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A Hamilton County couple is celebrating the growth of their business from a commercial kitchen to a brick-and-mortar donut shop.
Mochi Joy, which serves Hawaiian-inspired mochi donuts and other desserts, opened Feb. 1 at 8664 E. 96th St. in Fishers, about three blocks east of Interstate 69. The space formerly housed Farmhouse Brunchery and King Chef Chinese Restaurant.
Husband and wife duo Rachel Burnett and Tom Nguyen started Mochi Joy in 2022 at the Noblesville VFW kitchen.
“We’ve been planning this for a very long time, trying to find the perfect place, raising the funds and just fine-tuning our menu,” Burnett said. “Being in the VFW allowed us to test some products and figure out our flow in the kitchen and what we really needed for the brick and mortar.”
In addition to selling out of the VFW, the couple spent weekends doing pop-up events across central Indiana.
“It kind of started out as a necessity, because [at] the VFW, we weren’t allowed to sell out of there on Saturdays,” Nguyen said. “[We] reached out to different coffee shops, because coffee and donuts go together…[we] just love the support of the local and independent scene around here. There’s such great support for small businesses around here.”
Mochi Joy offers 12 everyday donut flavors and six rotating flavors. In addition to the donuts, customers can also try Hawaiian-inspired snack mix, shortbread cookies, coffee and more.
“Everything inspires us from local businesses, things we see on Instagram, [the] Great British Bake Off—all sorts of things that give us ideas for different flavors,” Burnett said. “[There’s] something for everyone, but still having something to have fun with.”
Several other local businesses have products for sale at Mochi Joy, and there are plans to host other business pop-ups in the store.
“We wanted to look for a space that was big enough to be able to host pop ups—I was like, that’d be weird if we just disconnected from that whole part of what Mochi Joy’s journey was,” Burnett said. “The pop-up system’s very cool. It’s just a lot of vendors and artists and creative people coming together to feature their products with the support of the community.”
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