. Lee's Sandwiches was founded by the family, who owned a successful
sugar refinery in
An Giang Province in
Vietnam before the
Vietnam War and immigrated to the United States as
boat people in July 1979. Founded in San Jose's
Little Saigon, they named it Lee Bros. Foodservice, Inc., anglicizing their surname to "
Lee". It grew to serve more than 500 food trucks by 1985, many of them owned by Vietnamese immigrants. In 1988, Lee's Sandwiches moved to a larger space near King and Tully roads in the Vietnamese section of
East San Jose. On August 8, 2001, Chieu and his son Minh () opened the family's first American-style bakery-café in the
Little Saigon of
Westminster, California. It featured an expanded menu including deli sandwiches, coffee, and desserts, with the goal of attracting Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese customers alike. However, the new store was a success. Within a year, the chain opened seven more locations and expanded to many other cities in
California. On
August 8, 2008, Lee's opened a café in
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, as part of a joint venture with a South Korean company. ,
market research firm Sundale Research listed Lee's Sandwiches among the 12 largest bakery-café chains in the United States. On August 8, 2017, the family opened a café named Lee's Coffee Roastery adjacent to a Lee's Sandwiches location in
Westminster, California. Many restaurants stopped dine-in service in March 2020 to combat the
COVID-19 pandemic, with
take-away and pickup service available. ==Restaurants==