Med City orthodontist to cook up sweet treats for a good cause

Sugary mini doughnuts and dentistry.

Those aren’t two things that often paired together, but Med City orthodontist Dr. Grant Collins is doing that to sweeten his patients’ experience and to help provide free braces to children dealing with cancer.

Collins, a popular Rochester orthodontist known on social media as The Braces Guy , recently built and opened a new office complex for his Collins Orthodontics at 2946 Jeremiah Lane NW. That’s across 19th Street Northwest from Lourdes High School.

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He made the move in March, because his clinic outgrew its original spot at 1340 Salem Road SW., next to a Dunn Bros. coffee shop. The Century High School alumnus opened there in 2013 .

While building his own place, Collins decided to recreate one of the benefits of his Salem Road location -- having a comfortable coffee shop for the parents of his clients to wait.

Working with Rochester's former "MasterChef" contestant Shari Mukherjee , he is opening The Donut. The 800-square-foot doughnut and coffee shop is next to his clinic.

Collins acknowledges many people ask why someone in the dental profession would offer sugary treats.

“As long as you're brushing your teeth afterward, and you're keeping your teeth clean, there is no harm in doing some sweets occasionally,” he said. “I don’t want people to think I’m anti-oral health. Everything in moderation is just fine.”

Mukherjee has helped create a core menu of about 16 original flavors to coat the fair-style mini doughnuts. They include nostalgic flavors like Froot Loops, Tang and Rocky Road, traditional tastes like cinnamon, and the unexpected, like Chinese Five Spice and Key Lime Pie.

Collins hopes to have The Donut ready to serve his clients before the end of the year. He plans to test the flavors out on his Rochester peers at an upcoming open house for those in the dental profession. The goal is to open to the public in 2022.

While he hopes The Donut enhances the experience of Collins Orthodontics and adds something fun to the community, this project is not about business.

“The cool thing is the cause. Everything that we earn from this is going directly to our program that provides free braces for pediatric cancer survivors. I have zero interest in making a profit,” he said.

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2/2: Dr. Grant Collins, of Collins Orthodontics, works on producing a TikTok video in his office Friday, Jan. 22, 2021, in Rochester. Dr. Collins, @thebracesguy on TikTok, started using the video-sharing social media network regularly at the start of the pandemic, and has millions of followers. "Sometimes they're educational, sometimes they're funny," he said of his TikTok videos. (Joe Ahlquist / jahlquist@postbulletin.com)