LOGAN SQUARE — Croissant lovers fear not, the Logan Square La Boulangerie location has not closed for good.
The French bakery at the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Logan Boulevard closed last week for renovations, and manager Maggy Legros said they hope to reopen this weekend or by Monday at the latest.
"We are not closing," Legros said emphatically. "We are actually installing an oven so the bread will be fresh all day, and we are making it look more like a crepe place."
The new amenities will include a crepe bar where diners can pick their own fillings for sweet crepes.
Paper covering the windows for the remodeling had some customers worried that an unusual agreement with New Wave Coffee had finally gotten the better of the French bakery.
La Boulangerie is not allowed to sell individual croissants as part of a non-compete clause with New Wave, which also sells baked goods.
In the fall of 2010, when La Boulangerie opened, the agreement that forced them to sell croissants only by the dozen stirred up quite a brouhaha among online reviewers and sparked coverage from several media outlets, including the Chicago Reader, GrubHub and the Chicago Tribune.
Things have actually improved a bit for the bakery in that regard as they were able to negotiate the minimum croissant sale down to eight.
"We actually have quite a few people that buy the croissants by eight or by the dozen," Legros said. "I'm sure we're missing extra sales because of [the non-compete clause] but we're still here, and we're remodeling."
As for someday selling one croissant at a time, Legros said they will continue to work at it.
"We're still in constant contact with New Wave to make this work," she said. "Right now we just want to comply with the restrictions we have in place."
In the meantime, La Boulangerie's newer Lakeview location is still open for business — and yes, they can sell one croissant at a time.
