Essential Bakery Update

(Today’s post comes from our newest writer, Kendall Sweeney, who brings us the inside scoop on the changes at, and history of, the Essential Bakery)

In response to the inquiry about what is in the future for the Essential Baking Co Building, it is not yet entirely clear. There has been talk of remodeling the space in order to put a bike wheel manufacturing business in where the bakery used to be. The likelihood is that the space will remain empty for a while until they figure how to restructure the building’s interior for a new purpose.

The building was originally built in 1925 as a bakery. In fact, the building has historically only been a bakery throughout its entire existence; this is the first time in 85 years that its use has changed. The residents of lower Wallingford have long been able to appreciate the smell of freshly baked bread wafting out of the building’s vents and combating the less-than-pleasant scent of the dump. Unfortunately, those days are over.

Those residents whom can recall the way-back-times of Wallyhood, may remember its original owners, the Buchan Family. This family erected the building for the sole purpose of making bread.  The building was next used as Oroweat’s production site. Some may even remember the Oroweat bakery outlet just across the street in what was once the Oroweat distribution building; now mysterious and drab looking with a donations van parked in its empty lot.

It wasn’t until 1998, not so long ago, that the bakery became the Essential Baking Company’s production site and at the time, only café.  With the addition of the café portion, the age of dumpster-diving was upon us. Now, eight and a half decades after its creation, the building will change its purpose, and along with this change will come a new sense of identity, and a new sense of smell for lower Wallingford.

As far as more imminent plans, the remaining café is building a new walk in freezer closer to the front of the building so that the rest can be walled off, forever separating The Essential Bakery Café from its bakery.