After four years of selling doughnuts, a Toronto business has made a surprising change by turning into a banh mi shop.
I don’t want to say “I told you so,” but honestly, I think I did. The buzz around Toronto’s love for banh mi has been growing for a while now, and the city is fast approaching full saturation.
One of the newest players in this baguette-filled market is Mochi Doh from Scarborough, which as of January 2026 has rebranded itself as Banh Mi Nguyen.
However, the decision to shift from doughnuts to sandwiches wasn’t solely because of the rising trend of Vietnamese food, as owner Diana shares with blog TO. At least, that’s not the whole story.
“It wasn’t about starting over, but it was about telling our story more clearly,” Diana explains. She initially built her business around soft mochi doughnuts.
“As our menu expanded, Vietnamese cuisine naturally became central to what we were doing, especially banh mi. The rebrand allowed us to embrace our roots and showcase family recipes and the type of food we’re passionate about right now.”
Diana mentions that her husband’s family has been running a Vietnamese restaurant in the city for over 15 years and that after getting involved for some time, it “felt like the right time to carry that experience and make it my own.”
The recipe for their banh mi didn’t just appear out of nowhere. In fact, banh mi was on their menu even when mochi doughnuts were their main offering. Nowadays at Banh Mi Nguyen, you can still grab Mochi Doh doughnuts; it’s just that banh mi takes center stage now.
“Eventually, banh mi became the centrepiece, and that’s when we knew it deserved its own identity,” Diana states.
For her, creating high-quality banh mi starts with great bread. At Banh Mi Nguyen, all baguettes are freshly baked in-house using a family recipe designed to replicate authentic Vietnamese banh mi as closely as possible.
“We don’t cut corners and we don’t rush the process,” Diana asserts. “Fresh bread every day, no exceptions.”
Even though banh mi has always been part of her business’s narrative, Diana believes there’s a reason why this sandwich is so popular in Toronto right now.
“Banh mi checks so many boxes,” she says. “It’s comforting, affordable, fast and packed with flavour. People are drawn to food that’s authentic and rooted in culture yet easy to enjoy on-the-go.”
I think more banh mi can only be good news; plenty of folks in Toronto – including Diana – seem to agree.
Banh Mi Nguyen is located at 3376 Kennedy Rd.
