By TIERNAN O’NEILL – Web Writer
The Independent Baking Co. recently opened up in Five Points and serves everything from danishes to olive bread.
In a storefront that used to specialize in french braids, now stands a bakery that specializes in french breads.
The Independent Baking Co. opened up shop in Five Points at 1625 South Lumpkin St. where the former hair salon, Strand, was located. The bakery, which opened on Aug. 14, is serving fresh bread and baked goods made from scratch.
In their first month of operation, the Independent Baking Co. has been very successful according to owner Thomas Leonard.
“(The bakery items) all sell pretty well, but by pure numbers I’d say the baguettes (are selling the most),” Leonard said. “The semolina bread – we don’t make it everyday- but when we do, it always runs off the shelf. It’s really delicious.”
The bakery opens at 7 a.m. every morning, except Sundays. The Independent Baking Co.’s baked goods and pastries are restocked every morning and sold out by noon.
“(We make) scones of various sorts, cookies, chocolate croissants and danishes,” Leonard said. “Some days we’ve had a local fig and chevre danish, Chris (the head baker) was picking figs on the his way to work and jarred them.”
Leonard has been baking for more than 30 years. He started baking his senior year in college.
“I started baking close to my last year in college at Fairhaven College at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash.,” Leonard said. “Someone who lived in my building had a bakery.”
Leonard obtained a job at the bakery in Alert Bay, B.C., Canada, owned by his neighbor. At this bakery Leonard learned how to bake, and he brought those skills with him to Athens.
“My wife and I moved here about two and half years ago and it was a little surprising to me that Athens already being such a great place for food didn’t have a bakery of this style,” Leonard said. “To get the kind of bread I wanted to eat I had to make it at home.”
The bakery cultivates a yeast starter onsite that they use for most of the breads they bake.
“Everything we do is hearth baked and most of what we do is naturally leavened. Instead of using a commercial baker’s yeast we’re using a starter that we make here in the bakery,” Leonard said. “(The starter) is what most people call sourdough, what the french call leaven and our baguettes are just made of commercial baker’s yeast starter.”
The Independent Baking Co.’s hearth baked naturally leavened breads have received positive feedback from Athenians.
“I have been frequenting (the Independent Baking Co.) since it opened,” Athens local Rabun Deekle said. “The chocolate croissants are delicious, the scones are amazing, I haven’t had anything bad yet. I happen to run the building right behind here, Hodgson’s Pharmacy, so I’m delighted to have them in the neighborhood.”
The bakery’s appeal is not only limited to adults, but also high school students, as well.
“First we bought the sourdough bread and had that for dinner, it was really wonderful,” Clarke Central High School sophomore Jared Warner said. “The bakery itself was really kinda cool and the bread itself is really delicious.”
View Larger Map
