D Magazine intern Karley Osborn followed the scent of her nose and discovered something fresh about Main Street Bread Baking Co.
It starts at 6:00 p.m. The bread baker arrives in the kitchen, and the mixing begins. Two hours later, the rest of the baking staff arrives. A metal scooper dives deep into an industrial-sized sack of flour and dusts the surface of the countertops, prepping them for pastries: first the croissants, then the muffins, then the brioche. Nothing goes into the oven until 10:00 p.m.; long after the Main Street Bread Baking Company storefront has closed for the night. On weekdays Pierre, the head baker, pushes through the back doors of the kitchen at 2:00 a.m. to oversee the final stages of production amid the scent of leavening, melting chocolate, pastry cream, and almond.
By 4:00 a.m. the packaging is finished and a truck driver is waiting outside, ready to deliver boxes of pastries to each of the 15-20 accounts on his list, depending on the day. He’ll stop in Plano and Richardson to stock the pastry windows of the bakery’s two franchises, drop off a selection to the Nordstrom Café in Northpark, Galleria, Stonebriar, and Euless mall, and supply Emirates Airline with trays of customized dessert and breakfast offerings for their first and business class customers headed to Dubai.
Somewhere in between baking for two different airlines (Main Street Bakery supplies Quantas with in-flight fare, too), maintaining one of the most successful restaurants in Grapevine, and building arguably the most expansive post-Louisiana Purchase French empire the United States (okay, Texas) has ever seen, owners Fabien and Yasmine Goury noticed that their business had outgrown the Main Street kitchen. Their solution? Purchasing a 3,500-square-foot piece of property behind the bakery that will serve as the new epicenter of their empire. Once the ovens have been transferred to the new property, the current storefront will expand to accommodate more Sunday brunchers with an after-church hankering for an éclair…or three.
Although initially warned against setting up shop in downtown Grapevine, it’s not an exaggeration to say that business at the bakery has been booming from day one. But why is that, exactly?
“One of our goals is for [customers] to have an experience,” Fabien explains. “People can go eat anywhere. But the main thing is to make them want to come back.”
And come back they do—to order blue cheese sliders for holiday parties, request custom designed wedding cakes with delicate chocolate scripting, or select shooters layered with avocado and tomato to be served to guests at museum gallery openings.
“It’s nice,” says Fabien. “People come in, you’ve got a line out the door, people are enjoying the food. It’s good when you do that—it’s a good feeling.”
And if the line spotted spilling onto Main Street on a recent Sunday morning was any indication, it’s a feeling Fabien and Yasmine will likely enjoy for a long, long time. In the future, they’d like to see a franchise open in Dallas—but only if it can function without compromising the legacy of quality and customer service they’ve already established through other endeavors.
“We could do more with the new location happening, but sometimes more doesn’t mean better,” says Fabien. “We want to keep our quality up there.”
Whether or not the franchise extends to Dallas, you’ll still find plenty of opportunities to get your Main Street Bakery fix. Peruse the pastry selection at Global Peace Factory coffee bar, hit the café while shoe shopping at Nordstrom, crash catered events at the Gaylord or the Omni, or book a first-class flight to Dubai. Or just do what we plan on doing: follow the scent of fresh baguettes wafting through downtown Grapevine in the middle of the night, stand outside the bakery until Pierre hangs up his pastry apron, and pretend to be the delivery man.
