My dear readers,
Good morning, and a bright week to each of you. I hope you are well. Please allow me to make a few brief housekeeping announcements.
Schedule //
We’re open again this week! Our open hours remain Wednesday through Saturday 8am to 2pm, and the hoagies remain available out the side window from 10:30am to 2pm. We plan to close for the summer recess the week of June 30 through July 6, reopening Wednesday, July 10. I don’t know if I’ve ever planned that far ahead. It’s kind of nice!
As you probably know by now, a number of our loaves are available each day, while some are specific to certain days only. Here, for your general perusal, is the bread schedule as it now stands.
every day : baguette, blonde, red, seeded red, rye, toasters (except for saturday!)
wednesday : olive
thurdsay : sweet potato sandwich, walnut-gorgonzola1
friday : honey nut oat, backcountry
saturday : baker’s choice, backcountry, sesame baguette, focaccia, olive fougasse, various rolls
General Menu Ruminations //
I expect this will be the last week of the golden milk scone for a while; we plan to change to something a little more warm-weather-appropriate in short order. The quiche was recently updated to prosciutto, gruyere, and roasted fennel and it’s very nice; give it a try if you haven’t yet. I don’t think the jambon-buerre is going anywhere, but the salmon cream cheese dill may give way to a successor, as I think will the spanikopita variety of hand pie. I’ve got to figure out a good way to serve the rather messy khachapuri, but we’re planning to keep it going on Saturday mornings.
Pricing //
I haven’t really touched our prices since we opened in 2017, seven years ago this month if you can believe it. I always wanted especially the staples to be pretty accessible, and no drastic changes are in order, but given the rising costs of, well…everything, I am making a few adjustments.
Nearly all the loaves remain unchanged: blonde, red, seeded red, backcountry, the toasters, sweet potato, focaccia, fougasse, the rolls—no change. Baguettes go up a buck to $5, and the daily special loaf (i.e. olive, walnut-gorgonzola, honey nut oat, baker’s choice) goes to $10.
The pastry case doesn’t change a whole lot either: croissant, chocolate croissant, ham and cheese pinwheels, cookies, scones, quiche, the little sandwiches: unchanged. The morning bun goes up one click to $5, and the pull-apart to $4.
(House blend cup of above-average coffee is still unreasonably low at $2, the fruit and fennel rolls are still a bargain basement steal at $1, and the red loaf retains its paltry pandemic price of $6 for a whole loaf.)
That wasn’t so bad I guess.
Further and Maybe Heedless Philosophical/Sentimental Thoughts from Your Baker, Since He Has a Substack Newsletter and Therefore Must Have Important Things to Say and Opinions to Foist, and Because It’s Hard to End a Letter on Matters of Hard Economics //
Ah, no opinions really. I just want to thank you for your patronage these past years. I consider myself lucky to know each of you, even if all I know is a countenance, a raised eyebrow and a wry smirk, a manner with your children in the stroller, an earnest plea to please bring back the pizzas, a hot pink pikachu t-shirt, a fumbling pronunciation of “jambon-buerre,” (I had to practice that one for a while), or a perfect pronunciation of the same (and revealing my attempt quite second-rate).
The pace of business at the shop now but rarely affords much more than a brief moment to say much or listen long, but sometimes you catch a glimpse, no?—of the person on the other side of the counter, and somehow for a flash there you recognize the tenuousness of life, the opaque co-incidence of chance and fate that brought you together for this almost-nothing-moment—the something-eternal, alive beneath this paltry exchange of goods in the apparent shackles of time. In these tiny fractional glimpses I am especially grateful for you, your visitations to my establishment. So here’s to you. Thanks.
please don’t think I have gone mad,
david the baker
Starting next week; this week it’s still cherry hazelnut. We’ve got to make sure the walnut-gorgonzola is properly dialed in.