Mills Market: The Grocery Store That Became Orlando’s Best Food Hall

The most important dining room in Mills 50 used to be a grocery store. The building at 1110 E Colonial Drive opened in 1986 as Tien Hung Market, the supermarket that anchored Orlando’s Vietnamese community for a generation. Today it is Mills Market, a food hall where several of the most decorated stalls in Florida share one roof — and it tops our ranking of the best food halls in Orlando at No. 1, with a Net Score of 93.8. Read the full profile in our winner feature on Mills Market, then use this as your field guide to eating it well.

One roof, three Bib Gourmands

Start with the names the Michelin Guide already found. Bánh Mì Boy, the Vietnamese bakery-café whose roots in this market reach back decades, builds bánh mì and a phở French dip that regulars cross town for. UniGirl serves fresh-made onigiri — miso salmon is the one that converts skeptics — and a curry hash brown that shows up in every regular’s order. Zaru, the udon specialist from chef William Shen, brings the same hand-pulled discipline that made Shen’s Sorekara one of the most decorated restaurants in the region. Three Bib Gourmand stalls in a single food hall is not a thing that happens in most American cities. In Mills 50 it is just lunch.

The rest of the lineup earns its space

Kai Kai BBQ & Dumplings hangs Cantonese roast duck and crispy pork in the window and plates three-protein barbecue rice with bok choy — the full siu mei experience without the flight to Hong Kong. Saigon Snow handles dessert and drinks with shaved snow and Southeast Asian flavors. The hall keeps evolving, too: Cowboy Curry, Shen’s Japanese beef curry house, graduated from pop-ups to a permanent counter here, joined by Okonomi, his intimate sushi counter, and UniMart, a Japanese convenience-store concept stocking snacks, tamago sandos, konbini fried chicken and bento boxes to go. And through every reinvention, Tien Hung Jewelry has remained in its original spot inside the market — a small, perfect symbol of what this building has always been: a community institution that happens to feed you extremely well.

How to work the room

Go with people who order differently from you, and treat the hall as a tasting menu you assemble yourselves: one bánh mì split two ways, onigiri to start, a barbecue plate for the table, curry for whoever claims it first. Arrive before the lunch rush if you want the full board available; the popular stalls sell through their signatures. Leave room for the bakery case — ube flan, mooncakes and mochi make the best take-home argument in the district.

A note on the room’s newest chapter: chef William Shen — whose Sorekara is among the most decorated restaurants in Florida — now runs a cluster of concepts inside the hall, which means a food-hall lunch can include a ten-seat sushi counter and a Japanese convenience store stocked with bento boxes and tamago sandos. The hall opens daily from 10 a.m. Go on a weekday if you want the counters to yourself, or lean into the weekend crowd, which is half the show.

One practical pleasure: the hall still works like a market. A single aisle of Asian groceries and pantry goods survives from the Tien Hung days, so lunch can end with the chili crisp, noodles and snacks your home kitchen has been missing — the full-circle errand the building was born for, now with a Bib Gourmand bánh mì in your other hand.

Mills Market is the rare food hall that is not a food hall first. It is a piece of Orlando history that kept its soul and upgraded its kitchens, which is exactly why it sits at No. 1. Find it on the Top Spots Map, and plan the rest of your Mills 50 day around it.

Filed under Asian Food · Dining · Food Halls · Mills 50 · Mills Market

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