An hour before Keefer Court Bakery & Cafe held its soft opening at the Twin Cities icon’s newest location, Lauren Post and her mother Grace Post took a seat outside the door.
“I was like, ‘I gotta get there first,’ I’m never first in line for anything,” Lauren Post said.
Lauren’s mother Grace is from Hong Kong and the family has been fans for decades of the Chinese bakery, which closed its longtime West Bank location in 2022. On Thursday they were first in a line of more than 100 people.
New owner Michael Bui was on hand to let the two women into the newest iteration of the beloved Chinese bakery, at Asia Mall.
The two women got multiple barbecue pork buns, egg tarts and pineapple buns.
The soft opening is scheduled to last until Sunday before the bakery closes for a few days and finally opens full time on March 23.
“My dream come true,” Bui said. “We went all-out.”
Bui became a fan of original owner Sunny Kwan’s bakery as a student at the University of Minnesota in the ’90s.
Back then, the bakery was a popular West Bank hangout for University of Minnesota students and fans of its locally made Chinese desserts.
It closed in December 2022, five months later the bakery’s Facebook page announced the brand had been sold.
Bui said Asia Mall had to be Keefer Court’s next home; owners had already reserved spot for a bakery.
“It’s the missing piece of the puzzle for the mall,” Bui said. “They have Korean hot dogs, but they don’t have a bakery.”
The new Keefer Court is designed to look like a French bakery.
Bui hired a California firm to design the space. He toured multiple bakeries around the country before incorporating fresh elements into his rebooted Keefer Court.
Bui, who co-owns Pho Mai locations in Dinkytown and at Asia Mall, said he’s adding Vietnamese desserts to the menu, reflecting his own heritage.
Original owners Sunny, Paulina, and their daughter Michelle Kwan are working as consultants for the first six months as Bui launches Keefer Court 2.0. On Thursday, Sunny Kwan said he was “excited and happy” as he peeked at the large crowd from behind the counter.
“Michael can carry on the legacy of Keefer Court, so my product and my hard work it’s not gone,” Kwan said.
The original owner said it was nice seeing some of his loyal customers return to the bakery including the Posts, who stopped to thank the Kwans for their work.
Grace Post even joked that Michelle Kwan acknowledged that she was the person who gave her the idea of selling her brand and thanked her for it.
“She wasn’t thinking about this, she was just going to finish up cooking,” Grace Post said. “But now that I gave the idea she’s going to do it and consult for six months, I’m happy for her.”
