Phở 79 and Seafood Cove Both Left Garden Grove This Fall. Both Landed on Bolsa Avenue.

"For 35 years, this restaurant was not only a place to eat, but also a place where memories were made, where families gathered, and where generations grew up together." Seafood Cove posted that farewell on social media on September 8, 2026, saying goodbye to its first branch at Westminster Avenue and Newland Street in Garden Grove. Người Việt reported the message in Vietnamese, and this is our translation.

The same report says Seafood Cove's business is moving to Seafood Cove 2, in the Asian Village center on Bolsa Avenue, across the street from Phước Lộc Thọ.

A few weeks later, the same kind of move finished on the same street. Phở 79 left the Hazard Avenue strip mall where it had cooked for more than 40 years and reopened at 8894 Bolsa Ave. in Westminster. Two of Little Saigon's best-known dining rooms gave up their Garden Grove addresses in 2026. Neither one left the neighborhood, and both picked Westminster's stretch of Bolsa.

Seafood Cove closed a branch and kept its business

The Orange County Register put Seafood Cove in its September 15 roundup of closures and described it as a longtime Chinese seafood restaurant in Little Saigon that had shut after about 35 years. The Register also noted that Seafood Cove 2 at 9211 Bolsa Ave. was still open.

The restaurant's farewell explains what that branch held. It mentioned kids dragged along for dim sum who didn't understand why they had to wait in such a long line, plus grandparents' birthdays, weddings, first birthdays, and photos in front of the Long Phụng dragon-and-phoenix wall and the logo out front. According to Người Việt, the red sign with the two-lobster logo on Westminster Avenue has been taken down. When the paper asked at Seafood Cove 2 why the first branch closed, a manager said they couldn't comment.

The restaurant has said that everything is now moving to the Bolsa location. The dim sum lines and celebration dinners that used to fill two dining rooms now share one, on Little Saigon's main commercial street.

Phở 79 doubled its room

Phở 79's move was planned in public. In May 2026, the Orange County Business Journal reported that the restaurant would move "this summer" from its 3,000-square-foot space on Hazard Avenue to the former Grand Garden, a 6,450-square-foot space at 8894 Bolsa Ave. The Journal noted that the restaurant would "still be in Little Saigon." By September 25, Bolsa Bridge confirmed the new address was open and the Hazard Avenue location was closed.

Grand Garden was a Vietnamese restaurant at that address, and a 2017 Tripadvisor review describes it hosting wedding banquets. So a phở shop that built its name in a strip-mall unit now runs out of a room designed for large parties, a little more than twice the size of the old one.

The restaurant's reputation explains why the move made news. Thọ Trần and Liễu Trần opened Phở 79 in 1982. The name combines Vietnam's best-known dish with 1979, the year most of their family arrived in the U.S. from Saigon. In 2019 the James Beard Foundation named it one of America's Classics, and Michelin has given it a Bib Gourmand, which recognizes high-quality food at a good value.

Bolsa Bridge, drawing on LAist's 2019 reporting, notes that this was the first James Beard award for any Orange County restaurant. The family story goes back to before the restaurant. Grandmother Nguyễn Thị Dao sold homemade Vietnamese food from a VW bus in a church parking lot, then pushed the family to open a real restaurant. John Nguyen, a family member who manages the restaurant, told LAist how he reacted to the award call: "James Beard, we didn't know him."

Michelin's inspectors call the restaurant "an institution" and single out the oxtail phở as the most popular order. Michelin's current listing has the Westminster address. It describes a menu of phở varieties, egg-noodle soups, gỏi cuốn, appetizers, and desserts.

Same street, a few addresses apart

Both moves end up on the same stretch of Bolsa. Seafood Cove 2 at 9211 Bolsa sits in Asian Village, directly across from Phước Lộc Thọ, the Asian Garden Mall. Phở 79 is a short way west, at 8894 Bolsa.

Bolsa Bridge describes Bolsa Avenue as the street Little Saigon grew up around and calls the move a step to "the neighborhood's front door." The same outlet points out that Little Saigon has seen beloved businesses close for good. It lists rising rents, retiring owners, and children choosing other careers among the reasons, and treats Phở 79 as "the other kind of story." Seafood Cove belongs in that second category too. The business is still running, now on the block facing the mall.

The block has its own seasonal draw. Asian Garden Mall held its 2026 Night Market in front of the mall on weekends from June 19 through August 9, from 7 to 11 p.m. That season is over. When it comes back, it will set up across the street from one of these restaurants and a short walk from the other.

What changes on your next visit

Regulars of both places need to update a few habits.

• Phở 79 is closed on Tuesdays. Hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesday through Monday, according to the restaurant's website as reported by Bolsa Bridge. Michelin's listing shows the same hours.
• Old map pins point to the wrong place. The Hazard Avenue address is closed. The new one is 8894 Bolsa Ave., Westminster, CA 92683. Phone numbers listed for the new location are 714-531-2490 and 714-893-1200.
• Seafood Cove means Bolsa now. Dim sum, banquets, and celebration dinners are all at Seafood Cove 2, 9211 Bolsa Ave. One dining room now carries the business that two used to split.
• Phở 79's opening day on Bolsa isn't in the reporting. The move was planned for summer, and the new location was confirmed open by September 25.

Three neighboring cities are designing Little Saigon's look, and Westminster isn't one of them

The restaurants moved toward Westminster during the same weeks that three other cities were working on how Little Saigon should look. According to Bolsa Bridge, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, and Santa Ana are partnering on shared Little Saigon design guidelines. Westminster is not a partner.

A Garden Grove staff report prepared for the September 3, 2026 Planning Commission meeting describes a draft framework. It covers walkable streets, planting and public spaces, Vietnamese-inspired architecture including lanterns, and coordinated signage that promotes bilingual communication. The candidate gateway locations are Garden Grove Boulevard at Brookhurst Street, West 17th Street at Harbor Boulevard, Bolsa Avenue at Harbor Boulevard, and Edinger Avenue at Harbor Boulevard. Final siting is still subject to further study. The guidelines are advisory and voluntary. They don't override zoning or require any particular feature.

The process is still underway. Staff asked Garden Grove's Planning Commission to recommend that the City Council adopt the guidelines, and Fountain Valley's council heard a presentation at a September 1 study session. As of mid-October, no adoption vote has been confirmed. Garden Grove canceled its October 1 Planning Commission meeting, and its commission calendar lists October 15 as the next regular date.

So the plan for gateways, lanterns, and bilingual signs is coming from Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, and Santa Ana. Meanwhile, in 2026, a 44-year-old phở house and a 35-year-old banquet-and-dim-sum restaurant consolidated onto Bolsa Avenue in Westminster, across from and down the street from the mall at the center of Little Saigon.

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