LOGAN SQUARE — You'll be able to buy as many — or as few — croissants as you like when the French bakery La Boulangerie returns to Logan Square this summer.
The planned new location for the bakery is just steps away from its previous one that closed four years ago after a controversy over a noncompete clause with a neighboring coffee shop that restricted the bakery's croissant sales.
The bakery is aiming to move into the former home of tattoo shop Butterfat Studios, 3129 W. Logan Blvd., by July, according to manager Maggy Legros.
Though in the plans are in the "very early stages," Legros said she feels confident about them, especially given how positively neighbors responded at a recent community meeting.
"We're very excited because [Logan Square] was our first location. We're very happy to be back," she said.
Though much loved for its breads, pastries and macarons, the bakery, owned by Vincent Colombet, is perhaps best known for the noncompete clause in the lease it signed when it opened in Logan Square in 2010 that restricted its pastries sales because it shared a building with New Wave Coffee. The agreement prohibited the bakery from selling individual croissants; it could only sell them a dozen at a time.
The odd agreement stirred up quite the brouhaha among online reviewers and sparked coverage from several media outlets, including the Reader, GrubHub and the Tribune, which documented Colombet's efforts to get around the restrictions by allowing customers to buy the baked goods in bulk but only collect one at a time or by selling them individually on an outdoor patio that he said was not part of the lease.
After the landlord stopped those sales, Legros acknowledged in January 2013 that they were likely missing sales because of the agreement, and the bakery closed soon after.
It's unclear how the controversy factored into the closing. At the time, Legros told DNAinfo the bakery had reached a settlement with New Wave, but declined to get into specifics.
About a month after closing, the owners of the bakery launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to come back to the neighborhood, but the campaign didn't get anywhere close to its $80,000 goal.
Several years later, and with two more bakeries under its belt, La Boulangerie is now ready for a fresh start in Logan Square.
Since the bakery won't be sharing a landlord with New Wave, as it did years ago, there will be no restrictions at the new spot, Legros said.
Legros said she had no hard feelings about the bakery's end. She called the New Wave controversy "water under the bridge."
"I know everybody wants to talk to us about New Wave. We're over it. We want to talk about something else. We've moved on," she said.
Legros and her team are working with an architect on a design plan and applying for city permits so they can move into the landmarked building. Most recently, the storefront was the home of a pop-up custom jewelry shop.
Should the team receive the necessary approvals from the city, the Logan Square bakery will be similar to La Boulangerie's other two locations in Ravenswood and Lakeview.
Customers can expect many of the offerings that were sold at the original Logan Square bakery, including coffee and pastries, sandwiches on focaccia and other freshly made breads, she said.
