Salt City Bakehouse, the small-batch bakery that turned a converted garage into a weekend destination, announced Tuesday it will open a second location this fall in the former Lombardi’s storefront on Butternut Street.
Owner Dana Kowalski said the North Side space will triple the bakery’s production capacity and add 14 jobs, including four full-time baker positions. The company closed on the building last month with financing from a regional community-development loan fund.
Betting on Butternut Street
The move adds to a stretch of new investment along Butternut, where a bookstore, a Salvadoran restaurant and a bike-repair cooperative have opened in the past two years. Neighborhood association president Luis Herrera called the bakery “exactly the kind of anchor the corridor has been waiting for.”
Kowalski said the decision came down to three things:
- A commercial kitchen already fitted for food production
- Foot traffic from the adjacent farmers market pavilion
- Rent roughly half of what downtown landlords quoted
The original location will stay open, shifting to a retail-only counter while the ovens move north. A hiring fair is planned for late August, and Kowalski expects the new doors to open before the holidays.
