116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Munchi Mochi brings mochi doughnuts, boba tea to Cedar Rapids
New shop near Kirkwood Community College offers rice-based treats
Apr. 9, 2025 6:00 am, Updated: Apr. 9, 2025 11:51 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — A treat from the Land of the Rising Sun has landed in Cedar Rapids.
Munchi Mochi, a new doughnut shop near Kirkwood Community College in southwest Cedar Rapids, opened in March at the helm of a student and new entrepreneur.
The shop’s mochi doughnuts, a rice flour-based alternative to the traditional doughnut, are the first in Cedar Rapids and among the first in the Corridor.
If you go:
Address: 37 Kirkwood Court SW
Phone: (319) 899-6515
Website: Find Munchi Mochi on Facebook
Details: Buy mochi doughnuts individually or by the box. Boba tea is offered in milk tea and green tea varieties with tapioca and poppable boba. Doughnuts start at $4, boba tea starts at $6.
Kirkwood student opens her first business
Kira Anthony, a business administration student at Kirkwood Community College, is getting an early start on her business experience at age 20.
She runs the shop in between classes with her mother, Kim Westland, and her mother’s partner, Atlas Hargrove.
Her idea for the mochi shop has been in the works for two years, since she graduated high school. The idea was inspired by growing food trends on social media and other mochi doughnut shops she experienced while traveling around the country with her family.
“I wanted a comfortable place for students to hang out and study at the same time,” Anthony said.
What’s on the menu?
At Munchi Mochi, you can have all of the good parts with less of the bad parts from doughnuts.
Mochi, a popular rice dough treat seen across Japan in sticky and chewy forms, takes on a new quality at this shop.
Each doughnut, comprised of eight mochi balls in a pon de ring shape, are fried and glazed like any other doughnut. But unlike their American counterpart, they tend to be crispier on the outside and chewier on the inside.
Plus, thanks to their rice flour base, they have about half the calories of a traditional doughnut.
Doughnut flavors reflect an international fusion across American and Asian staples. Popular flavors include green apple and strawberry lemonade, as well as more Asian-style flavors like ube —a sweet, purple root vegetable popular across southeast Asia — and sesame.
Other flavors for those with a sweet tooth include churro, red velvet and mango chutney. In addition to its staples, the shop plans to offer rotating monthly and weekly specials.
Each one can be purchased individually for $4, or in larger packs.
Mochi here is washed down by boba tea — an increasingly popular beverage that has been spreading across the world from Taiwan.
The shop offers several flavors of milk tea and green tea. Milk tea is offered with chewy tapioca. Green tea customers can pick from other poppable boba toppings as well.
More drink and doughnut flavors are available on the store’s secret menu, which is hidden in plain sight somewhere in the shop’s dining room.
The shop’s dining room is adorned by a theme of illustrated anime-style characters, each dreamed up by Anthony and associated with a flavor of doughnut or tea.
Zoe, who wears a purple palette, represents the ube doughnut. Nani, with brown clothes, favors the churro doughnut.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or [email protected].
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