Westville Bakery

East Village, Manhattan. Size: 250SF Front of the house, 500SF Back of the house

Background:

Westville Bakery, led by pastry chef Meital Cohen, was established in 2006. It supplies freshly baked pastries, cakes and cookies to 7 Westville restaurant locations, as well as other cafés and points-of-sale.

In late 2018, Westville Bakery moved to a new space in the East Village. Although the space was used as a bakery prior to that, it featured less seating and a different style and design, the back of the house was smaller and mostly on the ground floor, while basement was for storage use only.

The new design has the back of the house spread over the basement and the ground level, allowing for increased baking capacity. The design required detailed planning and design of the process and flow. All the preparation takes place at the basement while the baking and finishing is upstairs. Basement level includes walk-in freezer, walk-in refrigerator, different size mixers, three working stations, a sink, a dishwasher, a small desk and dry storage. The upstairs back-of-house portion includes two working stations, refrigerator, freezer, sink, dishwasher, some storage and restrooms for employees’ use.

In the front of the house we wanted to create a homey neighborhood coffee shop feel, that evolves from the design of the Westville restaurant locations. To achieve that, we included Westville’s trademark simple and welcoming banquette seating with green cushions. We added a crafted seating bar table by the window, with three seats facing the quiet neighborhood street. We used paintings of buildings from the area as our wall art, and added greenery in white planters on the walls.

We designed a gray-painted custom counter and showcase, with matching wall panels, and a handmade menu on the adjacent wall. Behind the counter, the wall separating front and back of the house was designed in odd-shape way that would allow transfer of heavy kitchen equipment in case it needed repair or replacement. Similarly, the counter was designed modularly, so that part of it could be removed for the same purpose.

The bakery opened to the public in October 2018, and is the yummiest spot in Manhattan!