New bakery opens on Tacoma’s Hilltop with bread, cookies, croissants and big dreams
Persuading investors to back a full-service, wholesale bakery with an adjacent retail cafe in Tacoma was harder than they thought. It’s not a cupcake shop, they’d say, and no, we won’t get rich on bread.
Four years ago, when Jessica and Pieter DeVisser first approached potential lenders with their business plan, the concept they envisioned did not exist in or near Tacoma.
It does now.
The couple, along with a host of co-owners with years of baking under their flour-dusted palms, opened Tacoma Baking Co. (TBC for short) to lines out the door and around the block the first weekend of 2020.
An initial iteration of the project was called Grit City Baking Company, but there since have been changes in ownership and investors.
The community, it appeared, had been anxiously awaiting that weekend, thanks in no small part to frequent communication from Jessica DeVisser herself on the bakery’s Facebook page, which has attracted more than 5,700 likes and nearly 6,000 followers. For most of 2019, the bakery’s bare-bones website posed a serious hypothesis — “The bagels are coming!” — along with a countdown clock to 7 a.m., Jan. 4. (TBC now opens at 6 a.m. on weekdays).
“We’re passionately optimistic people,” DeVisser told The News Tribune before Christmas. At that time, the 10,000-square-foot space at 1316 Martin Luther King Jr. Way buzzed with people, but not baked goods — not yet.
They had the equipment but were awaiting health and city inspections: the final determinant that this building, owned by Roberson Properties, was ready for bake-off.
The scent of warm, fermented dough now permeates the block, as TBC’s crew of about 50 employees churns out baked goods in many forms.
BEGINNING WITH BAGELS
The idea for Tacoma Baking Co. started with Jessica DeVisser’s quest for a true New York-style bagel.
Before its slow and strange demise last November, Cascade Bagel & Deli in Lakewood was the only place for miles and miles to find an authentic kettle-boiled bagel. Most sources steam their bagels, creating what Cascade’s owner Bob Bringer calls “bread with a hole.”
A gentle, bearded Vietnam veteran, Bringer was thankful to have met the TBC folks, who hired a few of his longtime, “very well-trained” employees. They also bought his bagel-making machine and recipes.
“We need to support people like this who work their tail off to make a quality product,” he told The News Tribune. He trusts that TBC will, in time, create some of the best bagels around and that people will travel to Hilltop for them, as his customers did from all over Pierce County — “because they’re real bagels!”
The daily selection displayed on pegs between the bread shelves, TBC’s bagels ($2.50 each) include flavors like everything, poppy and garlic, cinnamon sugar, jalapeno cheese, and chocolate chip. Choose from eight house-made cream cheese spreads (75 cents for a 1-ounce side or $1.50 for a full spread), such as roasted garlic and shallot, lemon thyme, sundried tomato or sweet chili pepper.
ALL THE BAKED GOODS
One day during its first week in business, the bakery’s back wall featured nearly a dozen varieties of bread ($8 to $12), from classic sourdough loaves scored with a soft leaf design to rye pan breads and ciabatta. Three styles of baguette — the classic French, a stubbier Italian and a seeded style — plus brioche (made with butter) and challah (made with oil) rounded out the opening bread list.
The obviously harried but nonetheless gracious cashier handed off a still-warm sourdough loaf. No doubt beautiful on the outside, it proved to be well-constructed with a nice crumb on the inside. We enjoyed our slices (and, candidly, a couple of tear-offs) simply with a wad of butter and a sprinkle of salt.
The bread program is led by Jay O’Neill, a veteran of Essential Baking Co. and Bakery Nouveau in Seattle. He most recently worked with Art House Cafe in Tacoma’s Stadium District.
On the pastry side of the case, Ashley Baird dedicates her time to viennoiserie (yeasted pastries such as croissants). Curtis Horka, who has worked in large-scale pastry operations at hotels and country clubs, brings his Hawaiian roots to the fore in other sweet goods. There are pound cakes of banana, chocolate and coconut ($3.75 a slice), muffins with blueberry or an inspired hazelnut crumble ($3), and oversized cookies ($3) — including a stellar chocolate chip with a crispy outer edge and just-right chunks of chocolate. It was $3 well spent.
We also tried a regular and an almond croissant ($5.50), the latter not too sweet with its signature almond paste filling spread evenly throughout the flaky layers. The pastry chefs create other sweet as well as large savory croissants, like a sizable square filled with ham and cheese and a cute fish-shaped one with salmon (both $6.50).
Tons of activity on the bakery’s Facebook posts during its opening weekend commented on the price of these croissants, and of the baguettes: I would have to agree, if only because I’m spoiled and have been to one of the best bakeries in Paris, where flaky perfection costs less than €2 a piece, or about $2.25.
