Flour + Time Bakery, a vegan bakery serving French-style pastries and coffee drinks, is now open in west Midtown.
Located at 1133 Huff Road, Flour + Time is owned by husband and wife Michael and Leah Bajalia, who started their business in 2020 out of their kitchen after losing their jobs.
“We’d always had the idea of a full vegan bakery in our back pocket and the pandemic gave us the opportunity to get it started,” Leah said. The pair started a website and sold from their home for about a year before starting to sell at farmers markets, followed by a pickup window in Avondale Estates.
The window, which was open for about eight months, closed earlier this year in anticipation of the cafe opening last month.
The west Midtown location “helps us realize a lot of ideas we’ve had for this business for a long time,” Leah said, including an open kitchen, natural light and outdoor space.
The extra space also allows Flour + Time to serve heartier items like quiche, in addition to its core stable of pastries including pan au chocolat, croissants and bear claws as well as other sweets, breads and pies.
Credit: Courtesy of Flour + Time
Credit: Courtesy of Flour + Time
General manager Ricky Malatesta, who was previously employed by a vegan cheese shop in Austin, Texas, works with vegan food producers to source plant-based meats and cheeses to use in items like a bacon, egg and cheese breakfast pastry.
Malatesta has also stocked a small retail section in the cafe with “vegan snacks and candies from around the world that you can’t find anywhere else,” Leah said, including candy bars, chips, stroopwafels and cheeses.
Michael Bajalia, who oversees Flour + Time’s coffee program, said the cafe offers a “more traditional, purist-style of program done at a high-quality level,” with drip coffee, espresso, cortados, macchiatos, lattes and cappuccinos. Coffee beans are sourced from Counter Culture roasters in North Carolina, and the five plant-based milk options include macadamia, almond and Myracle Mylk, a combination of oat and coconut milks and aquafaba meant to mimic cow’s milk.
Offerings also include off-menu seasonal drinks including a pumpkin spice option in the fall and a peppermint mocha in the winter.
Though the Bajalias have thrown themselves into running Flour and Time, operating a vegan bakery full-time wasn’t always on their radar.
Leah, who grew up baking with her mother, was a vocal performance major and previously worked as a professional actor and singer.
Credit: Courtesy of Flour + Time
Credit: Courtesy of Flour + Time
She went vegan six years ago, “and wanted to still be able to enjoy all the things I ate when I was young,” she said, recipe-testing many of her favorites before landing on the final versions.
Michael, a Culinary School of America graduate and certified sommelier was a chef for several years before switching to front-of-house positions, including managing a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco where he initially met Malatesta.
The 20-seat Flour + Time space offers a variety of seating options, including standard cafe tables and chairs, a sit-in bar that looks out onto the kitchen and a lounge reading area with books for both adults and kids. A dog-friendly patio will also offer 10 additional seats in the coming weeks.
Credit: Courtesy of Flour + Time
Credit: Courtesy of Flour + Time
“We wanted to make it very light and bright, and also homey and a bit traditional,” Leah said. “I pulled a lot of inspiration from European cafes but also a bit of Scandinavian simplicity and some mid-century lines and finishes.”
With Flour + Time’s new location, Leah said she hopes to reach vegans, as well as non-vegans who are open to trying something different.
“We’re not trying to make a radical statement,” she said. “We just want to share good food with everyone and give everyone a positive interaction with the lifestyle we value so dearly. I say to everyone, ‘It’s just a cookie, you don’t have to think about it too hard.’”
Flour + Time’s hours are 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays-Fridays and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays.
1133 Huff Road, Atlanta. flourandtimebakery.com
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