June 11, 2025

🐋 Father's Day preorders are live! 🐋

Hello dear subscriber,

That’s right, it’s a GUEST POST. It’s me, Sam, the “face of Downtime.” At times I’m a gopher, zipping over to PFCU for some change or to Restaurant Depot for a precious box of compostable straws. Other times I’m the janitor, swooping in at 4pm to help sweep, mop, and provide moral support to our sweaty, flour-covered bakers. And (this one’s my favorite) sometimes I’m up there behind the counter with Theo or Katie, saying hello and handing you a loaf of bread.

This past Friday was my 40th birthday, and naturally a milestone like that really got me into a reflective mood. My 30s were the decade when I moved from Barcelona to New York, got extremely lucky and met Dayna, got married, moved to Paris, then moved back to the states to our now-beloved Mt. Airy. It was a lot of movement, a lot of change – and obviously a lot of Covid, too.

Contrast that to how I see my 40s starting out: rooting ourselves deeply into this wonderful community, getting to know so many more of our neighbors in person and face-to-face, seeing friends have babies and watching those babies grow, getting to know farmers and chefs and baristas and delivery drivers and all of the characters that Philly has to offer. I’m so excited about what’s to come at the bakery, and the neighborhood at large, and I hope that you can feel that excitement when you come into the bakery every day. Thanks for joining us on this adventure.

I’m ALSO excited because we’ve got a fun Father’s Day preorder for you. Dayna has become a butter + flour whiz so we’ll have flaky and delicious biscuits with homemade jam for the sweeties and biscuits with homemade chili crisp for the spicies. I also have an idea for a spicy honey brown butter spread – let me know if that’s something we should pursue in the future. In addition, for our GF Gang we’ve got delicious oat-flour-based gluten-free chocolate cake slices, for the Francophiles we’ll have 4-packs of rhum et vanille canelés, and for those who can always crush a pie we’ll have a bunch of strawberry-rhubarb pie with salty rye oat crumble.

Thanks for following along and for coming back to the bakery.

Stay frosty 🍦,

-Sam

Sam’s What’s Up Corner

Lately I’ve been listening to the second album by Foxwarren. It’s much more sample-based, which I love, and it’s got more rockers than a typical Andy Shauf release. Good summer jams.

I’m a proud board member for Friends of the Cresheim Trail and if you’re looking for some outdoor time this weekend you’re in luck, because last weekend’s workday was postponed to this Saturday – read more here, come out if you can, and ask about buying a sick E. Hinkley t-shirt at the bakery!

Finally, I just finished listening to the most recent episode from Friend of the Bakery Yowei Shaw’s podcast Proxy, featuring other FOTB The Superweaks – give it a listen wherever you get your podcasts and check out their new album to boot.