread, and traditional sticky rice cakes... Among them, Dung proudly boasts that the sticky rice cakes are made from an ancient variety of glutinous rice grown in Dai Thang commune, Tien Lang district, Hai Phong (formerly) - a specialty rice variety passed down from the Ly Dynasty, notable for its attractive aroma, high nutritional content, and delicious, chewy sticky rice that stays fresh for a long time.

Ambition to become the Mixue of Vietnam in the food industry.

In early 2025, Dung opened a bakery, primarily serving both dine-in and wholesale customers. By mid-year, he opened his first Chef&go store in Hai Phong, and in August, he consecutively launched three more stores in Hanoi with varying sizes, from 6 m2 to 20 m2.

"I hope that Chef&go will develop similarly to how Mixue is thriving in the bubble tea sector," Dung said, adding that Chef&go's strategy will be to develop a low-cost franchise model to create business opportunities for hundreds of store owners across Vietnam with low capital and stable profits of 15 to 30 million VND per month.

After a trial period, the founder confidently asserted that they had optimized the operational process and were ready to scale up the chain quickly and sustainably. A key advantage of the Chef&go model is its compact size; even a store as small as 6 square meters is sufficient for implementation.

As the name suggests, the brand aims for chef-quality food, catering to the needs of quick, takeaway orders, suitable for the busy lifestyles of many customers today. All pastries sold in the stores are produced centrally in the kitchen to ensure consistent quality. Even the pricing has been carefully calculated by Dung, ensuring that all customers in the budget segment can afford them.

“To build a strong chain like Mixue is doing in the beverage sector, the prerequisite is to develop a scalable business model that is both simple and allows for quality and cost control,” Dung concluded. He also added that with Chef&go, baked goods are easier to transport from the factory to the store and maintain consistency, compared to other more elaborate dishes like rice, noodles, vermicelli, and pho...

In the context of the F&B industry undergoing a consolidation phase, Dung believes that opportunities for lean chains like Chef&go are wide open. According to the Vietnam F&B Market Report published by iPOS in early October 2025, after the first consolidation in the first half of 2024, the F&B market is witnessing a second, even stronger wave of consolidation this year, as input costs across the industry have increased sharply. By June 30, 2025, Vietnam will only have approximately 299,900 F&B establishments, equivalent to more than 50,000 stores closing in the first half of this year. Furthermore, in the Vietnamese market, lean food chains targeting the budget-conscious customer segment are very few, due to the dual pressure of optimizing costs while providing quality products. "This is an opportunity for lean chains that excel in product development to rise and dominate the market," Dung confidently asserted.

From now until the end of the year, the founder aims to open and franchise Chef&go stores to reach 30 locations. Dung also plans to soon introduce the model to Ho Chi Minh City, where people are more receptive to new products and where trial sales of specialty cakes have already shown promising results.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/pham-manh-dung-nha-sang-lap-chefgo-tu-xuong-banh-nho-den-tham-vong-chuoi-lon-d428607.html