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After five years in business, successful bread-maker Bellegarde is expanding its operations in a big way, with a retail bakery planned for early 2019.
The Advocate’s Ian McNulty found out many of the details — it will be in the Leonidas neighborhood, at 8300 Apple Street (near the Claiborne and Carrollton intersection), and will greatly expand Bellegarde’s baking capacity.
Bellegarde’s bread has earned it major props since it started baking in 2013, headed up by Graison Gill, but it has stuck mostly to supplying bread to restaurants and markets. At the moment, it’s mostly a wholesaler. Customers are able to order online and pick up products from Bellegarde’s Toledano Street location with some notice, but it’s otherwise not open to the public.
The retail store will make Bellegarde’s bread much more accessible — it’ll also sell other products like the bakery’s flour, which it makes with an in-house stone mill. (Bellegarde has always been loud and proud about using high quality, often heirloom grains to make its flour.) With two new mills and two ovens, the new location will allow Bellegarde to triple its baking output, according to the advocate.
Beyond bread, pizza will also be on offer. Overall though, it seems that Gill is taking a baby-steps approach to the expansion, keeping to basics and not piling on new products yet — the Advocate story mentions that breakfast pastries are a possibility, but likely not for opening day.
It’s part of a broader expansion that also includes Bellegarde launching an online store to sell some of its ingredients, such as its flour and grits. Expect the new bakery to open in January 2019.
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