New Bakeries in Sandpoint Idaho and Their Storefront Stories

"There's a real longing in this town to gather and be together," Sam Podmajerski told the Sandpoint Reader this summer. "The greatest people bond around food."

Podmajerski said that as co-owner of The Granary General Store, which opened this summer. The other new bakery the Reader profiled this year is Sawyers Bakery on North First Avenue, which it called one of downtown's newest businesses. Both reached the kind of busy you usually see from places that have been around for years. Sawyers runs out of pastry by afternoon. The Granary has a dozen employees behind its counter. The Reader's writers used nearly the same words about each one. The Granary feels "as if it's always been a part of Sandpoint," and at Sawyers "it's easy to imagine the bakery's always been there."

There's a reason for that. In both cases the storefront came last. The customers, the recipes and the local reputation were in place years before either bakery had an address.

A Farmers Market Booth That Sold Hundreds of Loaves a Week

Podmajerski began baking bread 10 or 11 years ago. She kept her loaves simple and rustic, with as few ingredients as possible. She sold them from a booth at the Sandpoint Farmers' Market, and the Reader reports she was moving hundreds of loaves every week.

She met her business partner, Emily Peilleron, at that market. Peilleron had run a bakery in the Basque region of France for a decade before moving to Sandpoint. Before they had a shop, the two hosted quarterly Sandpoint Supper Club evenings at Evans Brothers Coffee. These were after-hours potlucks where the pair brought bread, cheese and wine and guests brought a dish to share.

The bakery landed at 518 Oak St., across from Matchwood Brewing Co. in the Granary Arts District. "I love the neighborhood and the arts district feeling," Podmajerski told the Reader. "We love Matchwood and Evans Brothers as community spaces as well."

The building used to be Syringa Cyclery. The co-owners, their husbands and a group of volunteers converted it themselves. While they worked they found a yard behind the building that couldn't be seen from the street. It's now a shaded back patio. "Before we put it together, you couldn't even tell there was a yard back there," Peilleron said.

Bread is still the main event. Podmajerski bakes sourdough and focaccia, and gluten-free options are kept in the freezer. Mornings open with quiche. Through the late morning, staff bring out sandwiches on focaccia, baguettes and sourdough, and Peilleron says they're built to travel on a boat or a bike ride.

The "general store" part of the name is accurate. The shelves carry European-style charcuterie, cheeses, mustards, jams and butters, plus a tinned fish selection Peilleron is clearly proud of. The freezer holds take-and-bake cinnamon rolls and ice cream from Mountain Cloud Creamery in Clark Fork. The protein burrito uses ground beef from Wood's Meats. The coffee comes from two Spokane roasters, the tea comes from Tea Treehouse, and a beer and wine license covers canned cocktails, wine, beer and cider.

A Family Name, a Home Kitchen and a Five-Year Search for a Lease

Becky Sawyer's path is longer, and her bakery's history in town is older than the business. Her family arrived in Sandpoint with the railroad in 1903. Her great-uncle, Bode Kemmis, baked at Harold's IGA and at Haworth's Bakery, which stood just down the street from her shop. The Reader reports that locals still talk about his maple bars.

Sawyer worked for more than 20 years at Bonner General Health and ran a home baking business on the side. She went from taking 4-H cake decorating classes to teaching them, and became the baker people called for family events. She later completed a 400-hour pastry and chocolate program at the Pastry Academy outside Las Vegas, where she studied under chocolatier Amaury Guichon. After that she managed the bakery at Winter Ridge.

Then came the slowest part. Sawyer spent five years looking for a lease that would let her install a kitchen. The space she found was the old Image Maker storefront at 320 North First Ave. She hired the trades the work required, meaning electrical, plumbing, HVAC and the bathroom. Her family did nearly everything else, including tearing out carpet, tiling the floor, back wall and ceiling, painting, and hanging the lights and art.

Family photos now sit along the windowsills, and the shop's motto is "Flour, butter, tradition." Sawyer calls it a European bakery rather than a French one. Alongside the croissants there's tiramisu, cannoli, danishes and a British afternoon tea. Her favorite thing to make is viennoiserie, meaning croissants and other laminated doughs, including crème brûlée and pistachio croissant rolls.

Why the Calendar Fills Up Before You Find It

Sawyers' few reservable seats fill quickly. Every Sunday at 2 p.m. the shop serves a sit-down, three-tier afternoon tea for 10 guests at $49.99 each. The tiers are sandwiches, scones and sweets, with a pot of tea that keeps getting refilled. When the Reader profile ran on Sept. 5, the tea was booked out until December. That's roughly three months ahead for a seating that holds 10 people.

If you can't get a Sunday seat, cream tea is available any open day. It's $10 for a bottomless cup of tea with a scone, clotted cream and jam. That's about a fifth of the afternoon tea price, with no reservation needed. Regulars can join the 28-Cup Society, which costs $28 a year. Members hang a numbered cup of their own on the bakery wall and get 28 percent off every time they order tea.

Sawyers' website says tea reservations are Sundays only and classes run Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. It also says "If no times are listed, it is fully booked." Classes run 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. In September the lineup covered croissants from scratch, cake and cookie decorating, and tarts and crème brûlée.

The Granary's equivalent is the Supper Club. In August the co-owners told the Reader they planned special fall events, including a return of the Sandpoint Supper Club. The profile gave no dates. It pointed readers to the bakery's mailing list at thegranarygeneralstore.com for updates.

Planning a Week Around Two Different Schedules

The two shops keep different hours, and that matters if you plan to visit both in the same week.

The schedules complement each other. On Sundays and Mondays, Sawyers' counter is closed and The Granary is the open option. On Wednesdays, the August profile has The Granary closed and Sawyers open. The Granary's homepage now announces "New Hours 7am - 4pm" without listing days, so a quick check before a Wednesday visit is worthwhile.

Sawyers' website says it takes a limited number of custom orders when staffing and supplies allow, with seven days' notice required. It doesn't say whether holiday orders are part of that. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year, and seven days before the holiday is Nov. 19.

The Granary is the place to go for Saturdays on the water. A focaccia sandwich, tinned fish, a wedge of cheese and a canned cocktail make a full boat lunch from one counter on Oak Street, across from Matchwood.

Sawyer's great-uncle baked maple bars on the same street her shop now occupies. Podmajerski's bread was a farmers market staple before it had a counter. Both counters are new to Sandpoint this year, but the people behind them had already spent years cooking for the town.

The details that bring someone to a corner of town, like a back patio off Oak Street or a numbered teacup on a wall on First Avenue, are the same kind we pay attention to when we talk with clients about where they'd like to live. If you're weighing a move closer to downtown or the Granary Arts District, Gove & Co can walk you through those streets in detail. Request a Private Market Review.