The San Francisco craze of artisanal toast is finally reaching D.C. The owners of Baked & Wired are planning to open a yet-unnamed bakery and cafe in Mount Vernon Triangle, reports District Source, and one of the main attractions will be a “toast bar.”
Owner Tony Velazquez tells Y&H that a few months ago, he and his wife Teresa Velazquez were in San Francisco, where she was taking a bread baking class. They had already been toying around with the idea of opening a shop focused around bread—-and, therefore, toast. “We went to San Francisco only to find out that’s what they’re doing over there, so it just made sense for us to continue it, especially after seeing that there was a possibility of it being successful. It was successful in San Francisco.”
Velazquez says what has made the artisanal toast special in California is that they bake their own bread in-house. So, that’s what his shop will do, too. He anticipates about 10 to 15 bread options, from ciabatta to multigrain to baguettes. For breakfast, the bakery will offer a rotating selection of three different types of toasts and four different spreads—three sweet and one savory. The toast offerings will then switch for lunch and dinner. “We’ll end up with maybe eight, nine spreads throughout the day paired with the bread we think it works the best with,” Velazquez says. Among the spreads you might expect: almond butter drizzled with honey, butter with cinnamon, Nutella with sea salt, peanut butter banana with honey, salmon chive cream cheese, and avocado with sea salt.
The “toast bar” won’t be a physical bar. The ordering system will be similar to Baked & Wired, where you place an order and then come pick it up.
There will be no sandwiches. But expect a pizza night once a week. And the cafe will offer a simple brunch on the weekends with cinnamon rolls, Belgian waffles, poached eggs with prosciutto, and, of course, toast. Velazquez doesn’t plan to offer as many sweets as Baked & Wired at the new shop: There won’t be cupcakes, but there will be pies and things like raspberry crunch bars or cookies. But customers will be able to place special advance orders for Baked & Wired items, and pick them up at the bakery.
The place will also have a mini-market where patrons can buy spreads, jams, cookie dough, pizza dough, and more.
Velazquez says the lease for 440 K St. NW is still in the final stages of negotiations, but he’s already hired a baker, bought a mixer, and ordered an over from France, so the bakery is happening one way or another. Assuming all goes as planned, Velazquez hopes to open by January or February of next year. In the meantime, Velazquez and his wife plan to start testing out bread recipes at Baked & Wired and selling loaves there in August. But because kitchen space is limited at the Georgetown spots, you’ll have to wait until next year for your artisanal toast.