Tartine Expansion Plans Include New York...

From today's NY Times - 

Tartine, the small San Francisco bakery whose devotees wait in long lines to buy a morning bun or a loaf of bread, has merged with Blue Bottle Coffee and plans to expand, opening locations in New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles within the next year.

In a deal completed last week, Tartine became a part of Blue Bottle Coffee, a company based in Oakland and one that is also known for its artisanal products and cult following. But the bakery will continue to operate as a separate company run by Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt. The restaurant Bar Tartine, near Tartine Bakery in the Mission District of San Francisco, is not part of the merger. Instead, it will be sold to its head chefs, Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns.

Mr. Robertson, whose skills as a baker are renowned among chefs around the world, has long been courted by countless investors, hoteliers and developers, all of whom wanted access to what the writer Michael Pollan once called “the best bread I ever tasted.”

“I’ve been talking about the things that are about to happen now for years, but I was always looking for the right partner,” Mr. Robertson said.

He has found that partner in James Freeman, the like-minded founder of Blue Bottle, who has expanded his own business significantly in recent years. Blue Bottle now operates 18 shops, with roasters in Oakland, Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Tokyo. In 2012, the company raised $19.6 million from a group that included some boldfaced investors from Silicon Valley. Last year, it raised an additional $25.75 million.

“As Blue Bottle has grown, it’s improved, and that is unusual,” Mr. Robertson said. “Everyone says they’re going to get better when they get bigger, but it doesn’t usually happen. Blue Bottle really stands out in that way.”

Unlike other suitors who have courted Mr. Robertson over the years, he said, Mr. Freeman has given him the freedom to execute his vision.

“I want him to do what he wants to do because what he wants to do is amazing,” said Mr. Freeman, who has known Ms. Prueitt and Mr. Robertson for more than 10 years. “Talk is cheap and ideas are plentiful. The hard part is opening beautiful shops and making beautiful products. Making things better than they have to be is something we all believe in.” The goal, said Mr. Robertson, isn’t to replicate the original Tartine, it’s to improve upon it.

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The new bakeries will drastically increase Tartine’s production capabilities. The original bakery turns out only about 250 loaves a day, most of which are reserved ahead. Ms. Prueitt and Mr. Robertson hope to mill their own flour and make jams, pickles and other preserves and ice cream. Eventually, Tartine will add savory menu items to the food offerings at some Blue Bottle Coffee locations.

Other changes will take place sooner: By the end of the year, customers will be able to get Tartine canelés with their Blue Bottle Coffee cappuccinos.

The new bakeries will also receive a significant aesthetic upgrade from the original bakery. “I want to make the most beautiful bakeries in the world,” Mr. Robertson said. He and Ms. Prueitt are working with Commune, a Los Angeles design firm that specializes in understated, airy modernism, for their new spaces. Mr. Robertson pointed to the acclaimed restaurants Noma and Relae in Copenhagen, which have large, appointed kitchens that not only handle daily service but are creative environments that allow chefs to explore new ideas. “They’re beautiful,” he said “There aren’t bakeries like that.”

The Tokyo Tartine will open later this spring, followed by a Los Angeles location in the Arts District by the end of the year. The company is scouting locations for a New York bakery to open in 2016.

Tartine will also open a large-scale commercial bakery in the Heath Ceramics building in the Mission District in the fall, where customers will be able to sit and eat croissants while watching the next batch of bread come out of the oven. It will also be the first location of a new ice cream shop, tentatively called Tartine Cookies and Cream. Blue Bottle already has a coffee shop in the building. The original Tartine bakery, worn from years of crowds shuffling through, will be remodeled.

The new bakeries will allow for techniques that can’t be executed in the current location. “We want to take all the traditional methods that we use and applying state-of-the-art technology when it makes sense,” Mr. Robertson said. “I’ll give you one example. I’m going to make croissants with flour just out of the mill, and let them actively ferment for longer and develop more flavor. I want to stretch out the process like we do with our bread.”

“I wanted to do this for years,” he said.

Ignacio Mattos, the chef of Estela in New York, said that when he worked at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, he went to Tartine on his days off and stood in line. “He’s true to tradition but he’s reinventing it, improving it, and finding a different way to put together something authentic,” Mr. Mattos said of Mr. Robertson. “The last time something I ate blew my mind was when I had a piece of his bread and some cultured butter. It is powerful that a piece of bread can overshadow an entire meal.”

Others within the industry welcome the partnership. “What to do with expansion? That’s the thing on every successful restaurateur’s mind, how to do it without falling into the hands of an evil empire,” said René Redzepi, the chef of Noma in Copenhagen. “It’s for all of the equations of life to be balanced out: staff, children, money, cool partnerships, traveling. It’s not easy to find partners like that.”

And there are simpler reasons to approve of the union. “A coffee house with nice baked goods is a great idea no matter what,” Mr. Redzepi said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is a really good match.”