More than a decade since they first started talking about it, and three years since their first expected opening date, Hilda Tov and her sons have finally opened their Vietnamese sandwich shop in south Minneapolis.
The first few days have been a rousing success: They sold out of food every day.
D’s Banh Mi, located at 1848 E. 38th St., opened their storefront on Thursday, selling a variety of banh mi sandwiches, along with noodle and rice bowls.
The idea to start a family restaurant started more than 10 years ago, but began to materialize in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when Tov began looking at potential locations.
Neighbors looked forward to it opening. The first deadline in November 2022, according to reporting from Racket, came and went. Then the shop announced a “grand opening” of sorts in October 2023, but still the restaurant remained unopened.
Tov said the building wasn’t up to code. Contractors needed to continue working on the shop. And even after that, the Minneapolis Health Department would need to sign off on the license to sell food.
Tov said contractors finished working on the business by mid-January of this year. A city inspection was to follow soon after. But on Jan. 20, the building was damaged by fire when a vehicle crashed into a nearby power pole.
That set the opening date back again. But Tov and her three sons said they never stopped believing they would be open one day.
“I went into a shock. So I didn’t have time to really feel anything. I just went into fixing mode,” Tov said.
On Tuesday morning, some of the firefighters who put out the blaze in January stopped by to buy food.
Also stopping by was James Kolles, a south Minneapolis resident who said he’s been awaiting the shop’s opening for months.
Kolles said he’s surprised yet happy to be able to frequent the business now, especially after January’s fire.
“The fire broke my heart because I thought it wasn’t going to open up,” he said.
Kolles stopped by Tuesday morning for a menu and then returned an hour later to place his first order. He said the restaurant’s opening has been the talk of the neighborhood recently and lines were long the first few days of business.
The spot where the restaurant is located was previously best known as home to the iconic Dave’s Popcorn and Carmelcorn stand. It also briefly sold the popular Milkjam Creamery ice cream and hot dogs, but unlike those former seasonal businesses, Tov and her sons plan to be open year round.
Since opening on Thursday, D’s Banh Mi had sold out of food every day, according to Chef Dylan Tran, Hov’s son.
The restaurant is Tov’s second business. She also owns Hilda’s Hair Hut, located about five blocks away on Cedar Avenue.
Tov said that she will remain the owner but that she plans eventually to hand off operations to her sons. Currently she splits her time between her hair salon and the restaurant as they hire more workers for the restaurant.
Tran has worked in restaurants for the last 14 years, but the sandwich shop is the family’s first venture into restaurant ownership. While they worked to get the restaurant open, the family operated a delivery-only service, using the kitchen of a White Bear Lake restaurant to fulfill orders.
Delivery services have been temporarily paused while the restaurant finds its footing, but they will continue, according to Tov. But the sandwiches will now be made in the recently opened restaurant.
“These days seeing the community, how everyone just came together, it’s so amazing it was just all worth it, all of the hurdles, all of the obstacles we had to go through, all the construction mishaps,” Tov said.
The restaurant’s owner grew up in her family’s Vietnamese restaurant in California, but never opened one of her own until now. Tran, who started working in restaurants at age 18, asked her to share some of her recipes with him. At D’s, they have been tweaked for Minnesota tastebuds, Tov said.
Tran said the restaurant’s opening and continued success is a result of collective efforts.
“I know the [cooking] skills and they have the other part of it, like with the social media,” Tran said. “But to have my family here, and to know that this is ours and I’m not working for somebody else — nothing beats that feeling.”
It’s a sentiment shared with younger brother Dustin Nguyen, who said being self-sufficient as a family was the goal in opening a business.
Nguyen said quitting was never an option.
“There were setbacks, but never ‘we shouldn’t do this,’ instead it was what ways can we fix this and find solutions for our problems,” Nguyen said.
D’s Banh Mi is currently open Tuesday through Sunday. Hours posted are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. unless the shop has sold out of food.
