Flour Bakery & Café

The sticky bun, and a case built for daily use

The sticky bun is the item that starts the queue, and it explains the rest of the bakery. Joanne Chang opened the first Flour Bakery & Café in Boston's South End in 2000 under a motto that states the priorities plainly: make life sweeter, eat dessert first. What she built around it is a case of familiar bakes made precisely, from croissants and currant oat scones to cream-filled doughnuts, bran muffins, pies and breads. The banana bread shows the method well, made with ripe bananas, walnuts, creme fraiche, vanilla and cinnamon and baked slowly for a moist loaf. That mix of pastry ambition and everyday usefulness is why Flour grew from one neighbourhood shop into a set of Boston and Cambridge bakeries running the same rhythm.

Counter service, chalkboards and a line to the door

The room is busy and practical. People come in for coffee, pastry, sandwiches, soups, salads and takeaway, order at the counter, and read the chalkboards while they wait, since the boards carry the day's specials alongside quotes and the weather. The line can reach the pavement when the sticky buns are moving, and the staff work through it fast. There is seating when the room allows, and the mix at the tables tends to be families, people working, students and solo regulars. Drinks stay deliberately cafe-scale rather than elaborate: cappuccino, latte, oat latte, decaf Americano, London Fog, brewed coffee, white chocolate hot cocoa and a housemade raspberry seltzer.

Sweet or savoury, and the breakfast sandwich

After the sticky bun the menu divides cleanly. On the sweet side, look for banana bread, ginger molasses cookies, chocolate croissants, brioche au chocolat, brown butter cinnamon rolls, cheese or apple danish, giant meringues, homemade Oreos, blueberry bread pudding, Boston cream pie, chocolate cream pie and the lemon raspberry cake. Lemon cake, apple snacking spice cake and chocolate cake round out the larger bakes for anyone buying a whole one rather than a slice. On the savoury side the breakfast sandwich has become an anchor in its own right, built with a souffled egg, ham or bacon, and cheddar. Between the two sits the reason Flour works as a daily bakery rather than a treat: dessert-first thinking that can still end with lunch on house bread.