We’re having some technical difficulties with our phones. Our voice mail is currently not working properly, so we may or may not be able to check messages left in the next day or two (and you might not be able to leave any). Hopefully this will be resolved by Friday. In the mean time, if you need to call, please do so during business hours, or please use the contact email box on our website, and we’ll get back to you as promptly as we can.
It’s Friday, it’s sunny and spring-time-warm, and if you aren’t playing hooky yet, you should do so, even if it’s just 10 minutes worth of running away from the office to get some sun (we do understand work needing to be done in spite of fantastic weather).
If you have a little longer, we do have some tables outside, hot cross buns to share with a friend (or even someone you just met in line or share a table with), and of course, lots of good food to take home and sit on a porch or deck and enjoy this wonderful spring weather on Good Friday.
We will be open all weekend, although for Easter Sunday we will close at 5 pm, instead of our normal 7 pm.
Have a great weekend everyone- enjoy the spring weather, and if you celebrate it, have a wonderful Easter with your family and friends.
A couple of quick photos to end your Friday with- our new Spring Cake comes out this weekend- our vanilla butter cake with a bit of citrus sunshine in the form of our tart lemon cremeux, and finished with our smooth, rich butter cream.
Also, Easter is on it’s way! We are now taking advanced orders for chocolate bunnies, brioche rolls and hot cross buns, as well as our full range of bread, pastry and desserts. We’ll again have hollow chocolate eggs, in a range of fun decorations, from simply blue, to decorated with chocolate shapes, to spring chickens - small eggs have 5 pieces of chocolate inside, large eggs have 10.
Once again we’re partnering with local glass artist, Melissa Misoda, creating glass “Easter Baskets”. Each one comes filled with our candy and some solid chocolate pieces, and makes a sophisticated gift- and supports local art.
Have a great end to your Friday, and a wonderful weekend!
What you are seeing is the space as of a bit over a week ago. The top photo is the main production area, which will have two walk-ins, some dry storage, a deck oven, a rotating rack convection oven, chocolate stations, dessert stations, and savory. It looks like a big, empty space, but with all the above, we’ll have it pretty filled up.
The second photo is the view ‘behind the counter’. The lines on the floor mark the cabinet edge, the walkable floor, and the case work sides. The view would be if you walked into the cafe space from the production space, so looking from the window side down the line. At the far end will be the espresso station, which we’re kitting out with a Slayer, 2-group machine. They are truly beautiful machines (if you have my sense of aesthetics), and more importantly, help baristas in turning out great shots of espresso consistently.
The third photo is taken from the customer side, inside the door and to the right a bit. Where the column is, the counters will turn a bit forward and then back across for the registers. The back wall will be shelving and display cases to maximize the space available (considering we often need more space than our current wall shelves provide).
The last photo is from late this week- the drywall is up! This is the back wall and the slight wrap-around for the espresso station. Behind that you see the door space for the office, and the bathroom.
So, considering the posting of photos, let’s talk timelines. Given the ins and outs of permits and clearing inspections, etc, we don’t have hard date yet. However, we’re looking at late March through mid-April for a probable range of dates for opening. Please note the ‘probable’. We’ll definitely be keeping you posted as we get closer and dates firm up.
Have a great weekend everyone!
We’ll be closing early on the 26th and 27th this coming week. We’ll be open from 6 am to 1 pm, and closed the rest of the day, both days, and open for regular hours on the 28th.
We’ll be hosting a combination Customer Service and Leadership training sessions with two of the fine folks from Zingtrain, a business outgrowth of the legendary Zingerman’s Delicatessen, of Ann Arbor, MI. Zingerman’s is known for fantastic food, and awesome, consistent customer service, and since we’re expanding to a new shop in the next month or two (more on that timeline will be coming soon), we wanted to get a fresh start on our own customer service, and also further developing our leadership and management roles and expectations.
We feel it’s important to do this now, before we essentially double our staff size and work across two stores. Part of giving excellent service is being able to every now and then step back, and evaluate what is working, and what needs to change. It’s also being able to see that while something is working pretty good, we could make it even better.
Creating consistent tools for training, and having experienced help in doing so is a good way to do that. Likely, even without a new shop opening, we’d have been doing this sometime in the coming year- Cap Hill just pushed the timeline up a little.
