Business & Tech

Build Your Perfect Bakery; A Lamorinda Patch Special Project

Okay, La Boulange is doing well and Johnny's still packs 'em in, but second only to requests for a new bar in town are requests we get for a new bakery. Here's your chance to build the perfect Lamorinda bakery - from the location up.

Lamorinda Patch readers already built a perfect bar for Moraga and there appears to be movement at the old Moraga Bar(n) with plans for a wine bar on the horizon, but a close second after a demonstrated need for a local watering hole have been requests for a bakery.

We know La Boulange is here and doing well, and Johnny's is still the go-to spot for a pink box of pre-event maple bars and doughnut holes, but we wondered where your hybrid patisserie would be located in Lamorinda, what it would look like, and what sort of baked goods it should offer.

Someone once said that you can find your way to the heart and soul of a town by seeking the warm glow of the local baker's ovens, and if they didn't say that I just did. Because just like Jack Nicholson's search for "5 a.m. bread" in As Good As It Gets - there's something elemental and human about a roll so fresh it steams when you crack it open.

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For me, that basic connection was made in a warm and glowy patisserie in Bayeux, France, farmers bringing their cheeses and mushrooms in the back door while half the town - businessmen, builders, school kids - crowded in the front for a lunchtime baguette. Sure, the centuries old surroundings helped the overall appeal, but that French equivalent of a fast food burger knocked my socks off, and my wife and I walked away in a food-induced reverie on cobblestones worn down by cartwheels and time.

It was so good we forgot to take a picture, and we found out later it was one of three similar establishments in town, all known for their use of the freshest straight-from-the-field ingredients and no-nonsense approach to satisfying the discriminating tastes of the townspeople.

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How about you? Where would you put you perfect bakery and what would it look like. Maybe you found one and, unlike us, snapped a picture of it. Send it on in - let's see what we've been missing.


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