Binh Khiem Nguyen

From the coffee bar to store operations

1. 2018 · The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

   Kalim began working as a barista, preparing drinks and serving guests. His career started with the practical work at the counter before expanding into the organization of coffee-shop service.

2. 2019 · Black Bottle Coffee, Vietnam

   His work continued at Black Bottle Coffee, where he was involved in setting up menus and store operations. He subsequently worked across larger coffee chains and smaller cafés in Vietnam, alongside coffee production and staff development.

3. Following the pandemic · Researching the coffee system

   He focused increasingly on how to make coffee operations work more efficiently as a system. Travel, learning and research continued alongside the development of ideas connecting the product, the guest, the store and its team.

4. Early 2026 · Work in Calgary

   Kalim supported Marius Dobré with the opening of Dobré Café at Westbrook CTrain Station in Calgary and with staff training. He now applies his experience in coffee operations and training to developing Kalim Coffee in Canada, its connected app ecosystem and voice ordering.

5. Today · Kalim Innovation and Kalim Coffee

   His current work brings together app development, drink and service workflows, and preparation for the first Canadian Kalim Coffee location. The project connects the guest’s experience with store preparation, employee coordination and a clearer view of the business.

Learning at coffee farms and roasteries

Kalim’s learning continued beyond the coffee counter. He travelled to coffee farms and roasteries in Vietnam to learn from the people working with the crop, green coffee and roasting. Cupping, coffee processing, green-coffee preparation and roasting became part of that wider learning journey.

These visits were opportunities to ask questions, taste coffee and understand the work before a drink reaches the guest. His background includes both that ongoing learning and hands-on experience producing and roasting coffee.

Following the pandemic, his research increasingly focused on the operating system of a coffee business. The question behind that work was how to connect coffee knowledge, service routines and information so the whole operation could work more efficiently. The Kalim app ecosystem develops that question into tools for each part of the service journey.

Roasting, drink standards and barista training

Kalim’s experience includes producing roasted coffee and directly working with roasting. This is a part of his background that sits alongside coffee-shop operations: the product reaching the counter and the way it is prepared both affect the guest’s experience.

He has also trained baristas from basic skills to advanced techniques. In the Kalim project, that practical training informs the preparation of the team, drink standards and the routines needed to make a recipe repeatable. The focus is on connecting coffee knowledge with the work staff carry out during service.

The apps are being developed around that operating context. A menu choice needs to become a clear order; the store needs the drink and customization details; and the team needs to follow preparation and pickup without losing that information.

Coffee as a way to meet people

Outside the daily work of a coffee shop, Kalim has carried coffee on his travels, brewing by hand and sharing cups with people he met. The ritual of making and offering a drink became part of the story behind From bean to big dream.

Kalim Coffee develops that idea into a Canadian coffee project: a place for a shared moment, supported by an ordering and service experience that is easier to follow. Read the story behind Kalim Coffee for the hospitality side of his work.

A new service experience in Canada

Coffee is the starting point for Kalim’s wider ambition in Canada: develop connected apps that make everyday service simpler, more convenient and easier to coordinate. Through Kalim Innovation, he wants to bring together his coffee background and technology to improve the experience for the guest, the people delivering the service and those managing the business.

A guest should be able to explore the menu, speak an order if they choose, review the details, pay and follow it to pickup through a clear flow. The team should have the order and preparation information it needs, while managers can understand service, staffing and stock in the same operating context. These practical interactions guide what he wants the technology to improve.

His ambition is to contribute a new approach to connected service in Canada, beginning with Kalim Coffee. He wants convenience to come from fewer repeated steps, clearer information and a system that is useful to the people using it. The first café is intended to test that approach in real life.

Over time, he hopes the methods and technology developed through Kalim Coffee can inform other service experiences in Canada. That is a longer-term direction for Kalim Innovation, to be shaped by what the company learns from its first operating model.

What he is building: four connected apps

Kalim Innovation gives each app a defined audience. The four apps follow the same coffee business from the guest’s order to the store’s work, the employee’s working day and the information available to authorized investors. Kalim’s goal is to turn his operating experience into a repeatable foundation for a growing coffee business.

Kalim · The operating centre

Kalim is the store’s point-of-sale and operating workspace. It brings together in-store and guest-app orders, checkout, preparation, pickup, customer displays, menu management, inventory and store reporting. The purpose is to carry a confirmed drink and its customizations into the work of the barista, while giving owners and managers a clearer view of their assigned stores.

Payment integration work includes Apple Pay for guests and Tap to Pay on iPhone for the store. Availability depends on supported devices, account configuration and the required approvals. Kalim wants the store system to support dependable service during a busy period as well as a clear record of what happened afterward.

