Hometown Eats: Smiley Tea

SALEM, Va. (WDBJ) - Sometimes your plan isn’t the plan, and for one café owner in Salem, it all came back to doing what made him happy.

We’re turning that frown upside down over at Smiley Tea for this week’s Hometown Eats!

“I didn’t think Smiley Tea would, as weird as it may sound, do this well. Because I don’t sell the normal, typical things around here,” said Smiley Tea owner Ronny Pham.

Yes, the food and drink may be outside the bubble, but you can expect to leave in a better mood than when you walked in. Welcome to Smiley Tea in the shopping center right in front of Salem High School off West Main Street in Salem.

“If you are a coffee lover, definitely come by and check it out,” said Pham.

Ronny Pham taps into his Vietnamese roots every time a new customer walks into his café.

“I love, love, love the café. I love the vibe, the culture. I love bringing people together, I love hosting. I feel like with a café you can get to know your customers more personable,” said Pham.

But that wasn’t always clear for Ronny.

“I felt lost to be honest, I felt lost and didn’t know what I wanted to do,” said Pham.

He graduated from Staunton River High School and enrolled in the culinary program at Virginia Western Community College, still without direction.

“I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I worked at a couple restaurants around here locally and yeah, I don’t know; I came back to this. I came back to food,” said Pham.

He dreamed of owning a fine dining restaurant, but the hours didn’t put a smile on his face. So, he found a gap in a culinary lane and filled it with boba.

“You can put anything at the bottom; you can put jellies at the bottom. You can put tapioca, poppers at the bottom. It’s pretty much like a sweet, flavored dessert in a cup,” said Pham.

Originating in Taiwan in the 1980s, the popularity of this sweet drink helped lead Ronny to Salem when he opened the café in 2022.

“It’s been around for a long time, but I believe with all this Asian culture expanding and getting more popular, the Boba drink has definitely been more, I guess, trendy,” said Pham.

Smiley Tea offers more than just a liquid diet, though; you’ll find Vietnamese staples like the Banh Mi sandwich.

“Traditional Vietnamese sandwich made with French baguette. We pickle our own pickled carrots and radish. It’s going to have cilantro, cucumbers, and jalapenos. Vietnamese ham, chicken liver pate, mayo and butter,” explained Pham.

And Vietnamese soup, better known known as pho.

“Get the soup. It’s very, very good,” said regular customer Rico.

But the showstopper around this joint, the Korean corn dog, and the marketing outside the café works. Just ask first-time customer Jeremy.

“Pictures outside look appetizing. This is great because I don’t have to travel to Korea to try Korean cuisine, which would be expensive,” joked Jeremy.

“We have an all-cheese Korean corndog, and we also have a half and half, which is half beef and half cheese. We season it with salt and sugar and you can get it with hot Cheetos on one side of it or you can get it with takis as well,” said Pham.

While there’s plenty of local traffic, being less than two miles from I-81, this café sees its fair share of out-of-towners.

“I’ll meet people from New York City because they get off the interstate and they tell me all the time they type in Boba, and they tell me I’m the first one.”

Sure, there are still times when doubt creeps in for Ronny.

“I do have my days where I question everything that I’m doing and if I’m doing it right,” said Pham.

But those feelings are quickly washed away with one action.

“I hear like a little kid coming in here and having a bad day at school and me giving them their Boba drink and a sticker, I hear them tell their mom, ‘Mommy this is the best place I’ve ever been or this is the best Boba shop.’ Yeah, it feels like I’m doing the right thing in life,” said Pham.

Smiley Tea, a hometown eat where you can’t help but leave with a smile.

Smiley Tea is located at 1333 W Main St, Salem, VA 24153 and is open Monday through Thursday 11am to 7pm, Friday & Saturday 11am to 8pm, Sunday 11am to 6pm.