Ballston Spa's Night Work Bread bakes for gluten-intolerant folks
Couple with careers in film, acupuncture branch into slow-fermented treats
The breads, babkas, bagels, and cookies on offer at Night Work Bread, a new bakery in downtown Ballston Spa, are all a product of a slow sourdough fermentation process, designed to make gluten more digestible for those with intolerances.
This measured approach to baking mirrors the journey of owners Leigh Rathner and Cindy Rosenberg, who first cemented their bread’s niche in the Capital Region in 2021 with a popular presence at multiple area farmers markets.
Their new shop, at 3 Science St., represents a more permanent step into the enduring role they hope to play in their community.
“We’re trying to create a place and a product and a presence that people want to be a part of,” said Rathner.
In 2021, Rathner, a 30-year veteran of the film industry, and Rosenberg, an acupuncturist, made a pandemic-motivated pilgrimage from Los Angeles to upstate New York, searching for a better quality of life.
Rathner has downstate New York roots and also spent more than a decade raising his kids in
Saratoga County. He believed that the area’s emerging food scene, and the friends here who felt like family, would make it an ideal place to try and make a serious endeavor of the sourdough hobby he had picked up during COVID lockdowns in Los Angeles.
Both Rathner and Rosenberg struggle with gluten intolerances. Around 2016, they learned about the slow cold-fermentation process that breaks down more of the proteins that cause digestive issues in breads and other baked goods. Enjoying bread again was a revelation, and the couple took classes together to learn more about this specific kind of sourdough fermentation.
Years later, when the pandemic left him with time on his hands, Rathner threw himself into home baking, honed his skills, and began sharing his kitchen’s excess product with neighbors, who loved his breads. Those neighbors began insisting on paying Rathner for the cost of ingredients, and word began to spread. Soon he was filling custom orders, and delivering artisan sourdough all over Los Angeles.
With confidence in his new skill, and Rosenberg ’s ability to continue her acupuncture practice anywhere she pleased, the couple set their sights on a cross-country move to Saratoga
County. They rented a home, and a friend suggested renting a kitchen at the popular Schuylerville farm and eatery 9 Miles East.
“The pieces just started to fall into place,” said Rathner.
He put in long days hacking the existing pizza ovens into workable bread ovens to bring their sourdough to area farmers markets. From the beginning, the customer response was encouraging.
“People would say, ‘I can’t believe how good this bread is,” said Rathner. “It just seemed to work.”
The farmers market circuit provided real-time consumer feedback, and product suggestions, which Rathner and Rosenberg used to tailor their offerings, such as adding
bagels to their arsenal.
The idea for the brickand-mortar location was a natural progression, both in terms of growing their business, as well as deepening their relationships within the Ballston Spa community. They received help from family, friends, and devoted customers in the form of donations to a Kickstarter campaign, which helped enable the purchase of the former Food Florist location on Science Street. Even fellow downtown Ballston Spa business owners, whom Rathner and Rosenberg had never met, contributed.
“It really was just a validation of community,” reported Rathner. The bright, light-filled bakery offers some indoor seating, as well as a patio which the owners hope to utilize heavily in fair weather.
Guests can choose from a breakfast and lunch selection of baked goods all created using Night Work’s special fermentation process.
“We don’t make anything that doesn’t go through that long, slow cold-fermentation process. That’s where a lot of flavor is developed, but that’s also where the breaking down of the proteins that lots of people have trouble digesting happens,” explained Rathner.
Popular items include their chocolate babka, made with single-origin organic dark chocolate, aromatic cardamom knots, multiple varieties of focaccia, and ten different kinds of sourdough loaves.
Coffee is provided by Knockabout Coffee Roasters, another local small business. Rathner has hopes of expanding their sandwich and prepared food selection as time goes by, with high standards for the ingredients
that will pair with their sourdoughs, like the best bacon for BLTS, and smoked fish for bagels.
The name Night Work is a reference to Rathner’s film industry past, in which the term meant long night shoots, and was to be avoided at all costs. Now it’s come to represent a new phase in his life, where both he and the bread might be working overnight, but in service to a much more personal and fulfilling cause.
“There is a certain pride (in cooking and baking) that in my life has been unparalleled. To me, it’s everything. There’s something incredibly satisfying about feeding people,” he reflected.
“It’s like handing them joy.”
You can visit Night Work Bread in downtown Ballston Spa and at local farmers markets. Check their website nightworkbread.com for hours and market schedules.