Nosh Pit

Columbia City Bakery’s CSA for Carb Lovers Now Offered Year Round

Next up: a second delivery day each week, says owner Evan Andres.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 07, 2011 at 09:35AM 0 Comments

Columbia City Bakery: now delivering the loaves all year long.

Photo: Columbia City Bakery via Facebook

About a year ago, Columbia City Bakery owner Evan Andres introduced the CSB program (like a CSA, only you get baked goods instead of vegetables), dropping off breads and desserts to sites around the city on Tuesdays—the bakery’s slowest day.

The service was planned as a way to move bread during the farmers market off-season. But Andres recently started offering year-round delivery and says if the program grows large enough, he’ll deliver on Mondays too.

The CSB costs $17 a week (the minimum commitment is $136 for eight weeks of delivery) and for that members receive two loaves of bread and a sweet baked that very morning. They can hand-pick their orders online or leave the choices up to the bakery. The latter option offers the opportunity to taste the full inventory of Columbia City baked goods, minus those that don’t travel well. Croissants, Andres points out, make poor deliverables.

There are currently about 45 slots open in the CSB. Check out the bakery’s website to learn about drop-off spots and how to join.

Curious, I asked Andres if he knew of any other bakeries following a CSA model. He was aware of a bakery in Vermont doing something similar, he said, as well as a desserts delivery service in Olympia.

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Tags: Columbia City, Bread, Baking, CSAs, Seattle Food Delivery

Trending: Bread and Pastries

Carb-free? Not around these parts. Local bakeries say Seattleites are buying up baguettes like crazy.

Posted by: Tiffany Ran on Apr 12, 2011 at 02:33PM 2 Comments

Whatever, Hollywood. Seattle still loves bread.

In the Trending series, Nosh Pit talks to local food providers, shop owners, chefs, servers—whoever’s appropriate, really—about those consumables Seattle can’t get enough of right now. This week: bread and pastries.

1. At Columbia City Bakery, breakfast staples like the cardamom coffee cake sell out quickly in the mornings while grab-and-go sandwiches are grabbed and gone by the afternoon.

Operations manager Andrew Cleary has noticed his customers returning to old favorites that were less popular in recent years. “Bread in general is way up this year, and there is a return to classics like baguettes.”

2. Macrina Bakery’s seasonal raspberry rhubarb tartlets are a big seller in spring. Like Columbia City, Macrina is selling a lot of baguettes these days too, said wholesale manager Rebecca Early.

Local restaurants, meanwhile, have been stocking up on the bakery’s olive bread, mixing it in with wheat and white breads to lend a little diversity to their baskets.

3. At gluten-free bakery Flying Apron, customers tend to gravitate towards heartier, rustic breads like the buckwheat seed bread.

“I’ve noticed that our customers prefer [pastries] to be less sweet, so we tend to add less sugar,” said general manager Benjamin Lesperance. Pecan cinnamon rolls are the bakery’s most popular sweet sell.

4. Fruit tarts, eclairs, and lemon and peanut bars are choice grab-and-go desserts at Hoffman’s in Kirkland, according to manager and part-owner Eugenia Velez. But the classic Princess Torte, a sponge cake paired with Bavarian cream, raspberry jam, and marzipan remains Seattle’s signature special occasion cake.

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Tags: Bread, Pastry, Trending,

Burien Grand Central Bakery Sets Opening Date

The countdown’s on for the bake shop’s third Seattle storefront.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jul 27, 2010 at 09:53AM 0 Comments

An early rendering of the Grand Central Bakery at 626 SW 152 Street in Burien.

Since we posted the news Grand Central Bakery is hanging out a shingle in Burien, peeps from the neighborhood have been pumped—just check out this comment thread.

If all goes as planned the eager neighbors will have to wait just under a month to get their pastry fix at 626 SW 152 Street. The opening date for the artisanal bake shop, Grand Central’s third in Seattle, is set for Friday, August 20.

On that day a portion of the proceeds will benefit Highline Area Food Bank and the Highline Schools Foundation for Excellence.

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Tags: Seattle Restaurant Openings, Bread, Bakery

Oh Happy Day for Downtown Drones

Cherry Street has brought back the good bread.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 09, 2010 at 01:34PM 3 Comments

Photo: Courtesy Cherry Street Coffee House

Cherry Street Coffee House: Five downtown locations.

Fast, healthy, tasty: the all-important, all-too-rare qualities we need from our weekday lunch spots. For a long time Cherry Street Coffee possessed all three. A cup of its homemade black bean soup topped with feta and accompanied by toasted olive bread was a happy little break on a wet, wintery Wednesday.

But then Cherry Street switched from sandwich bread to these sad, sad, rolls that never tasted totally fresh and left your mouth feeling all powdery. But now—oh happy day—the sliced bread has returned.

“We had a olive revolution!” Cherry Street’s AJ Ghambari wrote to me in an exclamation point-packed email. “The sliced bread is here to stay! Also sliced wheat! Our customers said ‘bring it back.’ Plus the rolls we getting to be way too inconsistent.”

Way to go Cherry Street customers. The good bread is back.

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Tags: Downtown, Lunch, Bread