Patrons brave all seasons to stand in line at Clear Flour in Brookline. Now the bakery is expanding.
BROOKLINE — They sell out of croissants within a few hours. Then their canelés go. Regulars, who Clear Flour Bread co-owner Nicole Walsh says make up roughly 80 percent of their customers, call frequently to see if their favorite goods are in stock.
“I want to say we had over 100 calls yesterday,” Walsh said recently.
And now there’s more to love: Brookline’s Clear Flour Bread, named an “essential” and ”best” bakery on local and national lists, opened a coffee bar and cafe next to the corner bakery on Oct. 9.
Like the bakery, the cafe’s all about local and simple.
Tiny Arms, a coffee roaster based in Lowell run by former Clear Flour employee Kate Cutlip and her husband, Jon Santos, supplies the beans.
The espresso bar offers vanilla bean and maple syrup. They make their own ganache for hot chocolate. But Walsh, a self-proclaimed “five-ingredient kind of gal,” is very clear: “No [pumpkin spice lattes] — I don’t think we need to fuss things up too much to have something be delicious.”
Sandwiches, including BLTs on pain de mie, and goat cheese and butternut squash on a rustic Italian roll, are sold Thursday through Sunday. Yogurt parfaits with house-made compotes and sesame granola, along with overnight oats, stock the cooler. Picnic-style offerings such as jams, honey, dark chocolate tahini, salami, sardines, and crackers line the shelves.
They hope to sell natural wines by next summer.
Walsh says she’s testing a cardamom coffee cake that they’ll offer in a few weeks.
It’s not in the plans to open multiple locations. At Clear Flour Bread, simplicity wins.
“I don’t want to rule the world,” said Walsh.