Sarnies Bangkok
Ben Lee, an Australian ex-banker who founded Sarnies on Singapore's Telok Ayer Street in 2011 and started roasting his own beans for consistency, opened the Bangkok flagship in December 2018 inside a 150-year-old Charoenkrung shophouse that spent its first working life as a boat-repair shop.
Why go
The restoration kept the scars: peeling original walls and distressed brick against brushed concrete, a room BK Magazine's review said strikes a really gorgeous balance between modern comfort and the original look of the old building.
1 Lee roasts the coffee in-house, the discipline the whole group was built on, and the roasting arm now supplies cafes and offices across Singapore and Thailand. The menu is Aussie brunch with Asian twists per Coconuts: grain bowls, big sandwiches, and an iced coconut long black that belongs to the climate.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the iced coconut long black (B140) and the bacon-and-egg sandwich (B320), prices from BK Magazine's 2019 review, so treat them as a floor; the grain bowl (B350) is the lighter call.
- Avoid: assuming a late close. Reported hours run from a 5:30pm weekday close to 10pm on weekends; confirm before building an evening around it.
What locals & experts say
- BK Magazine (2019):
The cafe strikes a really gorgeous balance between modern comfort and the original look of the old building.
1 - Time Out Bangkok (2018):
An old shophouse in Soi Charoenkrung 44 is in the process of being transformed into the neighborhood's new coffee and sandwich destination.
2 - Coconuts Bangkok (2021):
a restored 19th-century shophouse, formerly a boat repair facility over 150 years old.
3
Good to know
- Timing: open daily from 8am; the close varies by report, so check the day's hours.
- Booking: walk-in for coffee; tables bookable on Chope for brunch crowds.
- Near base: corner of Charoen Krung and Soi 44, about five minutes' walk from BTS Saphan Taksin and a 15-minute walk down Charoen Krung from the Surawong base; the Ton Son roastery branch covers the Chit Lom end of town.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Not one of my saves. No row for it in my Bangkok list; the line that used to sit here repeated the master's own summary of the place back at you.
Verdict
could-visit — A Singapore roastery that arrived with its beans and its business model intact, set in a boat-repair shophouse that predates the neighborhood's cafe wave by 140 years. As breakfast infrastructure near the Surawong base it's the strongest call in walking range: real in-house roasting, a B320 bacon-and-egg sandwich, and a room BK found gorgeous. It does breakfast-and-coffee one thing well, and nothing in the record argues for a cross-town trek, which is could-visit exactly.