The Scranton-based pho shop will soon be opening a second location in Wilkes-Barre…
One of the best meals in downtown Scranton doesn’t come from a white-tablecloth dining room. It comes from a counter tucked inside the second-floor food court at The Marketplace at Steamtown, where broth has been simmering for hours before the first customers arrive and bowls of pho emerge layered with fresh herbs, tender beef and the kind of depth that can’t be rushed.
Soon, diners in Wilkes-Barre won’t have to make the drive to find it.
Saigon Corner Vietnamese Restaurant has announced plans to open a second location at 220 East End Centre in Wilkes-Barre, marking the restaurant’s first expansion since opening its Scranton location. While an opening date has not yet been announced, the response online suggests the restaurant already has plenty of customers waiting. Social media quickly filled with enthusiastic comments from people eager to have Saigon Corner closer to home, while ownership confirmed that the Scranton restaurant isn’t going anywhere. Wilkes-Barre, they said, is simply the next chapter.
The excitement has less to do with the expansion itself than with what’s coming with it.
Pho isn’t difficult to find anymore. Truly memorable pho still is.
Good pho begins with patience. Bones, aromatics and spices spend hours becoming something far greater than the sum of their parts, creating a broth that doesn’t need gimmicks to hold your attention. Saigon Corner understands that. Its pho is clean, deeply savory and built for customization with handfuls of fresh herbs, bean sprouts, jalapeños and lime. The restaurant’s Sunny Side of the Wok Pho, finished with wok-seared beef, garlic, onions and a rich egg yolk, has become a signature for good reason, adding another layer of richness without losing sight of what makes the broth special in the first place.
The menu reaches well beyond pho, but follows the same philosophy throughout. Bánh mì sandwiches arrive on toasted French bread with crisp pickled vegetables and fresh cilantro. Spring rolls are light and fresh, their herbs doing as much of the work as the proteins inside. Garlic noodles, grilled pork, roasted five-spice chicken and rice noodle bowls all lean on careful preparation rather than excess. Vietnamese coffee, fruit teas and bubble teas round out a menu that feels complete without becoming overwhelming.
It’s food that respects tradition without treating it like a museum piece.
That consistency has made Saigon Corner one of the quiet success stories of downtown Scranton’s dining renaissance. It’s easy to overlook a restaurant tucked into a second-floor food court, especially in a city now home to ambitious kitchens like A’tera 519, Bar Pazzo and AV Restaurant & Lounge. But good cooking has a way of ignoring expectations.
Saigon Corner belongs comfortably in that conversation, not because it’s trying to reinvent Vietnamese cuisine, but because it prepares familiar dishes with uncommon care. A deeply flavored broth, herbs added at the last possible moment, crisp spring rolls that taste freshly made instead of mass-produced. Those details add up to a restaurant that consistently serves some of the city’s most satisfying food.
There’s something refreshing about that.
For years, conversations about great dining often centered on bigger dining rooms, elaborate interiors, or ambitious tasting menus. Saigon Corner offers a different reminder: exceptional cooking doesn’t depend on square footage or polished table service. Sometimes it comes from a modest counter where the focus stays exactly where it should: on the food itself.
That may be the most compelling part of this expansion.
Restaurants don’t earn second locations simply because they have a good idea. They earn them because people return often enough to make growth possible. In Scranton, diners kept climbing the escalator to the Marketplace at Steamtown for bowls of pho, bánh mì and spring rolls, proving that destination-worthy food can thrive in unexpected places. The Wilkes-Barre location isn’t a departure from that story; it’s a continuation of it.
And it arrives at the right time.
Wilkes-Barre’s dining scene has grown steadily in recent years, with a wave of independent restaurants broadening the city’s culinary identity beyond its longtime staples. Saigon Corner adds something that remains relatively uncommon in the Wyoming Valley: authentic Vietnamese cuisine prepared with confidence and consistency. Rather than competing with what’s already there, it expands the conversation, giving local diners another reason to explore a cuisine built on balance, freshness and restraint.
The best restaurant news isn’t always about something entirely new. Sometimes it’s about more people getting access to something that was already worth seeking out.
That’s exactly what Saigon Corner’s move to Wilkes-Barre represents. It’s not simply another restaurant opening its doors. It’s one of Northeast Pennsylvania’s best independent kitchens finding a larger audience, one bowl of pho at a time.
