On Oct. 2, 2022, Tommy Le’s life was shattered.
While driving with his girlfriend, Reinne Lim, the couple was struck head-on by a drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway. Lim died at the scene, and Le was left in critical condition.
The couple had met while Le was working as a barista, and they dreamed of one day opening a coffee shop of their own. In his eulogy for Lim, Le promised to make good on that dream, opening a shop in Lim’s memory.
After three years of processing and starting to put his life back together, Le finally felt ready to make their shared dream a reality. He opened Reinne’s Place to honor Lim and to hold space for love and grief.
“It’s allowing me to keep what I have left of Reinne alive,” Le said.
Reinne’s Place — which is currently operating as a pop-up in Open Gallery Long Beach while its brick-and-mortar is under construction — blends Filipino and Vietnamese flavors like ube, pandan, coconut and jackfruit to create unique drinks that can be ordered with espresso or matcha.
Le hopes the brick-and-mortar, which will be at 3902 E Fourth Street, will open within the next couple of months.
Last summer, when Le first saw the space, he knew it was perfect.
He wasn’t necessarily looking for a location at that time, but he felt compelled to call the number on a for lease sign he saw while driving home one day. The building he was originally looking at was already taken, but the landlord suggested Le look at another building that was just a few minutes away. From there, everything fell into place for Le.
“I think that’s when I knew that Reinne was making these things happen for me,” he said.
Le described Lim as a free spirit who just wanted to have fun. She was ambitious, spontaneous and confident, living her life to the fullest.
“She just had so much energy and life to her,” Le said. “She created this space and community around her that also felt free, where people could just be themselves around her.”
At Reinne’s Place, Le hopes to foster that same sense of community. That starts with spending a couple more seconds to really connect with customers.
“I should be able to have a conversation with you, remember your order, remember your name,” Le said. “I often say I know a lot more about my regulars than I do about my own parents sometimes, because I see them every single day.”
Reinne’s Place isn’t just building that community of support with customers, but with other small businesses as well, through collaborations known as Reinne Drops. These Reinne Drops allow other local businesses to host a pop-up event at Reinne’s Place and be promoted on its social media platform (Reinne’s Place currently has 15,000 followers on Instagram).
Le lives by the idea that “when he eats, everyone eats,” and believes lifting others up is a key element in building community.
Lim, of course, is at the center of this community that Le is building.
He wanted to include her family and friends in some capacity. His brother suggested the idea of Reinne Checks: notecards modeled after guest checks from restaurants, where people can write something for Reinne.
What started as a way for friends and family to write notes has evolved to touch the hearts of everyone who visits Reinne’s Place. After reading the messages to Reinne displayed on the wall, customers started asking if they could write their own Reinne Checks to someone they had lost.
“The beautiful thing about it is that people define loss in their own way and in their own capacities,” Le said.
Le said those who don’t know his story or the purpose of the Reinne Checks will often take pictures with them, thinking they’re just cute decorations, but when they start to look closer, they end up crying as they relate to the feelings of love and grief.
He loves that Reinne’s Place is fostering these connections between strangers.
“That was always our number one goal, where it was like, serve an amazing coffee, but also, at the end of the day, be able to create a space that people felt understood and like felt the need to slow down and take it in,” he said.
Le plans to eventually digitize the hundreds of Reinne Checks that he’s collected and put them in a gallery on the shop’s website. Physical Reinne Checks will also be displayed on the walls of Reinne’s Place’s new shop once the building is complete.
Reinne’s Place is currently operating out of Open Gallery Long Beach, at 1740 E 7th Street. They are open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.