You can buy Pleasant House bread at The Plant's farmers market or sign up for a monthly subscription. [Facebook/The Plant]
BACK OF THE YARDS — Having cornered the Royal Pie market, Pleasant House Bakery is getting in the artisanal bread game from its new baking headquarters at The Plant.
The Bridgeport bakery just started a monthly bread share program, similar to Fritz Bakery's now-defunct bread club.
It's $25 a month plus tax. Subscribers choose from among six breads and pick up a loaf each week, on a Monday or Saturday, at The Plant, 1400 W. 46th St. (Pleasant House still serves its signature savory pies at its original location, 964 W. 31st St.)
Janet Fuller says it's just one of the many cool things at The Plant:
Squishy white bread, this is not. The Pleasant House loaves are naturally leavened, rustic and hefty, made with organic rye and wheat from Breslin Farms and other local farms.
Head baker Wesley Ervin, formerly of Publican Quality Bread, mills the grains and bakes in a wood-fired oven. Among his offerings: a seeded Danish rye loaf called rugbrød, a classic French baguette and a sourdough wheat loaf.
Among the bread offerings at Pleasant House Bakery is rugbrød, a dense Danish rye. [Eric Futran]
Besides bread, there's more in the works at the ever-evolving sustainable food production facility.
A coffee roaster will be moving in as early as next week, said Plant interim executive director John Mulrow. Ria Neri of Whiner Brewery, which is being built on the main floor, is also involved with the new roaster. She didn't respond to a message seeking comment.
Two weeks ago, Plant volunteer Belkacem Elmetennani started a mushroom farm, Fruiting Mushrooms LLC, in the basement of the building. He's growing organic oyster and lion's mane mushrooms.
The Pleasant House bakery at The Plant isn't open for walk-in retail business yet, though the bread is for sale at a few farmers markets around town, including The Plant's own Saturday market.
But the bread share pickup is a good chance to at least take a peek at the bakery and around the building, which functions as a sustainable business incubator while operating on a nearly net-zero energy system.
Visitors can tour The Plant's indoor farms on Saturdays. [Facebook/The Plant]
In time, products from all Plant tenants will fill an area of the lobby now under construction that Mulrow describes as "a year-round farmers market."
"The big question is, what is the foot traffic going to look like and how do we use that space most effectively?" he said.
The Plant's Saturday market, called the Back of the Yards Community Market, features goods from a few of the building tenants and draws about 150 people, Mulrow said. In late June, it switched from once a month to weekly; it will return to monthly after Labor Day.
The building offers two public tours every Saturday during the market. About 40 percent of those on the tours are out-of-towners. Mulrow said they may add a Spanish language tour one or two times a month.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
