Chad Robertson, the James Beard Award-winning baker behind San Francisco’s Tartine, is apparently opening a New York bakery in Williamsburg — “unlike anything currently operating in New York” — according to documents posted earlier this week from a crowd-sourced loan platform geared toward food producers.
The bakery — it’s apparently not Tartine, but the name has yet to be revealed — will occupy a 7,500-square-foot former warehouse at 184 North Eighth Street, between Driggs and Bedford avenues, and will include an on-site small-batch mill producing flour made from 50 percent East Coast grains, with additional supply from Cairnspring Mills in the Pacific Northwest. No word yet on how far along the project is. Eater has reached out to Robertson
to learn more.
Robertson’s project joins a collection of new bakeries — arguably ones that his work helped fuel — such as Radio Bakery and its expanding locations, and mill/bakery Brooklyn Granary.
The Brooklyn space reads like it has similarities with Tartine Manufactory, which includes a bakery, restaurant, bar, and coffee shop, and 2,000 square feet more than the San Francisco location. The one in Brooklyn will feature daytime operations centered on baking, coffee, and retail, while the upper floor will host classes, events, and evening service, whether that’s dinner or a bar isn’t articulated in the documents. The bakery will also prioritize waste reduction and composting, as well as pursue “plastic-neutral and carbon-neutral practices” across operations.
Robertson’s path to Williamsburg has been a long one. He and pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt (his former wife and business partner) opened the original Tartine in San Francisco’s Mission District in 2002, building it into one of the most celebrated and influential bakeries in the country. Their collaboration produced the foundational cookbook, Tartine, in 2006, which was as much a pastry book as a bread book; Robertson later authored Tartine Bread in 2010, which became a defining text for a generation of home and professional bakers worldwide. The two won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chefs in 2008. They divorced in 2020. Over the years, Tartine has expanded to multiple locations in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seoul. Private equity firm CIM Group helped Robertson and Prueitt expand to five locations in LA.
Tartine has not been without controversy. In 2020, workers voted to unionize under the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6 — and by 2022, Eater SF reported that contract negotiations had stalled over two key issues: workers’ desire for guaranteed wage increases versus the company’s preference for a merit-based model, and a proposal that would, for the first time in the bakery’s history, require workers to contribute to their healthcare costs. Tartine did not respond to requests for comment for that story. The Tartine Union Instagram hasn’t postedsince 2022.
As far as how the bakery will move forward with staff, documents for the Williamsburg bakery state a goal of creating “a supportive and inclusive workplace by offering fair wages starting above New York City’s minimum wage, providing opportunities for career growth, and engaging meaningfully with the local community through education and community events.”
Robertson had long eyed New York — Eater reported in 2015 that Tartine was planning a Brooklyn location in connection with a Blue Bottle Coffee merger, with a Manhattan outpost to follow in 2017. Neither materialized.The Williamsburg project reflects a split from Tartine (with a potential new name) as well as a re-upping of Robertson’s commitment to fresh-milled flour and sustainable practices. The equipment, including the on-site mill, will be funded through thecrowd-sourced loan; according to the site, the bakery has raised over $400,000 toward its $650,000 goal. The broader buildout is being funded through owner equity, according to the documents. The building was purchased in April for just over $3 million.
