Since March of last year, at least four bakeries — Lakon Paris Patisserie, Bakey, Meet Point Patisserie and Kyo Matcha — have opened in Brookline, with a fifth, Flake Bakery, planned to open this summer.
It’s not a new trend: Union Square Donuts opened in 2017, Drive-By Pies opened in 2018, 2020 brought both Crémeux French Patisserie and a second Tatte location, and Cupcake Therapy opened in 2021.
For a town with a population of just over 60,000, Brookline is loaded with bakeries, and yet it’s a balanced ecosystem that seems to work for everyone.
Randy Bush, the marketing coordinator for Clear Flour Bread and a veteran of Brookline’s bakery scene, emphasized that the town’s dessert-rich environment is a supportive one.
“Anything that’s a win for the community is a win for us,” he said. “I don’t think other places popping up in this town are going to take away from us, so we’re always happy to see it.”
Clear Flour, opened in 1982 on Thorndike Street, has been around long enough to firmly cement itself in Brookline, alongside others like Party Favors (custom cakes, cookies, candies, and pastries since 1965), Kupel’s Bakery (bagels and spreads alongside challahs, hamantaschen, and rugelach since 1978), and Japonaise Bakery (French pastries with a Japanese twist since 1985, with a brief hiatus for renovations between 2021 and 2023).
Some of these mainstays have seen changes over the decades.
Clear Flour was started by Christy Timon, who co-owned a catering business and started experimenting with making bread after getting a sourdough starter from a friend who was a microbiologist. When Clear Flour first opened, it was angled toward wholesale production.
“But people in the neighborhood could smell it, and eventually they started asking if they could buy it,” Bush said.
Under Timon’s ownership with her husband Abe Faber, the bakery was about 80% wholesale and 20% retail, said Bush, but when current owners Nicole Walsh and Jon Goodman took over in 2017 — on Halloween, with Walsh in a full-body frog costume — it shifted to about 80% retail and 20% wholesale clients.
Other major changes have included opening a coffee bar next door to the bakery, which serves drinks, snacks, and sandwiches on Clear Flour bread; pizza nights, with pizzas and ice cream sandwiches available for pickup on Sunday nights during the summer; bread weeks, like a German bread week in October; and social media engagement, like March Madness-style brackets of Clear Flour products that followers can vote on.
“We’re always going to be thankful to Abe and Christy for getting so many systems in place, because they really set the groundwork, but we’ve been able to take what they started and make it work for a different era,” Bush said.
‘Fabric of the Brookline community’
Newcomers to Brookline’s bakery scene share the sense of community, rather than competition, too.
Bakey, an Israeli bakery that first opened on Tremont Street in Boston in September 2021, was co-founded by Or Ohana and Uri Scheft, who created the popular Tel Aviv chain Lehamim Bakery. When Ohana and Scheft opened a second location in May 2023, they chose Brookline near Coolidge Corner, because Ohana lives in town and felt connected to its community.
“On top of that, Brookline is a population that they knew would gravitate toward Bakey, so it seemed a great place for a second location,” said Graham Theodore, Bakey’s CEO.
(Ohana and Scheft have since opened a third location in Newton, taking over a former Jewish bakery, and will open a fourth location in Cambridge’s Kendall Square this fall.)
Theodore said that since opening, Brookline residents have “rallied” around the business, which serves babka, bourekas, challah, and bagels and is known for the freshness of its baked goods, which are made throughout the day.
“I feel like we’ve really become a part of the fabric of the Brookline community,” Theodore said.
He doesn’t see the other bakeries in town as competition, because “everyone is doing their own thing; everyone is doing something special and unique.”
Authentic Turkish flavors
When Yesim Otsuz, who owns Dolma Mediterranean Cuisine in Brookline, decided to open a bakery, there was no question in her mind she would do it in Brookline.
“I didn’t seriously consider spaces in Boston, Cambridge, or elsewhere, because I was so drawn to Brookline,” Otsuz said, who was able to open Meet Point Patisserie directly next door to Dolma when the space became available on Kendall Street.
She said the decision to open her bakery in Brookline was largely driven by the “wonderful community.”
“The people of Brookline have been so warm and welcoming to me over the past three years. We’ve really become like family,” Otsuz said. “I’m grateful every day that I followed my instinct to plant my roots here in Brookline.”
Otsuz, who opened Meet Point Patisserie in February, like Theodore and Bush, doesn’t find the competition of having other bakeries in town to be harmful to her business.
“My approach was to focus on what makes Meet Point unique — the authentic Turkish flavors and techniques we bring to our pastries and desserts,” Otsuz said.
‘Creativity and excellence’
Therein seems to lie the answer to why so many bakeries are able to coexist: diversity. Each bakery truly brings something different to the table.
Clear Flour Bread and When Pigs Fly have mastered their breads. Japonaise Bakery puts a Japanese spin on French pastries. Cremeux French Patisserie serves the authentic French versions, and Lakon Paris Patisserie reimagines those French pastries into desserts like the cube and ring croissants they have become known (and viral) for.
There’s Meet Point Patisserie for Turkish fare, KyoMatcha for Japanese matcha cakes and ice cream, Drive-By Pies for pies of all sorts, and the forthcoming Flake Bakery for Portuguese pastel de natas. If you want to visit a Boston chain, you can go to Tatte (on Beacon Street or on Harvard Street) or Union Square Donuts, and if you’ve got allergies, you can go to Cupcake Therapy for a fully nut-free menu.
In other words: Brookline has something for everyone.
“There’s so much creativity and excellence, and I think that breeds more creativity and more excellence,” Theodore said. “The more you have, the better each one will be.”
