3 women join forces to create Third Space Bakery in Garfield
she has whipped up each week since 2020 for the Bloomfield Saturday Market and her online bakery, Le Beau Gateau. As CRAFT ta Chatham University’s Maker in Residence in 2020, she also helped develop the core flavors for the sour-cream cake doughnuts made from local grains at Oliver’s Donuts in Lawrenceville.
“We just hit it off right away,” says Taylor of the baker who would eventually become her business partner.
Taylor, who now lives in Wilkinsburg, also found a fast friend in Chloe Newman, a one-woman operation who has earned stellar reviews for the artisan sourdough and other whole-grain breads and pastries she sold alongside Bruce’s cakes and cookies at the Bloomfield market as Crust Worthy.
A native of Rhode Island, Newman studied chemistry and visual arts at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 2013, she took jobs in the arts, film and coffee industries before ending up at Garfield’s Gluten Free Goat, where she fell in love with baking and began experimenting with sourdough. She went full commercial as a small- scale baker in 2019, first out of The Bakery Society in Mount Oliver and then at her home in Forest Hills after installing an ABS steam-injected deck oven in her garage just before the pandemic.
Some of the whole, organic grains the 33-year-old uses are less-familiar varieties such as spelt, buckwheat and kamut, a cornmeal-like ancient wheat with a creamy flavor that originated in Iran. She sources much of it from Frankferd Farms in Saxonburg or Small Valley Milling in Halifax.
Like Bruce, Newman was growing tired of baking alone at home. So she approached her friend with the idea to start a new workerowned bakery together. Once she had agreed to join, she immediately thought to include Taylor as well.
Plenty of businesses are woman- owned in Pittsburgh. What makes Third Space unique is that it forgoes the traditional corporate structure.
In 2022, the women participated in a program with Keystone Development Center, through which they learned how to start and manage a cooperative business, a model that encourages member contribution and shared responsibility. Though it’s common in states like California and Michigan, especially for bakeries, this democratic worker-owned approach “is not really a thing in Pennsylvania,” says Bruce.
Maura Rapkin, of Napkin LLC, who the women knew from Chatham, also consulted on their business plan and worked with the team on the bakery’s website.
“She gave us some really valuable advice,” says Bruce. “We really wanted to do it right.”
The women chose to set up shop in the former Spork Pit Barbecue in Garfield (after looking in other locations) because it didn’t have a bakery, there’s lots of foot traffic and it felt right.
“I just like being part of this community,” says Taylor, who sits on Garfield Community Farm’s board.
At around 1,200 square feet, the restaurant that closed during the pandemic featured a smaller floorplan than they would have liked and required a complete build-out. For a long time, it smelled like barbecue, too.
On the plus side: it had an amazing walk-in cooler and a terrific patio overlooking Penn Avenue. They signed a lease last August and started drumming up a following through pop-ups, Oktoberfests, farmers markets and other events while contractors removed the faux brick, tore out the bar and got rid of a giant cow mural on the back wall.
The name, which they came up with after taking an online quiz, is a play on the places where people build relationships and a sense of community after home (a “first” place) and work (a “second” place). Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the “third place” in 1989.
The modular counters on wheels being used for pointof-sale were specially designed by architect Greg Weimerskirch with a dual purpose: In addition to hiding storage in a tight space, they allow the bakery to offer cooking classes and team- building events at night by rotating into teaching pods that can accommodate up to 12 people.
The first two-hour class on April 17 ($75) will explore cooking from the pantry. Newman is also planning a two-part sourdough bread making class, which after the bread-making mania of the pandemic, “everyone realizes is hard!” she says with a chuckle.
In addition to Newman’s handcrafted sourdough-based breads, the menu includes rustic pastries and Europeaninspired cakes as well as cookies and brownies made from interesting flours that demonstrate the power of non-white flour. Customers also can expect coffee from Redstart Roasters in East Liberty, housemade sodas and Gryphon’s Tea. Prices will run between $3 and $10, and any tips collected will go to local nonprofits.
“Our biggest focus is on using as many locally sourced ingredients as we can,” says Bruce, reeling off local partners such as Marburger Farm Dairy, Singing Dog Vanilla and Garfield Community Farm.
Thanks to the bakery’s location on a busy corridor on Penn Avenue, the women also plan on gradually phasing in simple grab-and-go lunches such as salads, sandwiches and Roman-style, sheet-pan pizzas. One recent iteration featured asparagus and pesto made from ramps Taylor foraged.
If you’re lucky, you might also find the bakery’s signature “spretzles” made with spelt flour, sea salt and za’atar and served with homemade beer cheese and toum, a type of Lebanese mayo stabilized with garlic instead of egg.
“And we will also have other bakery items like Bialys and other cultural breads,” says Newman.
The bakery can also host small private events on site such as graduation and birthday parties.
“We all have each others’ back,” says Taylor. “This is the first time in decades I’ve looked forward to coming to work.”
“To be able to talk about nothing or bounce ideas and collaborate — that’s what I’ve always wanted,” Newman agrees. “I feel like I’m learning so much.”
Whereas once the space was redolent of pulled pork and barbecued ribs, it is now perfumed with butter and chocolate and the sweet, yeasty aroma of baking bread. The view out the window is pretty awesome, too.
“For me to look and see people hanging out and eating our product, it’s pretty cool,” Bruce confides.
Opening a bakery requires everyone working like madwomen to get everything just right, but before long, the women hope they will accomplish their goal of creating a business that achieves a healthy life-work balance.
And to be able to do it in a well- equipped working kitchen with this much natural light?
“It’s the best,” says Bruce. “It all came together.”
Third Space Bakery, 5349 Penn Ave., Garfield, is open from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday. More info: www.thirdspacebakery.com or 412-701-9165.