Vietnamese food replicas case — how window display design helps attract more visitors to an asian cuisine restaurant
Vietnamese food replicas
Date: June 2018
Location: Irkutsk, Russia
Client: café “Pho Me”
Category: National Cuisine
Client Overview
Pho Me is a Vietnamese café located in a picturesque area on the embankment of the Angara River in Irkutsk. The neighborhood is filled with restaurants, cafés, and fast-food outlets, creating strong competition. Since Vietnamese cuisine was unfamiliar to most local residents and visitors, many potential customers chose other places with more familiar menus.
Challenges & Goals
The main goal was to make the café stand out among many nearby restaurants, introduce passers-by to the menu and prices, and increase the average check. The owners were looking for a visual solution that could clearly show the appearance, portion size, and variety of Vietnamese cuisine dishes — without using real food that would spoil during the day.
To achieve this, they decided to decorate the restaurant window with Vietnamese food replicas — a clear and long-lasting way to present the menu attractively and professionally.
Our Solution
The Nippon Dom workshop created Vietnamese food replicas based on the café’s original dish photos. To ensure each replica perfectly matched the real serving, the artisans used the café’s own branded tableware.
To make the display even more eye-catching and inspire visitors to order higher-priced dishes, one of the replicas — representing one of the café’s premium meals — was designed in a “frozen motion” style, showing noodles being lifted with chopsticks. Placed in the center of the restaurant window display, it became the signature element and the highlight of the entire showcase.
Results & Impact
The new restaurant window display immediately attracted attention and increased the café’s visibility on the Angara River embankment. Many visitors stopped to take photos in front of the showcase and shared them on social media, which helped spread the word about the new Vietnamese café.
The number of guests grew significantly — not only those already walking along the riverside, but also people coming specially from different parts of Irkutsk to try Vietnamese cuisine.
As a result:
Noticeable growth in overall foot traffic thanks to the expressive showcase
Increase in new customer visits
Higher average check, as guests ordered more dishes
Faster service, since visitors chose meals in advance
Stronger brand recognition and growing popularity of Vietnamese cuisine in the city
