Meet the St. Paul bakers who opened a walk-up window in Merriam Park

Now that snow is finally dusting the Twin Cities, it may seem odd timing to hit the walk-up window of a tiny bakery for a morning treat. But the smells and tastes at Vikings & Goddesses Pie Co., 2036 Marshall Av., are just that yummy.

Eye On St. Paul recently grabbed a seat inside V&G to chat with owners Rachel Anderson and her husband, Yoji Moro, who met in New York City before coming to Minnesota, to learn more about this hidden gem.

This story has been edited for length. Yes, a couple filled croissants were happily acquired.

Q: How long have you been around?

Yoji: Technically, we opened the business almost five years ago now. Initially, we started out just doing farmers' markets. We moved into this space a little over three years ago.

Q: Perfect timing, right during a pandemic.

Rachel: [laughs] Yeah.

Yoji: This used to be the kitchen for Izzy's. So it was pretty well-equipped and it met our needs. We moved pretty quickly on it in October 2020.

Q: Where does the name come from?

Rachel: It's from a quote from Gina DePalma, who was a pastry chef in New York. She once wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, that women are not always the ones who get covers of magazines. They are not the gods and goddesses of the kitchen, but instead they are the Vikings. The name came from the idea that we could be both the Viking and the goddess. Understanding the needs of the workforce, with flexible scheduling and being a parent.

Q: What is your specialty?

Rachel: We started business as just a pie company. That was the initial idea. Our pie crusts were what we were really known for. We use Hope Creamery butter, one of the best butters you can get. And then Baker's Field flour for the crust.

Q: When did you expand beyond pies?

Rachel: I was working for Octo Fishbar in Lowertown at the start of the pandemic and they closed down. And they let us use the kitchen space. I asked if I could just sell from there. That's how we started the business, just selling frozen croissants. And then people kept ordering, so we kept having to bake.

Yoji: We were delivering these things in our car twice a week and it just kind of grew from there.

Q: And then you found this space?

Yoji: Correct.

Q: And did you put in the walk-up window right away?

Yoji: No, the window is a very new addition. We're still predominantly a wholesale bakery. We deliver various breakfast pastries to different coffee shops and restaurants around town every day. The retail part of it still remains a smaller share of the business. As far as the window is concerned, we'd been planning on doing that for over two years [laughs]. But literally it took 18 months from the time we started talking to the contractor to the time we were actually done with it.

Q: Was it the contractor, or city issues?

Yoji: All of the above. It was like limitations with the building itself. There were issues with the city.

Q: Give me an example.

Rachel: Our contractor pulled a permit, had the window design and all of the materials ready to go, and then we found out right before we were about to start that it needed to be [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliant. And the city didn't communicate that and tell them it was necessary the first time around, but the second time around we were told it had to be.

Q: When did you open the window?

Yoji: About two months ago.

Q: Is it open for walk-up, or do I need to call?

Yoji: It is open for walk-up. We are currently only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. From 8 a.m. until 2. We usually have the vast majority of our breakfast pastries available for sale. And we usually have maybe three or four different kinds of pie for sale by the slice. But we do still recommend that if people want to buy whole pies, they order ahead using our website.

Q: Which pie makes the most magic?

Yoji: On our menu right now, I really like our mulled wine cranberry pie. Because it still kind of has that festive feel to it, the warm spice flavor comes through. But the tartness of the cranberries makes that less overbearing. And there is more crust on that pie than there is on a lot of our other pies. We're just really proud of our pie crusts.

Q: How long before you add a couple bistro tables and a coffee bar?

Rachel: In our space, we can't. Kopplin's Coffee is next door. It's written in our lease that we can't do coffee as long as Kopplin's is in business.

Q: Do you guys work cooperatively?

Yoji: We talk. We kind of know what each other is doing. Our operating hours are similar for that reason. The hours that they're open, we're open. People can go to the Kopplin's window and get their coffee, and then walk right next door.

We don't have a lot of space to work with. If we tried to create a sort of walk-in bakery atmosphere, we would be able to have a place where people could just sit and enjoy themselves. After the winter's done, we can start thinking about expanding our operating hours.