Best Budget Bites: $7.95 Classic Breakfast Croissant From Mi-Sant

Throw every rule out the window: We're doing banh mi for breakfast.

9:21 AM CDT on May 21, 2026

This photo was taken outside of the nearby abandoned Wendy’s.

|All photos by Jay Boller

The cost of things these days? Far too expensive! Tariffs, the Strait of Hormuz, rent prices, giddy price gouging from proprietors large and small—the boring factors are too numerous to count. To protect our readers, Racket launched the Best Budget Bites series, where we’ll showcase a toothsome, wallet-friendly food item that’ll actually fill you up. Have a nomination? Hit us up: tips@racketmn.com.

What: Classic breakfast croissant
Where: Mi-Sant, 1881 MN-36 (Roseville) and 8540 Edinburgh Centre Dr. (Brooklyn Park)
Cost: $7.95
Availability: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mon.-Sat.

Banh mi... for breakfast? The very prospect had my white ass like:

On a fundamental level, however: Why the hell not?

You swap the baguette for a more breakfast-appropriate French bread, in this case an exceptional croissant. You take pork, the most popular of the a.m. meats, but pivot to more adventurous hog variations. Mi-Sant's classic breakfast croissant makes this delicious subversion of breakfast sammie norms a reality.

The star of the show is that dome-like croissant, perhaps the best I've ever sampled in town. Crackling shell, defined layers of flake, tender core, deep buttery flavor throughout—perfection. (The Heavy Table's exhaustive 2023 croissant test ranked Mi-Sant low, though James Norton acknowledged that its "coconut croissant is one of the tastiest filled pastries in the metro"; local Redditors hold it in higher esteem.) The vibrant, fresh toppings (standard-issue veggies, white ham, jambon, head cheese, pâté) had me plotting my return for a proper banh mi lunch, even as high-octane Vietnamese iced coffee kicked me like a freaking mule.

Ahead of opening this past Wednesday, the Roseville shop attracted a line out the door. The roomy and tastefully updated interior still evokes tiny hints of its Bakers Square past, and during our stop the space buzzed with energy—workers manning the bread ovens and hurrying to-go bags, waves of patrons punching in touch-screen orders.

It's easy to root for Mi-Sant. Three sibling restaurateurs opened the first location, inside a former Brooklyn Park KFC, in 2018. Three years later, during peak Covid, they reimagined an erstwhile Roseville Bakers Square, and even resisted opportunistic offers from developers to nab the property as the industry reeled. "I just think about what I want future generations to be able to enjoy, and fast food is not what I want to see," co-owner Linh Nguyen told the Strib. Everything on the scratch-made menu is prepared to order, according to the family, which explains my 10-minute-ish wait time.

The classic breakfast croissant feels like a cheat code, a way to sneakily bypass breakfast (one of our lesser meals, sorry) for a real-deal item like a burger or Cubano. That said, a posterboard advertising customer favorites highlighted the more Americanized bacon, egg, and cheese croissant sandwich, a (literal) picture of gooey indulgence.

Next time. And there will be plenty of next times.