Austin Pop-Up Mam Mam Plans Its First Restaurant in Pflugerville

Mam Mam is getting walls of its own. The Vietnamese-Thai pop-up that Kris Hoang and Diana Pham have run since March 2024 inside Wingman Kitchens at Springdale General is planning its first brick-and-mortar for this fall at 1900 East Howard Lane, Unit G-1, inside Pflugerville’s Howard Post development.

The name comes from măm măm, the affectionate sound Vietnamese parents make when coaxing a child to eat. That warmth is the point of the room they want: casual plates from Hoang’s Vietnamese American upbringing and his years in Thai kitchens, cooked without the six-to-eight-dish ceiling of a shared commissary line.

At Springdale, the format was walk-up and takeout, with a short rotating board. Pflugerville is meant to stretch that board and add a full bar for Asian-inspired cocktails, plus beer and wine. Returning favorites already named in the announcement include Vietnamese chicken and rice, a fried pork belly vermicelli bowl, fish sauce chicken wings, and xoi man porchetta. New dishes are still under wraps, and the fall open date will firm up as the build finishes.

Howard Post is being built by the same development family behind Springdale General, which is part of why Hoang called the move a full-circle moment. He and Pham also live in Pflugerville and have said they want a place their neighbors can use without driving into East Austin every time the craving hits.

Hoang leads the kitchen; Pham runs operations. Austin diners may already know his cooking from the closed Thai Kun and from Red Ash. In the Bay Area he helped open Pim Techamuanvivit’s Thai fine-dining room Nari and co-founded the Vietnamese pop-up Claws of Mantis. At Mam Mam those paths sit on one weekday board: fish sauce next to Thai heat, without needing a fusion slogan to explain it.

Until the Howard Post room opens, Mam Mam stays at Wingman Kitchens on its current daytime schedule, generally Thursday through Sunday. Check mam-atx.com or the Square ordering page before you go. For now the facts that matter are the Pflugerville address, the fall target, and the shape of the upgrade: more menu, a bar, and a permanent seat in the suburb the owners already call home.