New Ontario Vietnamese restaurant only has one thing on the menu — here's why people are eating it up
A new Ontario Vietnamese restaurant is already dominating the scene after selling 2,000 banh mi sandwiches on its first day in business.
Any business owner will tell you that the early days of any new business can be slow at the start. It’s only logical. Word needs to spread about your place before it can become the next line-drawing, social-media-buzzing thing.
The same cannot be said, however, for Thornhill’s Banh Mi Nana, which opened its doors in early August of 2025 and was, quite literally, instantly overrun with fans, to the point where they churned out a whopping 2,000 banh mi on day one.
Granted, the spot was offering a two-for-one special in honour of the grand opening, but even 1,000 sandwiches sold on day one is an impressive feat, especially for a sandwich shop nestled inside a suburban strip mall.
The restaurant is a family effort, run by a team consisting of executive chef Don and his niece, Michelle, the brand manager and product specialist, as well as a small-but-mighty group of Don’s longtime friends.
“Every member shares the same vision,” Michelle told Dished Toronto. “To preserve and share Vietnamese culinary culture in its most authentic form.”
Even the name of the restaurant is a nod towards this mission statement. “Nana” is a tribute to Don’s grandmother, who fled her home country of Vietnam for Vancouver in 1980, speaking no English and having no resources other than her survival instinct.
Eventually, she began cooking Vietnamese staples from her home kitchen, supplying creations like bi tuoi, cha lua and banh tet to restaurants and grocery stores across the city.
Nana passed away in 2000, and ever since, Don has hung on to her recipe book, waiting for the perfect time to introduce her to a new community, a new generation. That’s where Banh Mi Nana comes in.
Evidently, Don, Michelle, and the rest of the team launched the concept at the perfect time. That they managed to sell 2,000 sandwiches on day one (they had initially planned to sell about 1,000 over the first two days) is a testament, Michelle said, to the community’s hunger for them.
“In Vietnam, banh mi isn’t just fast food — it’s culture, tradition, and technique perfected over decades,” she explains. “That level of technique and authenticity hasn’t really been represented here, and we wanted to change that.”
It’s for that precise reason that the team subscribes to the “do one thing really well” school of thought, exclusively serving one specific kind of Saigon-style banh mi, each element of which is made fresh in-house. No bulk-ordered French rolls here.
They make their own deli meats, the delicate pork floss that sits atop the sandwich, pâté, and are one of the only restaurants in Ontario that makes its own Vietnamese-style clear butter for the sandwiches.
Here’s the real kicker: one of its sandwiches will still only run you about $10.
“It’s never been about mass production or chasing profit,” Michell told Dished Toronto. “It’s about preserving a piece of culture that means so much to us, and seeing people connect with it so quickly has been incredibly humbling.”
It’s also about ushering due respect for the art of banh mi into the minds of local consumers who have historically been unfamiliar with it, thus welcoming — in theory, at least — opportunity for a higher calibre of banh mi shops in the province.
- You might also like:
- Toronto just lost one of its best doughnut shops permanently
- McDonald's is adding a new vegetarian burger to its menu in Canada
- The biggest poutine-eating contest in the world is coming to Toronto this week
As die-hard banh mi fans ourselves, we’re here for it.
“Our goal is simply to bring people in Ontario as close as possible to the banh mi you’d find on the streets of Saigon because that’s where millions of people around the world have discovered banh mi and cherished it for decades,” Michelle told Dished Toronto.
One thousand people in one day can’t be wrong: if exposing more people to authentic banh mi is what Michelle and Don are after, they’re already succeeding.
Banh Mi Nana
Address: 505 Hwy. 7, Unit A3, Thornhill
Phone: 365-556-0505
Still hungry? Discover Dished Toronto on TikTok