WORDS Tara Crutchfield
PHOTOGRAPH Amy Sexson
Banh Mi? Oh My! making it and what makes it so popular. We brought the recipe over here,” he said.
In the bright yellow building on Avenue A, formerly Bryant Home Gallery Marketplace, Bao and Lena Nguyen bake ‘a lot of happiness’ by way of fresh bread and authentic Vietnamese recipes to make their ‘Dang Good’ bami (banh mi).
Bao and Lena first looked to open their Vietnamese sandwich shop in Lakeland, closer to where they live. “Lots of our friends recommended the Downtown Winter Haven area,” Bao said. “We heard a lot of good things about the area, and the price is better as well. So, we decided to go with our first shop over here.”
The couple lives in Lakeland, where they moved from California two years earlier. “We originated from Vietnam, so we’re very familiar [with banh mi]. In California where we lived, there’s banh mi all over the place,” said Bao, adding that five or six banh mi shops would compete within one city.
Throughout 2020, they tested recipes and offered catering to businesses, taking in feedback and improving their product along the way. Bao and Lena started renovations on their Downtown Winter Haven sandwich spot in January 2021. “We were hoping to get to Winter Haven sooner, but it took us a while to get the place done. Finally, we got done in August,” Bao said. They began a BL Sandwich soft opening on August 18 and hope to have a grand opening in mid-November.
“When we came to the Lakeland/ Winter Haven area, we were quite surprised because there’s no banh mi here,” he said. So the couple decided to open a Vietnamese sandwich shop in Polk County. When they set out to open their banh mi or ‘bami’ shop, Bao said, “We want to make it exactly the way Vietnamese people make it.” One distinction between a traditional Vietnamese banh mi and the Western version is the bread. Here, many shops offer a baguette bun, which according to Bao, is not how the Vietnamese make it.
BL Sandwich is short for the establishment’s full title, Bách Lac Bakery. Bao said, “In Asian Vietnamese meaning, Bách means ‘a lot’ and Lac means ‘happiness.’ So the name basically means ‘a lot of happiness.’” The B and L also stand for the couple’s initials – Bao and Lena.
“We took a trip back to Vietnam right before COVID. We took classes over there to try to understand the beauty of why they’re
“We wanted to bring a little bit of everything,” Bao said of their - CONTINUED ON PAGE 39 -
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