roamingtaste.com
menu icon
subscribe
search icon

The resurgence of independent bakeries

You’re scrolling through Instagram and stumble upon an asthetically pleasing layout of pastries on a wooden bench top. Thoughts like ‘is this nearby?’ might run through your head. Sometimes it is, sometimes its thousands of miles away and you hope you’ll have a reason to visit that bakery whilst it’s still open!

Independent Bakeries are having a resurgence YT Cover

Table of Contents

Rise of Bakeries
Limited supply
Less fun money
Community and Third places
Lining up
Will travel for food
To conclude
Video essay

From London to New York to Brisbane to Athens and Dublin there is a resurgence happening in the bakery scene
people will line up to get the weekend specials of sandwiches, pastries or cake.

Hey, hi, hello, my name is Sylvie and I’m a baker who has been studying the science and fundamentals of baking, whilst also spending many many hours baking up cookies, cakes and other things for my website roamingtaste.com.

Though I run a baking website, I’m not afraid to travel for food and today we’re going to look into this resurgence of micro-bakeries. Why our social feeds are suddenly full of baked goods? The reasons behind this rise. And how people find joy even when we don’t have the funds for it.

Rise of bakeries

Growing up in a small beach village in New Zealand, every Tuesday was ‘town day’ and that almost always included a visit to our favorite bakery which was Swiss so offered different things than the standard New Zealand bakery. In case you don’t know, New Zealand has a thriving bakery scene - they are a quintessential part of life there. I’d often get a smoked fish and sweet potato pie and Mille-feuille (meel-fuy) custard slice. Whilst the food was delicious, it wasn’t really about the food as that bakery visit was almost always one of the only times during town day where we weren’t running errands so it was a time to be savored.

Many of us spent time in bakeries or eating store bought pastries or cakes with our family growing up so there is a very real comfort in consuming flaky bakes. This was usually done over slower moments, time together and so there is an emotional connection between consuming baked goods and the feeling of comfort that it brings.

When we consider the passion that unfolded in homes throughout the world during those early days of the pandemic it becomes evident how much value we placed in the slow art of baking.

During those days, there came an understanding of the difficulty of creating some beloved bakes. From the article ‘Inside the British bakery boom’

The patience, expertise and even strength (some laminated doughs have over 50 layers of butter) mean attempting to make them at home is rarely going to yield good results.

We also spent a lot of time on screens, there was a week I watched a different Brad Pitt movie every day, but most screen time that would have been spent scrolling social media of the world happening right now outside our doors and what we could do once we could move about freely again.

All that scrolling though also meant putting off life for another day, and so once we could get out there again the fact the algorithm leans in harder to whatever we engage with we probably ended up with at least one food place that isn’t local in our feed that we determined had to be tried out.

August bakery London pastry selection

Limited supply

Bakeries are the place to be these days, there was even a rave at one recently (personally, I would love to go to a bakery rave), so unlike bakeries of old, the ones today understand the importance of creating a niche product whether it’s a speciality flavor that is always on the menu like a crispy honey toast or a limited edition weekend only special that if you don’t get there to try it, they’ll probably not make that item again.

So yes, whilst some places are having raves, others are simply creating one off product drops. The foundation of baked goods is still there and yes you can still find a plain croissant or pain au choclat on most menus, that isn’t what’s creating crowds of people to flock to these bakeries, whether it’s the across the city or across the world. They understand our palates have changed significantly from our parents or grandparents time and most people understand the value of spices or cuisine from cultures that aren’t our own. This is reflected in specials like a kimchi cheese danish or pain aux figues.

There is a dual purpose to creating limited edition baked goods for both the businesses and consumers. The businesses are balancing cash and ingredient flow whilst also managing food waste whilst consumer interests have an attention span like the length of time people own most pieces of clothing. By offering a changing menu the creators get to utilize products that are more affordable - strawberries in June cost much less than October, for example.

