ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010035
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
A NEW BRANCH OF the popular bakery and cafe is open in Old Southwest.
Take a walk down Fourth Street in Roanoke's Old Southwest neighborhood early some morning. If you're lucky and the wind is right, you may notice a few new smells in the air.
Yeast (sniff, sniff). Cinnamon (sniff, sniff). Hmm - garlic?
Wildflour Market and Bakery, on Fourth Street between Walnut and Albemarle avenues, opened for business last week with a menu of sandwiches, salads and breads - and a whole collection of desserts.
"It is ambitious," said Doug Robison, who, with his wife, Evy, opened the bakery last week. "And we've been feeling rather overwhelmed."
But that's really nothing new for the Robisons. The new Wildflour is their third restaurant venture in Roanoke. In 1991, they opened the Wildflour Cafe in Towers Shopping Center. Two years later, they launched the Buck Mountain Grille on U.S. 220 near the Blue Ridge Parkway.
They had wanted to start a bakery for some time, Evy Robison said, and had been doing some wholesale baking for local restaurants, including Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea. But between running the cafe and the restaurant, they didn't have the energy to grow. Then, about year ago, they sold Buck Mountain Grille and started to think seriously about expanding their wholesale business.
Their goal, Doug Robison said, has been to open a series of Wildflour Cafes, starting in the Roanoke Valley and, if the concept catches on, perhaps branching out later. But their Towers location just wasn't big enough to handle all the baking their ambitious plan would require, so they started hunting for a new location.
They hadn't planned to move into Old Southwest, which is mostly residential. In fact, they had checked out a few industrial sites on Shenandoah Avenue, Doug Robison said, but didn't find anything suitable.
Then, through a friend, they found the vacant Fourth Street location, which had housed neighborhood grocery stores from the mid-1940s through the early '90s. The 6,000-square-foot building - which includes a 3,000-square-foot basement to house ovens and baking equipment - seemed an ideal site. So with the backing of several investors, they bought the building in May for $110,000 and began renovating it into a wholesale bakery.
And their plans changed. Since the space was zoned for a grocery store, they decided to sell some gourmet foods. Then, because they still had so much space on the main floor, they figured they'd put in a small seating area and offer the same menu of sandwiches and salads they serve at the Towers cafe.
So they tore out the drop ceiling to expose the original wood, and they painted the metal beams and heating ducts deep blue. They brought in tables and chairs and a few shelves for gourmet pastas and sauces, and they stocked the display cases with desserts, cheeses and salads.
The Old Southwest community has been supportive of the project from the start, Doug Robison said.
"We really have dreamed of having something like that in the neighborhood for a long time," said Petie Brigham, a former member of the board of Old Southwest Inc. and the real estate agent who handled the sale of the building to the Robisons. "It's like something dropped out of heaven.
"It's going to give us a shot in the arm," she said. "It's going to bring people into the neighborhood who have never been in Old Southwest before."
Despite all the changes in their plans, Doug Robison said, they went only 10 percent over their initial budget. He estimated that they and their three investors have spent $275,000 on the new location.
Almost $40,000 of that went to buy the 10,000-pound French-made bread oven that dominates the basement baking area.
"This is our dream equipment, here," Evy Robison said. "They call this a hearth oven. You bake directly on these bricks - " she opened one of the doors and pointed inside" - and that gives it a nice crusty outside and a soft interior. If you want to do a good French hearth bread, this is what you need."
Right now, they make eight varieties of bread. Once the bakery has been open awhile, they'll expand their bread offerings, she said.
She lightly thumped a loaf of garlic-Parmesan bread. "And, hopefully, we'll sell enough of it to pay for this," she said.
So far, Doug Robison said, so good. Several times, he's had to start waiting lists at lunchtime because he's gotten more customers than the 32-seat cafe can hold.
"We definitely like the neighborhood concept, with businesses going back into the neighborhoods," Evy Robison said.
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. 1. Evy Robison places hot rolls on aby CNBcooling rack at the Wildflour Market and Bakery. 2. The aroma of
freshly brewed coffee mingles with baking smells at Evy and Doug
Robison's latest Wildflour. color.