Kalims · The guest experience

Kalims is the guest app. Customers can explore the menu, choose drink options, review an order and follow it through preparation and pickup. Receipts, order history, membership, Drops and rewards bring the visit into one continuing relationship with the coffee brand.

Kalim Assistant adds a conversational way to explore drinks and begin an order. The goal is to make the guest’s choices easier to communicate while preserving a clear review of the drink and total before payment. Planned development connects that experience with drive-thru pickup and further membership interactions.

KalimStaffs · The people behind the service

KalimStaffs is the employee workspace for assigned stores, attendance, schedules, recorded hours, tips and pay information. Training, coffee knowledge and workplace guidance sit alongside those everyday responsibilities.

For Kalim, a connected system should also help people learn. His barista training background informs the aim of giving employees a place to understand drinks, equipment and service routines, while managers coordinate the team. Payment-related work is intended to retain a manager’s review and approval.

Kalim Invest · A clearer view of the business

Kalim Invest gives authorized investors a workspace for approved company plans, financial reports, development priorities and communication with the team. Its audience and permissions are distinct from customer ordering or employee accounts.

The aim is to keep the company’s direction understandable as development progresses: what is being built, what funding is intended to support and what operating evidence is available. Proposed plans and planning assumptions need to remain distinguishable from achieved results.

Read how the four apps connect one coffee journey for a closer explanation of their operating roles.

One ecosystem, from the guest to the business

The connection starts with a drink choice in Kalims. Kalim brings the confirmed order into the store’s preparation and pickup workflow. KalimStaffs supports the people delivering that service, while Kalim Invest presents approved business information to its authorized audience. The same coffee operation can be understood from each role without giving everyone the same access.

His broader aim is to reduce repeated work and gaps between systems. A change to the menu, a confirmed order or a recorded shift should be easier for the right people to follow. Staff still need training, managers still need oversight and guests still need a clear choice.

Voice ordering, from a request to pickup

Kalim Assistant provides another way to begin an order: speak a drink request, explore the menu and review the selected options. The request then follows the same essential steps as an app order—confirmation, payment, preparation and pickup.

The website’s voice-ordering story illustrates how this could fit into a drive-thru visit. Voice interaction starts the request; the guest still reviews the drink and final total before payment. Available payment methods depend on the device and configuration.

For Kalim, this work connects the customer interface to the actual service workflow. The planned pickup window is part of the first-location concept, with opening and pickup details to be announced when the location is ready.

The next chapter: develop, operate, learn and grow

Now · Prepare the first Calgary location

Kalim is developing the apps while preparing a physical Kalim Coffee café and drive-thru concept in Calgary, Alberta. Current work includes site selection, financing, menu and service preparation, team training and testing the connection between guest ordering and store preparation. The first location remains in preparation; opening and pickup details will be announced when it is ready.

The first operating stage · Learn from real service

He wants the first location to be a place where coffee quality, hospitality and the technology are tested together. Order accuracy, preparation and pickup time, repeat visits, stock use, staffing and weekly cash will inform how the operation develops. The apps should improve in response to the work of guests and staff in a real store.

Growing the brand · Make the model repeatable

The ambition is to develop Kalim Coffee across Canada, supported by an ecosystem that can coordinate additional stores and their teams. Expansion is intended to follow demonstrated demand, consistent service and workable unit economics. Menu management, employee learning, store permissions and business reporting are part of building that repeatable model.

Longer term · Deepen the assistant and explore automation

Kalim wants to develop voice ordering, employee learning and the connection between guest requests and store preparation further. More advanced AI coordination and robotic drink preparation belong to the longer-term research vision. Their role would be to support reliable preparation while keeping hospitality central; feasibility, funding and operating evidence are needed before those concepts become a store capability.

The published Kalim Coffee investment overview and the Kalim Innovation plan explain the proposed stages and planning assumptions.

A coffee conversation with Mai Triều Nguyễn

Kalim continued travelling, learning and sharing his own coffee with people he met. He describes that journey as the reason Mai Triều Nguyễn invited him to a podcast conversation about coffee and personal interests.

The conversation provides another way to hear about the coffee journey behind the current Canadian project.

From the Kalim journal

Binh Khiem Nguyen (Kalim Nguyen): From Coffee Operations to the Kalim Ecosystem →

Four Kalim apps, one coffee journey →

Contact Kalim

For the apps, company and partnerships, contact info@kaliminnovation.com. For Kalim Coffee, contact info@kalimcoffee.ca.

Professional background supplied by Binh Khiem Nguyen in the company’s business plan and follow-up details. The Dobré Café role is described by the founder; no endorsement from that business is implied. Updated 6 October 2026.