Tuesday, September 30, 2014

One Year Later

We had a busy lunch today Downtown, and it made me reflect on how far we've come since a year ago when we purchased the Bakery from the Ferrell family.  A year ago, a lunch rush was often set askew by dropped orders, not enough staffing, unanswered phones, limited choices, and longish waits.  Today, we are staffed up to handle all the Downtown professionals that enjoy our sandwiches and rotating vegan and gluten-free specials.

Many of our customers see Ninth Street as largely having stayed the same, but many changes have been going on behind the scenes, including:
- More baking lessons offered
- More daily vegan specials
- More wholesale pastry accounts
- More gluten free and vegan pastry offerings
- Improved bread quality and consistency
- A new cake program
- A new culinary-trained Pastry Chef, Shelby Smith, who has been delighting our wholesale customers with inventive desserts and snacks

The stability of the Bakery has improved as well, with revenues up 15% relative to last year this time, allowing us to engage in modest infrastructure improvements and increased wages for our hardworking staff.

We look forward to a great second year in business (the 34th since the Bakery's founding) and thank all of our customers across the Triangle for their continued support of our mission to bake organic breads and pastries in an environmentally and socially responsible way.

Track of the Day:

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Farmer's Market Jazz


live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihGdV38A97Y

Pastry Lesson Recap

Saturday Night, NSB Pastry Chef Shelby Smith took a class on a whirlwind lesson in making French tart crust pastries, filled with pastry cream and topped with fruit.  Here are some assorted photos from this special evening.



Monday, September 15, 2014

Falafel Bar Recap

We made it happen Saturday night with some really great falafel combinations.  The crowd's reaction was very positive.  Here was my favorite feedback....

"Four fritters in house made pita strewn with blackened caramelized onions layered in with lettuce tucked in with blood red kimchi topped with diced dill pickle and sprinkled with crushed kettle chips and drizzled with tahini. You really need a picture of that? Cause it's probably gonna be way better in your mind."

Friday, September 5, 2014

Click to Return to Menu Page

F. G. Cooper, b. 1883
Food... Don't Waste It.
[United States]: U.S. Food Administration, [between 1914 and1918]. ( New York : W.F. Powers Litho.)

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

The Taste of Francoise

"...a brill, because the fish-woman had guaranteed its freshness; a turkey, because she had seen a beauty in the market at Roussainville-le-Pin; cardoons with marrow, because she had never done them for us in that way before; a roast leg of mutton, because the fresh air made one hungry and there would be plenty of time for it to 'settle down' in the seven hours before dinner; spinach, by way of a change; apricots, because they were still hard to get; gooseberries, because in another fortnight there would be none left; raspberries, which M. Swann had brought specially; cherries, the first to come from the cherry-tree, which had yielded none for the last two years; a cream cheese, of which in those days I was extremely fond; an almond cake, because she had ordered one the evening before..." - From Swann's Way, Marcel Proust.