GRAND ISLAND – Pham’s Coffee and Boba is one of two Grand Island businesses listed in Nebraska Tourism’s 2025 Passport Program.
Tuan Pham and his wife, Alyssa Vanarnam, own the business. It has locations at 614 N. Eddy St. and 2237 N. Webb Road. The day of this interview, Vanarnam was working at the Eddy Street location, and Pham was working at the Webb Road location.
Vanarnam said the Eddy Street location opened in August 2023. The Webb Road location opened on Black Friday in November 2024. Pham is Vietnamese and came to Grand Island when he was 7 years old.
Boba started in Taiwan in the early 1980s and spread to other Asian countries, then the United States. It is pronounced boe’-ba. It is also called bubble tea. The drink may be made with tapioca pearls (known as boba) but can also be made with other small jelly-like balls that sink to the bottom of the drink. A larger diameter straw is used to drink the refreshment, so the tapioca pearls or other “balls” are ingested at the same time as the liquid part of the drink. Boba can be made without milk or with milk teas. There are many flavors of oba, such as mango or coconut.
In addition to serving boba, Vanarnam said that Pham’s Coffee and Boba serves a full slate of coffee drinks. The Eddy Street location is take-out only and does not have seating. The Webb Road location is larger and has seating. Panini sandwiches are also on the menu.
Vanarnam said they are friends with the owners of Baristas in Grand Island, who suggested that they apply for the Passport Program. Baristas was previously selected for the Passport Program.
Pham’s Coffee and Boba has six full-time employees and four part-time employees, in addition to Vanarnam and Pham working there. The locations are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.
The Webb Road location is listed on the Passport Program, but participants may also go to the Eddy Street location for a Passport stamp.
“We really like being in the drink business,” Vanarnam said. “No one’s in a bad mood when they’re drinking bobas.”
Pham said that the business opened its second location because “we wanted to be more accessible to our customers. This location has seating available. We get more traffic out here.”
Pham said he attended college in Lincoln, and that was where he had his first experience drinking bobas.
He said that the business also serves Vietnamese coffee. He said that the coffee is a different species of coffee beans.
Examples of some of the drinks on the business’s menu include iced Vietnamese coffee, guava raspberry boba, peach-lavender milk tea and spicy ginger coffee boba.
The website address for the business is www.phamscb.com