Bear in mind that the DeVissers have committed to supporting all of their employees with a living wage and benefits (“betch you we can!” they told naysayers), and pastry is time and labor-intensive. Still, the going rate even for lauded croissants in America hovers around $4, max $5, for a plain one; baguettes run from $3 to $6. I hope they adjust some prices as their wholesale business picks up. I stress “some” because we purchased four pastries, one bagel and a loaf of bread for just over $30 with tax, a fair total for the quality and care.
The team is quick to point out online and in person that the precise menu depends on availability, especially as the bakers work out kinks in production and the front-of-house service.
Though everyone behind the counter stayed poised, the ordering process also could be streamlined, as one person takes your order, another fills it and yet another rings it up. It’s hectic, but I trust they will develop a seamless approach as they mature.
Marie Price, a pastry chef and bakery consultant, was brought on last summer to do just that.
“To find interest in quality in every department,” she said, “it’s amazing to see that in this industry.”
Perfection, in other words, will come in due time.
“We want to provide a quality product for you when you do spend your money here,” added Katie Geissler, TBC’s head savory and catering chef. The catering arm of the business will emerge down the line, though you can sample a couple of sandwiches ($10).
Eventually, the retail shop will offer a full sandwich menu. For now, pair your pastry with a cappuccino ($4.25) or cup of joe ($2.25) made with Bluebeard beans. Tea lovers will find an array of Mad Hat leaves steeped by the cup ($3) or the pot ($5).
PLAYING THE LONG GAME
With 3,500 square feet of production space with dedicated areas for each sub-category, plus another 2,000 both in storage and the cafe itself, TBC is dreaming big.
“As we evolve and stabilize, the locals will help us find it,” said Jessica DeVisser, meaning the best way to satiate all tastes and price points.
She stressed sincere pride in having built a small business with a foothold in the evolving Hilltop neighborhood.
“Our goal was to pull as many people from the community as we could,” she said.
Local musicians have played throughout the bakery’s two weekends thus far.
“Truly, it’s quintessentially Tacoma. We wouldn’t have been able to do this anywhere else,” she added.
It took four years, many hurdles, two angel investors and a temporary under-market lease arrangement, but “when you have a great idea, people will flock to it,” she said. “We started at just the right size for what we wanted to do.”
The building required a complete gutting to house a bakery with commercial ovens; dedicated pastry, bread, bagel and mixing spaces; and a giant walk-in cooler. The HVAC system wreaked havoc; it seemed every time they fixed one issue, another fell from the ceiling.
Called The King Building by its owner, Roberson Properties, the space formerly housed a blinds manufacturer, according to Roberson’s manager Mat Shaw. (Fred Roberson is his stepfather, having married Shaw’s mother 25 years ago.) The Tacoma developer bought it from the Thorp family in 2016 with no specific plans for what it would become.
“We like that corridor,” Shaw told The News Tribune. “It has an unusual cultural relevance to the city. We wanted to put a stake in the ground to help the neighborhood improve.”
Without provocation, he acknowledged the perception of gentrification. The bakery was vandalized last spring, with the words “GET OUT” spray-painted in red letters on the windows facing Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
According to Census Bureau data shared by the city, Hilltop has the lowest median household income of any Tacoma neighborhood, with more than 60% of households earning less than $50,000 a year. That number is projected to drop to 57% by 2024. In turn, households earning more than $75,000 annually will rise from 23% to 28% of the neighborhood.
Shaw noted that Roberson Properties has never torn down a building and believes in preservation.
The DeVissers “were putting a stake in the ground,” he said. “This is somebody who wanted to change Tacoma.”
Their vision for the bakery, their staff and community “dovetailed” with Fred Roberson’s hopes for the city.
How does a bakery fit into the city’s vision for Hilltop?
“How about perfectly?” said city planner Ian Munce. He led the Links to Opportunity Streetscape Development Project, and he sees TBC as “one example of many” such projects that will unify the Hilltop business district.
“The city’s focus is to do as much as we can to encourage local folks to benefit from these new opportunities,” he said.
Pieter DeVisser, who spearheaded competitor research and community outreach during the years-long process to the January 2020 opening, admitted the question of gentrification was no doubt complicated.
But, he said, “It’s been serendipitous this entire three years,” marking when the bakery secured a lease and financial partnership with Roberson Properties for The King Building. “It’s propelled us all the way through to now. It’s just colorful. There’s also that feeling that this area could be economically great.”
TBC hopes it can be what bakeries, at their core, are: a community hub, a place to break bread — literally. According to the owners, they already have “a waiting list of clients” eager for locally-made baked goods.
“We’re going to be very serious about our baking,” said Pieter DeVisser. “We’re making real bread for real people, but we’re also a town bakery.”
Tacoma Baking Company
▪ 1316 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253-315-5944
▪ Hours: Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 5:15 AM.