Invention is reimagining what is known to us traditionally, but still gives us the same comfort value whilst also being more trustworthy because these establishments are often small or independent bakeries using high value ingredients. They often support small businesses themselves whether it’s an independent flour miller or coffee supplier so we’re taping into a much more local community when we choose to eat their food.

In the article ‘Inside the bakery boom’ by Conde Nast Traveller the movement we see happening explains that

Baking is more popular than ever before, and nourishing our bodies with good quality bread and pastries feels like a small but precious necessity.

With each new week there seems another article on processed foods and how many of the supermarket aisles are filled with highly processed foods then our draw to bakeries is a sort of rebellion against what big corporations are doing to food. We’re saying that we care more about these premium products with our time, money and health, even if it’s a pastry over a salad.

Less fun money

With rising inflation, the cost of basics are increasing meaning if you could afford to go out for dinner a few times a month a few years ago that might not be something in the budget anymore, but you still need to have some form of joy and this is where bakeries are perfect.

A friend who survives on welfare after being forced into medical retirement mentioned recently that a cheese sandwich was the cheapest meal you could send your kids to school with for the last several decades. Yes it showed you didn't have much money, but you knew it would suffice even on a minimal budget
now butter and cheese have had such a swift rise in costs that it shows to a degree that sending your kids to school with those ingredients means you have some money.

Add the rising costs or already expensive trips away that means you're staying local more often than pre Covid days you want to take advantage of what is available in your neighborhood, city or within a couple hours from home. Traveling an hour is much shorter than traveling to an airport and standing in security lines, not counting the actual flight time to get somewhere.

In the article ‘How baked goods became the new streetwear for hungry Londoners’ from 2023 Rebecca Spaven co-owner of the famous Toad Bakery comments

I think bakeries fill a similar sort of gap, where if you can’t really afford to go to a restaurant, you can still participate in a very active food scene.

When basics become so expensive then we lean into ways to get out of the depression of ‘how do I afford this?’ To ‘I'm not having much fun food anymore so might as well use some of my free time to enjoy something I definitely couldn't make at home.’

In the article ‘10 best bakeries in the UK worth travelling for’ Milly Kenny-Ryder notes the link between our tightened budgets and the rise in queues ?

The cost-of-living crisis has intensified our obsession with fine hand-crafted ‘little luxuries’ – a treat that won’t break the bank, causing many to make pilgrimages to cult cafes to tick off the unique, creative bakes.

As humans, we’re kinda hard wired to find joy, to look for it, seek it out and eating brings us joy so it seems like an obvious trajectory for bakeries to be the place we go to when times are tough, particularly when budgets are tightened to a point where you're wondering whether you'll even be able to afford rent in a year.

In the article ‘Why do millennials love queueing at bakeries now?’ with the generational clickbait title, Thea Everett writes

It’s that pocket-sized, edible encouragement you need when times are hard and the power of your paycheck is shrinking.

As mentioned in the last chapter, whether we’re actively rebelling against larger food corporations when we support these independent businesses or not, we are more aware than ever of how great the food monopolies are with their shrinkflation tactics to swindle us out of more money with less products. So it’s of benefit to our local economies to seek out more independent businesses with the money we’re making. Even the marketing is likely completely in-house so those dreamy pictures that show up on your grid or videos of their products being whipped up is a more personal affair than the large marketing budgets these larger corporations have available.

Gosse, Laura Sylvia, 1881-1968; Grande patisserie, Place Nationale, Dieppe, France painting

Community and Third places

Some of the bakeries that now have physical spaces started out as bakers sharing their passion during lockdown. They might have given away some goods in exchange for a donation or gifted to local charities. They had community etched within the business before they purchased a commercial kitchen space.

Some of these bakeries were crowdfunded before they could open or most often funded by a few passionate bakers so our patronage helps sustain not just these businesses, but the farms or independent growers of the flour and produce they use and other smaller scale businesses who supply the butter in their pastries or milk in their coffees. I’m not sure about you but whether a bakery is crowdfunded or not, if they’re in my community then I have a vested interest in their survival, I will support when possible, or at the least share with friends where they should go when I’ve experienced how great their products are.

