Flowers and Bread. Coffee beans and focaccia. Casual coffee and private parties. Owners Sarah Lagrotteria and Tricia Wheeler hope to offer all means of comfort come opening day of Flowers and Bread in Clintonville.
“Right when you come in you’ll see baguettes,” Lagrotteria said, gesturing to slats where drywall will soon hang. “You’ll see all kinds of different loaves you can buy and have here or just buy to bring home.”
Come fall the hammering, drilling and sawing of construction will be replaced by the social sounds of friend dates, private parties and baking and flower arranging workshops.
Beyond the plastic sheets and missing floorboards you can visualize the soon-to-be coffee room. Benches will line the perimeter, and a love seat will sit near the fireplace. Through the doorway on the far wall, guests will find the coffee bar and a cooler with pre-made sandwiches, yogurts, and egg and chicken salads. Shelves of bread and other goodies will line the walls, and items including cookies, cakes and pastries will be offered at the coffee bar.
“Our baker does this beautiful, sweet and savory focaccia,” Lagrotteria said. “It’s like, the best breakfast you can have with a cup of coffee.”
Baker Sarah Black is responsible for overseeing and developing the entire bread baking production process, as well as the bread baking classes.
In each of the rooms flanking the front sitting room, classes will be taught on flower arranging and wood fire oven cooking, and space can be rented for parties and events. Event rooms will have a couple of long tables to offer space for groups as close as business associates or bridesmaids to make pizzas or DIY bouquets with one of a cast of rotating instructors to guide and assist.
Lagrotteria said probably five out of the six days they’re open, a Flowers and Bread florist will create 10 or 15 unique bouquets available on reserve a day in advance. Floral arrangements and flowers provided for classes and private parties will come from F&B’s on-site gardens.
Lagrotteria said all events will include catering using a menu almost entirely from the wood fire oven and sourced from F&B’s backyard herb and vegetable gardens.
“So if you’re having a cornish game hen menu, each diner might have a cornish game hen that came out of the oven,” she said. “They might do a savory bread pudding as a side, maybe some roasted potatoes, and a sweet or chocolate bread pudding for dessert.”
F&B brings together a handful of professional chefs and bakers and some of their favorite recipes. Lagrotteria was a private chef in Los Angeles for eight years and worked in several restaurants in New York City.
“We just sort of brought our best recipes together, and we’re working to refine all the menus, and they’ll change seasonally” Lagrotteria said. “And it’s an adventure for us, too, because we haven’t done all that much cooking ourselves in the wood fire oven. We have some in-house experts, so for us it’s really fun to think ‘Hey, now we get to work on this whole new kind of cooking.’”
During the private events, food will be served buffet-style upstairs, where a balcony overlooks High Street – a view that Lagrotteria said is perfect for firework-watching.
So far these ideas are just that — ideas. Lagrotteria said the next steps are drywall and landscaping, and she expects a soft open some time in August.
For more information, visit www.flowersandbread.com.