Ban Bè Grows in Brooklyn

Doris Hồ-Kane first opened Bạn Bè in 2020 as a pop-up takeout window on a sleepy Carroll Gardens block. But the quiet location didn’t stop people from finding her: Even before she opened more regularly two years later, she had already developed a lengthy waitlist—at one point, stretching more than 10,000 people—for her cookie tins filled with flavors like coconut pandan. When I first interviewed her ahead of her initial launch, she told me, “I have not come across any [Vietnamese bakeries] in my 20 years in NYC, and feel that it’s a huge crater that needs to be filled… Vietnamese restaurants here usually offer only two to three desserts, if at all, so I was constantly making my own desserts at home.” (Since then, she’s been joined by other Vietnamese bakeries filling the void, like Bánh by Lauren in Chinatown.)

Hồ-Kane’s fanbase only grew. After five years, at the end of her lease, she knew she had outgrown the space, too. “I felt it was a little stagnant in terms of a lot of emotions I had for the first space and how I felt like I wasn’t able to go forward mentally or physically,” she told me this week. Now, Hồ-Kane is fundraising to relaunch Bạn Bè in a new location: She’s not going far, taking over what was Laurel Bakery at 115 Columbia Street in Cobble Hill, like the original in a tucked away nook, this time part of the Columbia Street Waterfront District.