[addtoany]

Every neighborhood deserves a bakery, and a good one at that. Pinehurst gets theirs Saturday, when Standard Bakery sets up permanent residency at 11752 15th Ave. NE.

You may have tried owner Josh Grunig’s baked goods: Standard started as a pop-up (called Pocket Bakery), but he’s been a regular fixture at farmers markets and even settled into a South Lake Union spot last year (then chose not to renew the year lease). And that doesn’t even touch on the wholesale side of the business, which provides pastries and cookies to a number of local cafes, from Nordstrom to Broadcast. Grunig got his start as a bread guy, moving to Seattle from the Bay Area to run production at Grand Central Bakery. He bought a pastry sheeter a couple of years ago—not long after he and his wife had a baby and he’d decided to stay home to help out—and began a love affair with laminated dough. The rest is history. 

This new home seems like a perfect fit: big enough to grow the wholesale—he says they’re only running at about 30 percent the capacity that they could be in the new space—with a Dutch door (and small display case in the window) from which customers can purchase directly from the bakery. There’s no seating inside but a huge custom bench outside that stretches the length of the storefront.

Though he doesn’t live there, part of the reason Grunig chose Pinehurst was because he saw a need for a neighborhood bakery. He didn’t want to move into a saturated ‘hood—hello, Ballard and Capitol Hill with your unfair pastry monopoly. For the last few months, neighbors have been stopping by to peek in, asking when he’ll be open. He says he handed a curious older gentleman a chocolate chip cookie the other day and the man said it was just like his mother made. That compliment, Grunig says, is just as satisfying as any measure of success.

His plans are to open around 6 a.m. to serve coffee and pastries and stay open into the evening to eventually scoop ice cream. Sandwiches—simple options, served on croissants, challah rolls, or bagels on the weekends—will be available for lunch. And forget taking Mondays off like many of the city’s great bakeries; Grunig says they’ll be open daily, since someone is there baking for wholesale orders around the clock. 

Stop by starting tomorrow to pick up a cornflake-marshmallow cookie, a peach pocket pie, an everything croissant with chive cream cheese filling, or one of the excellent seasonal savory or sweet Danishes. Next Saturday, August 26, the bakery will be hosting a grand opening celebration (with the neighboring businesses) with food, music and a pie-tossing contest.