St. Louis Park's Honey and Rye expanding its 'bakehouse'

Honey and Rye Bakehouse, the 10-year-old St. Louis Park bakery that enriches its baked goods with premium local ingredients, is expanding.

The new venture, at 4615 Excelsior Blvd. in St. Louis Park, is called bakehouse, and will launch next spring to streamline the fulfillment of the bakery's growing wholesale orders. The original Honey and Rye remains down the street (4501 Excelsior Blvd., honey-and-rye.com).

"What we're really needing with our current operations is more production space," said Anne Andrus, Honey and Rye's owner and founder.

While that might mean more of the bakery's wildly popular morning buns and banana bread for everyone, the expanded footprint will also allow the business to return to offering baking classes for adults and children that can be booked out for birthday parties and other celebrations.

And, the freshly-painted pink building will have room for a small storefront with an entirely new line of sweet treats.

"We're tossing around a lot of different ideas, but we haven't totally settled on exactly what that's going to look like," Andrus said. Liege waffles, ice cream cookie sandwiches and cereal-marshmallow treats are all on the table. "Something that's a little more fun, a little more exciting, but still within our wheelhouse."

Founded in 2013, Honey and Rye Bakehouse made its mark through partnerships with local vendors for high-quality ingredients, such as Hope Creamery butter and Ames Farm honey. "That will remain to be a focus for us," Andrus said. "I mean, we might be bringing in more marshmallows or something."

The rapid growth in wholesale business came as a surprise to Andrus.

"It's funny, because it was relatively limited and not something we were super looking to grow," she said. "But we've picked up a few accounts here and there and we were like, oh my gosh, we have a wholesale program."

FGRMNT Coffee was one of Honey and Rye's early accounts. You can also find some of Honey and Rye's more popular items at Corner Coffee locations, and the breads at Lowry Hill Meats. Last year, Honey and Rye opened the small "Le Cafe" counter in the north Minneapolis headquarters of Alliance Française.

You could call the expansion a pandemic silver lining.

"It really was hard, obviously, across the board. It was rough," Andrus said. "But somehow, by powering our way through, I feel like we came out so much stronger on the other side. I just feel like our customers doubled down on us."