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Craving a craft beer or coffee any time of day? A new Mountain View cafe will offer both.
Established in San Jose in 2023, Pour Decisions Craft Coffee & Beer is opening its second location in the former home of acai spot Bowl of Heaven. Founder Vince Cao said he’s looking to open in August.
Pour Decisions’ Mountain View location will be smaller than its flagship, but it will still specialize in Vietnamese coffee with a variety of housemade cream tops as well as hard-to-find brews from microbreweries. For food, Pour Decisions partners with a variety of local businesses, including Eizel’s Bakery, Sweetdragon Baking Company, Bibo’s NY Pizza, Andersen Bakery and Duc Huong.
“I really work toward involving other independent business owners, small business owners, because I truly believe that there’s a place for everybody to do really well,” said Vince Cao, founder of Pour Decisions.
The concept combines the San Jose resident’s love of coffee and beer. Cao’s journey into the food and beverage industry began after working at restaurant delivery platform Caviar, which later was acquired by Square and then DoorDash. During business trips to New York, Cao and two co-workers would often frequent The Halal Guys and decided to franchise the restaurant in Seattle.
The partners then created their own restaurant concept in San Jose and Berkeley called Chick’N Rice (both locations are now closed) and then began franchising Bonchon. While Cao opened Pour Decisions in San Jose, his wife opened next-door business Pore Decisions Med Spa.
Cao and his partners had set their sights on opening their second Pour Decisions location in Fremont, but the opportunity to open in Mountain View came up unexpectedly and they decided to jump on it. The Fremont location is expected to open this fall.
“Up and down the Peninsula, we have a lot of corporate clients, and then we also have a lot of customers that are coming from the Peninsula telling us that they would like to see us open in Mountain View, Palo Alto or Redwood City,” Cao said. “And this opportunity just came up, and I made a decision on it basically the same day.”
Pour Decisions receives freshly roasted coffee beans from its coffee partners in Seattle twice a week. The beans are harvested from a farm in Vietnam, and the coffee is brewed by Cao’s mother-in-law.
Signature phin coffees ($6.75-$6.95), made from a method of brewing that produces strong, concentrated coffee, come topped with creams in flavors such as ube, egg or sesame. Specialty lattes ($6.95-$7.95), made with phin-dripped coffee and milk, come in flavors including banana and pandan and feature housemade cream tops. The top seller is the peanut butter latte, Cao said.
“A lot of people, once they try that, they want a bigger cup, they want to come back and get a second cup right away,” Cao said.
A variety of tea drinks and matcha lattes ($6.95-$7.95) are available as well, including a blueberry matcha with blueberry puree and housemade banana crumble cream, and a horchata matcha with housemade horchata.
The beer program at the Mountain View location will be more limited than at the San Jose location, with just four beer taps available as well as a selection of cans. But don’t expect Corona or Heineken.
“Anything that you can find in a supermarket, we don’t carry it,” Cao said. “We like supporting small businesses, independent businesses.”
The seating will also be more limited compared to Pour Decisions in San Jose. Expect seating for about 12 people inside and a few chairs outside.
Cao and his partners plan to continue expanding Pour Decisions and are currently exploring opportunities in Houston and Seattle.
“If there’s an opportunity to open up Pour Decisions in a different city, then we’ll definitely be interested. But it has to feel right, it has to be the right timing, and we have to have…really good partners,” Cao said.
Pour Decisions Craft, 1040 Grant Road, Mountain View; Instagram: @pourdecisonscraft.
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