So, we’ll be closing early for two days, and getting a fresh start as a group, so that as our bakery family continues to grow, we’ll be consistently able to provide the level of service that keeps our customers and our staff happy and excited to be here.
Happy St. Valentine’s Day to everyone!
Whether you have a romantic day with that special someone in your life, or you spend the day showing appreciation and love for family and friends, we hope you have a wonderful day!
Paczki are making their annual return! We have samples out today, and we should have them out on the weekend. Like last year, we’ll only have paczki until Fat Tuesday, February 12th. King Cake will stay until then too. Flavors so far are vanilla, chocolate, apple and raspberry.
While we might like to live by fried dough alone, on occasion it’s good to eat some veggies. Jay has put together a pretty tasty argument for the same- a sandwich of heirloom spinach, caramelized onion and Gruyere, garnished with aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and an herbed cream cheese, all a seeded focaccia roll.
Of course, as a counterpoint to the veggie sandwich, another experiment coming out this weekend is an Italian chicken sandwich- roasted chicken with a touch of mayo, then thin slices of prosciutto, pepperoni and salami, dressed with roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella, fontina cheese, and fresh basil on slices of our pan de mie. This is then oven toasted with a little smoked mozzarella on top. It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually a very flavorful sandwich, and as the meats are sliced thin, it’s not too heavy. (I just had a sample- and it was darn tasty).
Be on the lookout for another new dessert or two as well. There was a tart and sweet pink grapefruit mousse being piped into molds early today. The final dessert should be out sometime this weekend. When we get a completely finished version, we’ll get some photos out.
Have a great start to your weekend!
A few photos from the front window on this overcast Friday. Starting off - we’ve revised our version of the Kouing-Amann. We’ve gone through various incarnations, from slightly taller like this one, to something more like a flatter cake shape. Right now, we find the taller to be a little more visually appealing.
Following is our King Cake. They’ve been out for a little over a week now, and are made of laminated brioche dough this year, rolled up with pureed Tatin style apples (baked in butter and brown sugar to achieve caramel apple deliciousness), cinnamon and sugar, and a sprinkling of raisins. We finish the cake New Orleans style, with a little bit of glaze and tri-color sugar.
Whole cakes are still sold as rounds, and will serves 8-10 pretty comfortably - we get 8 of the pieces shown per cake - so it’d be a great pastry to take to a brunch or small party . For those that know the tradition of hiding a small trinket in the cake - the person that finds it gets a little extra luck in the year (or if you’re like my family, they get to do the dishes) - we do not place one, but can include one for you to place if you order a whole cake.
We’re also having fun with desserts- we brought back the passion fruit mousse domes, the Aphrodite, and the chocolate tart! The passion fruit mousse dome was one of the first desserts we had when we opened, and is a favorite of several of the back of house staff. It’s been retired for a little while, but now just seemed like a good time to have it come back into production. It’s a fairly simple dessert with fresh, creamy passion fruit mousse sitting atop a chocolate ganache tart. Very, very tasty, slightly rich, but not heavy.
The Aphrodite is a mousse of fromage blanc with lemon, with a center of raspberry and strawberry gelee, and a small base of lemon chiffon brushed with a cherry liqueur simple syrup. It’s also finished with miniature Madeline cookies. It’s a great alternative for those that don’t like chocolate, or who might want to switch things up a little.
Lastly however, for the chocoholics amongst us, the chocolate tart has had a bit of revamp. Previous versions included a baked chocolate ganache topped with a layer of glaze. They were rich and chocolaty, but needed a little more. In this year’s version, we aren’t baking the ganache, instead we’re blind baking the shells, and then filling them. This leaves the ganache creamier than previously, and maintains a bit more of it’s flavor. We upped the chocolate quotient by adding a layer of dark chocolate mousse, and finishing with our dark I actually think this might surpass the chocolate mocha cheesecake for being the richest chocolate dessert we have. It will be coming out this weekend in the individual size (it’s rich enough to share though).
Have a great Friday and rest of your weekend! For those of you with 3-day weekends, we will be open for regular hours on Monday.
Happy New Year to everyone! We’ll be open regular hours today, and closed the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. We’ll be open for regular hours again on Friday, January 4th.
We wish you all a happy and wonderful start to the new year!
Just a quick reminder - today is the last day for orders for this weekend and the 24th. We’re open until 7 pm tonight. We’ll be stocked up through the weekend, but if there is something you know you’ll want, coming by or calling is best.
