Empire Building

Bar Tartine’s Long-Awaited Bread and Sandwich Shop to Open August 1

The new sandwich and bread counter.
The new sandwich and bread counter. Photo: Grub Street

The Tartine Bread Annex (at least that’s what Bon App was calling it when they jumped the gun on announcing its opening back in May) has been in the works for a long while now. It’s the space on the right half of Bar Tartine, which the restaurant expanded into early last year, which will become a daytime sandwich shop and extra bread bakery for Tartine, and which was originally set to open last fall. Delays in the installation of the 15,000-pound bread oven — which required a whole new support structure built from below — as well as the logistics of launching what is essentially a third new business for the Tartine crew, have kept it a moving target all these months. As of now, the official debut will be happening August 1.

The seating area in that half of the restaurant will remain, but the thus-far curtained-off section just behind it will open to reveal a new counter for daytime service. They’re modeling the concept on St. John Bread and Wine in London, a sort of pantry and gourmet food stall that operates symbiotically with Fergus Henderson’s St. John restaurant. You’ll be free to order lunch at the counter and sit anywhere in the restaurant, as well as buying bread to go. And the new oven will increase baker-owner Chad Robertson’s overall daily bread-making capacity — detractors like La Boulange’s Pascal Rigo will probably still not be satisfied, however.

Hours and more specifics are yet to come.

Earlier: Delayed Bar Tartine Sandwich Shop Due Mid-Spring
Bar Tartine Gets More Beer-Centric, Makes Their Own Bacon

Bar Tartine’s Long-Awaited Bread and Sandwich Shop to Open August 1