Good Days started with a simple idea: bring the care and craftsmanship of Japanese dining to the warmth of Vietnamese food in an intimate, everyday setting. In 2016 the team opened on Sydney Road, Brunswick; nearly a decade on, the noodle bar’s cult classics and community feel now extend to a new Collingwood shop.
Today, the team keeps service simple with a lean setup in-store and order-ahead pickup online, all connected through Square for Restaurants and Square Online so they can focus on the food and their regulars. That connected approach underpins the day-to-day pace while preserving the neighbourhood feel that keeps people coming back.
What you’ll learn
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How a focused menu + consistent execution built word-of-mouth
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Why Good Days leans into transparency and neighbourhood ties
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How the team balanced quality, growth and a second location
The spark: Japanese craft x Vietnamese soul
Founder Nam Nguyen sums up the concept as blending origins and influence. “My background is Vietnamese, and I wanted to blend a bit of the craftsmanship of Japanese food into Vietnamese food. So a Japanese setting, but serving Vietnamese food, basically.” It’s a clear, confident pitch that informs everything from the room design to the cooking.
What began as a passion project soon outgrew the tiny upstairs–downstairs setup. Popularity brought fresh pressure on consistency, staffing and systems, and set the tone for growth without losing the core idea.
A small menu with stamina
From day one the team backed focus over breadth, keeping, as Nam puts it, “a really small menu, with a focus on quality and being able to do every ingredient ourselves.” That discipline narrowed training time, clarified prep and made it easier for staff to own their stations.
Nearly ten years later the formula holds. “We’ve added a couple of things. But for the most part, the menu has been the same,” explains Nam. “What we do on a day-to-day basis is maintaining that consistency and quality, which is not easy to do.” The challenge is embraced: incremental improvements, not constant reinvention, keep regulars confident in their favourites.
Neighbourhood favourite on Sydney Road, and beyond
The original noodle bar opened in 2016 on Sydney Road, Brunswick. The concise menu centres on phở, noodle salads and their special chicken broken rice, what the team now call “Good Days classics.” Those signatures created reliable rhythms of service and a base of regulars who plan their week around a bowl.
The group later added Good Days Hot Bread up the road in Brunswick East for bánh mì, Vietnamese coffee and nitro tea. In Collingwood, the team recently opened a new noodle shop on Smith Street, expanding the offer with venue-only dishes, house cocktails and bar seating. Each venue feels local on purpose, with layouts and offers tuned to how that neighbourhood likes to eat.
Built on people, transparency and place
The open kitchen is central to the experience. “Everything’s transparent,” says Nam. “Customers basically see everything.” That transparency invites trust: guests watch the team cook, season and plate, and the team stays accountable to the standard they set.
Creative lead Michael Hooton adds that while the vibe stays relaxed, “we’re pretty casual, but we do have a structure. Everyone has to be quite malleable.” That balance gives long-term staff room to grow. “It’s given opportunities to stay long-term and be able to have input in the business,” says Nam.
Quality first, priced fairly
Ingredient choices are deliberate and uncompromising. “We’re not cutting corners, we’re trying to do everything wholeheartedly,” says Nam. That philosophy shows up in the bowls and the cadence of service: fewer SKUs, better product, faster reads on the pass.
Pricing is set to stay approachable for locals. By avoiding constant menu overhauls, the team protects hero items and makes gradual, transparent changes when costs shift, keeping value perception strong even as input costs move. And with simple processes sending order tickets straight to the kitchen and fast payments via a wall-mounted Square Kiosk by the door of their Brunswick store, the team can stay focussed on the customers and the food.
Direct relationships with guests
The pandemic saw the business turn to third-party delivery platforms to reach their customers, but post-pandemic, the team shifted away from them to protect both margins and the in-venue vibe. “There was a drop off in sales for a few months and people just adjusted. [Now] the underlying margins are also much better,” Nam says. Fewer interruptions on the phone means more time on the floor.
We wanted to be able to have quite a good, professional-looking online presence, so Square was definitely head and shoulders above the rest.”
Nam Nguyen → Founder
The venues still offer online ordering but they needed it to connect to their POS. Today, order-ahead is handled through their own channels via Square Online for Brunswick and Collingwood pickup, which means customers don’t have to wait as long for their orders, and the Good Days team don’t have to manually take orders over the phone.
What’s next
With more space in Collingwood, Michael says, “I think we’ll have a little bit more capacity to do some special things in the kitchen, and drink-wise, definitely room for some new additions. It’s going to be exciting.” A bigger space also means a few more covers at peak times.
The plan is to keep the heart of the brand consistent while letting each venue express itself: a few dishes you can only get there, a drinks list that suits the room, and the same warm pace regulars know from Brunswick.
