Bitter News in the Sweets World
My parents were both children of the Depression and could remember lots of businesses closing in those troubled times. But not, my late father once told me, the places vital for American life: movie theaters and saloons, of course, and drug stores, grocery stores and bakeries. In those days, people still bought their bread from bakeries — and their cakes, doughnuts and cookies too.
It’s a different world now and no matter how fabulous a unique, family-owned bakery can be, it’s hard to survive in this tough economy. Case in point: Last fall, I wrote a Fat City post about the closing of Artisan Francais bakery in Overland Park. I mean, I knew it was closed, even though the phone message was still optimistic, announcing that the owners, Sebastiene and Briana Saint-Ouen, were on vacation. Three months later, the glass bakery cases still sit empty, the cappuccino machine is unplugged and the doors are locked, with this depressing sign: “Closed Until Further Notice.”
On the other side of the metro, another sensational bake shop — two, in fact — served their last pastries after 11 years. The two Pastry Goddess shops — in the Northland’s Briarcliff Village and the original venue in Independence — were shuttered in mid-December. The owners, Kathy and Doug Huddleston, left a brief farewell on the Pastry Goddess Web site.
Not only is the economy making things hard, but the competition is getting more intense. Just across the street from Artisan Francais is the very big Whole Foods Market, which has several well-stocked pastry cases. I tasted a first-rate bear claw and a flaky croissant from the bakery department one day. Maybe not as fine as the ones made by chef Sebastiene Saint-Ouen, but pretty darn good. One of the employees explained that the cakes and pastries aren’t exactly made on premises: the croissants, for example, are brought in frozen and baked off in the store and the pretty iced cakes (including the surprisingly delicious non-dairy vegan apple layer cake) are “assembled” by store employees.
It’s all too bittersweet.
— By Charles Ferruzza
