Co-owner Ellen King came to bread sideways. She was studying historic preservation when she found a hand-hewn beam hidden inside the walls of an 18th-century house, and the word stuck with her when she traded preservation for food. She trained as a chef in Seattle, learned to bake in a wood-fired oven at a farm school and wrote the book Heritage Baking (Chronicle, 2018), and she runs the baking side with business partner Julie Matthei. The bread is naturally leavened sourdough, mixed, shaped and scored by hand from organic, stone-milled grains bought from local farmers.
Everything is baked each morning at the Evanston Bakehouse and driven up, so the shelves carry a curated selection of the day's loaves, croissants, morning buns, scones and seasonal galettes. Lunch here is cold sandwiches: a jambon beurre on ficelle, an Italian on seeded torta, turkey on country and a seasonal garden sandwich, plus Ruby Coffee espresso. Hours are 7:30am to 3pm Tuesday through Friday and 7:30am to 1pm on weekends, closed Mondays. Go early, because the good stuff goes first.
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