Mixing sweet and savoury, this baking duo teams up to launch a new downtown St. John's café
Birdie will serve up meals plus pastries and coffee when it opens this month
A popular St. John's bakery closed its doors two months ago, but the former owner isn't hanging up the apron.
Pastry chefs Jenny Rockett and Phil Goodland are teaming up to open a café in a prime location in downtown St. John's.
The storefront at 258 Water St. is currently a construction site, with scaffolding, empty display cases and beams of wood propped up against a wall. But it will soon be transformed into Birdie Coffee-Pastry-Snacks.
The new business partners have baked together in the past, making the new venture a nice fit for both.
"I had a bakery called Levain Pastry on Harvey Road and Jenny and I worked together for the last year, " Goodland told CBC News.
"We got to talking about next steps, maybe what we could do differently — or what I could do differently — and we decided to work together."
Birdie isn't going to be a continuation of Levain, said Rockett, though fans of the bakery will be able to enjoy some of the desserts they are used to.
"There will be some overlap, and you'll see some of the same faces too," said Rockett. "Some of our staff have decided to come with us and then some of the same products. But we are going to look at doing a little bit of a different menu, some different hours."
Goodland said it will still be French-inspired pastries, including croissants, brioche, laminated dough and small tarts, as well as more savoury dishes.
"We're also going to put a lot more effort into our coffee and drink menu, which we're excited about," Goodland said.
Rockett said they were trying to come up with names for their new business and on the table were glasses from her nan and pop that had birds on them, so she threw out "Birdie" as a possible name, and it stuck.
"We just wanted to have something a bit more fun and playful," she said.
Opening on Water Street
Getting onto Water Street was a strategic choice, explained Goodland, and the new spot means they can expand more into coffee.
Rockett added the Harvey Road location was a bit tricky to reach, as a lot of their customers drove to the spot. The new location means they'll get more pedestrian traffic, she said.
Goodland said they plan to open Birdie this month but there's some work that still needs to be done in the space.
"We'll open in April and the date is fluid, as you can see. It may not look like it now, but we're very far along," said Goodland.
Rockett said she's noticed in recent years a number of independent bakeries have popped up, which is a good thing, as it means more competition.
Goodland agreed.
"The explosion in bakeries in town has been fantastic. In the last few years, we've gone from a few, to all kinds of choice, which is great," he said. "I've been to several, and they all do good stuff and they all seem to be doing very well."
People are looking for quality food, he said, so while buying from a fast-food chain might be more convenient, it's not as enjoyable as something locally made.
"People respond to quality and the effort, and there's an energy around it that is kind of intangible," he said.
Rockett added there's been an interest in recent years of raising Newfoundland and Labrador's culinary bar and there are a lot of people contributing to the food scene.
"There's some great chefs doing great things in town," she said. "It's really exciting to be part of that."
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