Yuzu poppy seed donuts and strawberry Bogart’s Doughnut Co.are brightening up the corner of Hennepin Avenue and 31st Street, where Moona Moono, a new retail shop and café that celebrates all things Asian and Asian American culture, opens this weekend. If there’s an antidote to the perpetual Uptown dead-or-alive discourse, it’s got to be this: An airy, thoughtful space stocked with kawaii-driven home goods and K-beauty treasures, with a little café tucked in the back serving black sesame lattes and snacks. You heard the donut news here first: Moona Moono is collaborating with Anne Rucker of Bogart’s Doughnut Co. on two exclusive flavors for the café (yuzu poppy seed and brown-butter matcha).

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Moona Moono owner Angie Lee, previously a branding and marketing executive, transplanted to Minnesota from New York during the pandemic. At the time, she was working for Samsung and traveling frequently to Asia. She noticed that many of the trends, themes, and flavors emerging on the continents were surging in popularity on the U.S. coasts, but less so in the Midwest—that’s how she found inspiration for Moona Moono. “Everyone looks at the same internet, same social media, so they all have the same desires,” Lee says. “Everyone wants to try that crazy banana milk latte that you can fly to Korea and get from the 7-Eleven. Everyone wants to try the jiggly desserts. But the fact that it wasn’t here—not because there wasn’t a demand for it—that’s kind of where I had this idea.”

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Photo by Caitlin Abrams

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Photo by Caitlin Abrams

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Photo by Caitlin Abrams

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Thus the black sesame lattes and tricolor strawberry matcha; the Pocky snacks and jiggly cat jellies. Moona Moono’s café offers a full range of espresso drinks, matcha, and teas, plus boba. “As we introduce people to new flavor profiles, we’re trying to meet them where they are,” Lee says. “Say we know you love lemonades, let’s try a matcha lemonade. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can add some popping boba into it.”

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Quality ingredients are a big deal for Lee, too. Moona Moono’s matcha comes from a New York-based business that uses sustainable farming practices; the popping boba is 25 percent fruit juice. “We’re not going to pretend it’s healthy for you,” Lee says, and laughs. “But we are definitely making conscious choices.” She also plans to make Moona Moono a true “third space,” hosting events and opening the shop up to the community for meetups and social clubs—she’s envisioning “drop in and draw” days with local artists, book meetups, and more.

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Photo by Caitlin Abrams

Justine Jones

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The former Paper Source spot at a time when chef Ann Kim’s Korean American restaurant, Kim’s, was still open. The two had connected over Instagram, Lee says, and Kim (who owns the building) loved her concept for the space. When Kim’s closed, Lee was disappointed, as she felt the restaurant and the shop had great content synergy between them, though she understood the decision. Ultimately, though, she thinks the audiences for both spaces were different, and that Moona Moono can thrive all the same. “With anything that changes your situation, you kind of go, Wait, is this necessarily bad, or is this different, right?” she says. “Now I’m realizing, no—things are just different, but it’s still doable.”

She’s not the only small business owner fighting for Uptown, either. Healing takes time—in the in-between, there are matcha donuts to be had.

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