When you consider that going to a bakery is usually an activity you do with only a few people, a small family or a friend or two, in a similar way historically running is a sport of solitude. The fact both have seen a rise as a more community activity is not an accident. The amount of running clubs you can join now means you never have to run alone.

The google trend worldwide shows that while running club searches have decreased somewhat since August 2025, that number was still a third higher than the previous highest search rate in June 2024 so the trend reflects a wider change in that connection is essential to us humans and if we can’t find places to connect like our parents or grandparents did, we’ll work within the budgets we’ve got. A reason for this could also be the lack of expendable funds so essential money is going to running gear or bakery treats. There is also a probable link between the rise of pilates and bakeries but we also know there is a relation to matcha which is a video I would love to do, so let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

There has been a lot of conversation around the death of third spaces and though you wouldn't likely head out to your local bakery to spend several hours like traditional third spaces that existed before. The fact staff are inviting, the layout of glass cabinets, wooden bench tops and array of food are comforting and unlike restaurants you don't have a time limit means we feel welcome to spend leisure time there whether with our significant other on a Saturday, best friends on a Sunday or mom friends and kids on a Tuesday.

Even if you love to bake, when you consider the fact so many people live somewhere they're lucky to have space to fit a single friend who needs to stay. It can be difficult to create the same atmosphere in our tiny apartments which is another draw card for these inviting baked goods spaces in a way that likely wouldn't have been relevant even twenty years ago when new buildings gave people actual living space versus today's new builds.

Similarly like we’re hard wired to find joy despite difficult circumstances, we’re are also incredibly adaptable to new circumstances so the lack of traditional third spaces doesn’t mean we will settle at having nothing. We just create something else to suit our needs and adapt in ways that we have to and this also lends into the inexplicable rise we’re seeing in lining up and enjoying baked delights. There is so much more to say about the reinvention of Third Spaces, but this resurgence of bakeries is a real reflection of the changed landscape we see reflected in the places we meet and spend time with our friends and loved ones when outside the home.

Lining up

We live in a time where some people feel a sense of pride at always saying they’re busy. We’re all just so busy! Whether you take pride in being busy or not, the fact people will choose to spend their free time whether on the weekends or on holiday to stand in a queue with others for baked goods says something about resistance to the fast moving world we have kind of been pushed into. No matter how busy we are we have time to stand in a line with a bunch of strangers just to get our hands on something someone baked for us at 4am.

In the article ‘How baked goods became the new streetwear for hungry Londoners’ from 2023 Sam Wong is quoted

At first, I thought it was kind of weird. But now I’ll queue for over an hour. It’s kinda like being at a festival waiting for the best act to come on

Whether we chat to people in the line or not, there is a camaraderie in choosing to spend some precious time waiting to buy some lovingly crafted cinnamon buns or loaves of bread. As we stand there we also experience the excitement of expectation, something to look forward to
something to take the edge off the mundane realities or stresses of life. The saying ‘good things come to those who wait’ works particularly well when we’re looking at biting into a delicious sandwich or layers of flaky pastry at the end of the wait.

Something magical also happens if we stand in line longer than a few minutes, you might find yourself bored of scrolling and remove the glazing eyes from a screen and actually look at people around you. People watch and this activity almost as old as time is a way for us to connect with others, whether we interact with them or not, we see them. We pay attention to them. Some might judge. To each their own. Others might make up conversations the people around them are having or try to define how they know each other. Is it a first date? What do you think their dog is called? What are their kids names? It helps us connect with the people we’re with in an innocent way. Have conversations we might not have as much anymore because we spend too much time on screens during regular hours.

Fat and Flour, LA bakery display

Will travel for food

If you’re someone who is planning a trip and adding somewhere specifically to eat as an essential stop or even arranging a stay in a place because of food, you are not alone! With the algorithm showing us more content from whatever we engage with we often end up with places in our feed that are either not local to us either regionally or nationally.

This actually happened to me, a beautiful close up of some delicious tart appeared and I clicked into the profile and was kind of confused by the location of the bakery, but clicked ‘follow’ thinking it was kind of local to where I live. A month or two after repeatedly liking the photos of this place I typed it into Google and discovered they’re located in Brisbane, Australia.

Now for the record, I’ve been to Australia twice in my life before this and once to Brisbane, though, ironically my brother lives on the outskirts of Brisbane the likelihood of me getting there was slim to none in the near future. I recommended my brother visit this place and then by sheer chance at very very short notice due to some family events I ended up going there in August last year. Due to the bakery’s opening hours we had to plan our whole day around going to this place, but it was worth it
even standing in the line.

This is not the first time I’ve traveled for food and on that occasion I didn’t have a lot of control over the events taking place. So going was a bright moment in a rather stressful time. I once also booked my dad and I to stay in a small town in Iceland just to eat fish stew with the drive from Reykjavik taking 8 hours instead of the standard 5 thanks to my navigation skills not being on point that day; and another time I traveled to Amsterdam specifically to go to Winkel 43 for what is probably the best Apple Pie on earth.

There is something to be said for traveling for food. We don’t always remember seeing the famous landmarks unless the weather is particularly bad or even our accommodation unless it’s particularly different from the standard like the time my friend and I felt like we needed a rope to scale the steep stairs in Amsterdam.

But eating something, those moments where I dug a fork into Apple Pie in Amsterdam, those stick around in our brains. They create new comfort as we go back to regular life. I don’t remember a huge amount of the day surrounding that apple pie, but I remember the spring sunshine and sitting near the canal as I stared down at the pile of whipped cream beside a slice of this pie.

Visiting these places, also helps create a different type of pilgrimage. We aren’t just going to see landmarks or take part in tours, but we get to have a feel of a community whose life is in this place. It creates a connection deeper than simply taking a bunch of selfies and ticking a place off a list.

To conclude

The rise of micro bakeries, independently owned homes for baked goods clearly has a pull on us in this very stressful and overwhelming world. They mark a place of nostalgia, simpler times, of sheer joy. We might seek them out to get to know the city we live in better. Or go specifically to that place on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Scotland. The likelihood is we all have different reasons for going, but we all appreciate good food.

If someone we want to spend time with suggests we go eat somewhere we will go with them. We’ll appreciate that time together, catching up over life and being present whilst standing in line inching closer to a display of flaky pastries, chewy cookies and golden loaves of bread. We’ll be grateful to have a few bucks to spend on some small piece of joy with this person we value we just don’t see enough.

In the Guardian article ‘The extraordinary rise of bakery tourism’

Whether it’s on your street or halfway across the country, that moment when you step outside a bakery, open your brown paper bag and sample the goods inside is always a promising start to the day.

As we bite into those goods, likely ending up with crumbs on us or in our hair we’ll be grateful for the hard work that went into those delights and look forward to going back or going to a new place that’s just popped up on our feeds and when we support it we know we’re engaging with a local community and resisting the busyness of life even it’s just long enough to get to the end of the line and order one of their weekend specials.

If you enjoyed this, please like share and subscribe as that helps me grow so more people can see this content. I’m also open to different topics, if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much and share your thoughts below bakeries you’ve been to that were great and where you are and do let me know what you’d like to see!

In the meantime, thanks so much for watching, see you in the next one. Ka kite an? and tschĂŒss

Video essay

TIME STAMPS

  • Intro: 0:00
  • Rise of bakeries: 1:47
  • Limited Supply: 4:06
  • Less fun money: 7:11
  • Community and Third places: 12:52
  • Lining Up: 16:50
  • Will travel for food: 19:13
  • To conclude: 22:09

SOURCES:

Bakeries:

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

×