In so many ways, Savannah is really a big town more than it is a small city. No place is too far away, and wherever we go, we see friends or familiar faces, which is nice. That also means that good news travels fast, bad news even faster, and gossip is a brushfire.
For more than a year, cars cruised over the Turner Creek Bridge, drivers and passengers stealing glances at the expansive restaurant property that lay fallow following the permanent closure of Paula Deen’s Creek House in January of 2023.
Cue the collective hope, wonder, and speculation. After all, in an area surrounded by water, there is an inexplicable drought of waterfront dining in the 314-blank-blank.
On March 19, Katie Bryant and Mark Ekstrom put eager and earnest conjecture to rest, posting on the socials that Auspicious Baking Co. had, indeed, embarked on their homegrown enterprise’s next chapter with the purchase of the 104 Bryan Woods Road property.
“We actually went under contract at the beginning of November last year, the day before Mark’s birthday,” Bryant said. “I remember we did our closing paperwork on my birthday in March.”
Going in on a full-scale restaurant is the double-birthday present to beat all.
“It was a long stint to get to that finish line, but we were pretty happy to make that happen,” she added, humbly not acknowledging that faithful fans of their scratch-made breads, confections, croissants, and pastries are over the moon pie.
“We hope to be able to start running holiday pre-orders over there in November, if everything falls into place,” Ekstrom shared. “We certainly know we will be needing the refrigeration space.”
True that. Islands Expressway is going to need another lane.
TOO GOOD TO PASS UP
You know when you saunter into the supermarket to buy four things and you stumble out pushing a full cart and holding a receipt as long as your arm? Well …
“This wasn’t our intention when we started shopping two years ago,” Bryant confessed, recounting how the upcoming relocation all came about.
“I think we were originally just looking to find ourselves a large production facility. The restaurant came with that,” she said. “It was an added bonus.”
When Auspicious Bakery Co. was born back in 2017, the original space on Skidaway Road, a block up from DeRenne, was maybe 800 square feet and quickly became the constant site of the most euphoric customer queue in Savannah.
The 2020 move to Sandfly Village more than doubled their combined production and retail foodprint, after which wholesale operations bloomed and counter sales continued to prove denizens’ adoration of the brand.
Amending the adage, bake a better loaf of bread, and the city will stand in line at whatever door you open.
“Our space here in Sandfly is amazing. Our community is extremely supportive,” said Bryant. “It’s just been very limiting as far as the square footage for us to continue to grow our team and to grow some of what we wanted to offer.”
Limited no longer: the soon-to-be Auspicious Baking Co. HQ amounts to roughly 10,000 square feet that will house a sit-down dine-in restaurant and takeaway retail plus a much-needed spacious production facility.
After the pending move was made public, some have asked Bryant and Ekstrom with genuine care and concern how they are expecting to fill out so many square feet, but the couple is well aware of how space is eaten up in a bakery, especially an outfit with both wholesale and retail arms.
Bryant explained, “Once you get 30 people into one space, it gets very tight very fast. Just being able to break our team down into set kitchens, delegated with the specialized equipment for their departments, can make our business super-efficient.”
“Our team is going to have the best set-up,” she added. “We’ve been blessed to be able to make this space perfect for us.”
“It’s a big commitment for us to sign onto purchasing a property that size,” Bryant admitted but quickly said that the purchase of whatever would be the next property really needed to be able to sustain them through their five-to-ten-year goals.
“I can say that this was earlier than we had anticipated for ourselves but definitely a great opportunity we didn’t want to sleep on,” she said.
ADDING MORE TO THEIR PLATES
“This was always at the back of our minds as far as things we would love to get ourselves involved in,” Bryant said. “Breakfast is the tip of the iceberg as far as what we enjoy doing with hospitality.”
Without a doubt, she and Ekstrom possess baked-good brilliance, but only in these past 10 years has that one facet of the food industry been their focus. Her first 10 years were spent in fine dining, and they both amassed significant experience in restaurants through their formative careers.
Auspicious Baking Co.’s third home will allow them to stretch their culinary wings even wider, bringing “something elevated” to that side of the community while “being able to showcase more of our skills and more of what we enjoy in the hospitality industry has always appealed to us,” said Bryant.“We’re going to continue to do what we do best and focus on the breakfast and lunch crowd,” she said of the basic concept. “I really want to be able to provide an exceptional brunch experience for the people going out that way.”
“We know it’s a huge undertaking, but we’re very confident that staging the different services we want to do is going to give us the opportunity to grow our team there and continue to grow our business with the community.”
HITTING THE HALFWAY MARK
As driversby on US-80 East saw, deconstruction and demolition started three days after the public announcement, and by mid-July, reconstruction and build-out had begun.
“That felt like it took forever,” Bryant said of the demo and exploration phases. “We were holding our breath the entire time because you just never know what you’re getting into when you’re purchasing a restaurant that’s been in three different sets of hands.”
Then again, moving into a grandfathered property by its zoning was the downright way to go, as opposed to trying to build something brand-new to code right on the river.
What was first Snapper’s, a single-room five-table seafood resto, saw its second life start in 2004 as Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House, named for Paula Deen’s brother, From 2017 to 2023, Deen’s own name was one the marquee of the Creek House, making Bryant and Ekstrom the property’s fourth owner.
With each subsequent occupant, addition after addition had been made to the original building, which eventually featured three dining rooms that will be downsized: two are being turned into “temperature-controlled production areas,” per Bryant, while the main waterview dining room will remain plus the outdoor deck.
“We just started to see drywall and all the mudding going up this week,” she said. “We’re picking paint for the interior. We’re at the exciting part right now.”
Once the riverside restaurant is ready to go, the Sandfly branch will remain primarily a retail shop. Bryant and Ekstrom expect to keep a small oven there for cookies, scones, and some of the croissants, but wholesale wares will be wholly produced on Whitemarsh Island.
“The community has been overwhelmingly supportive,” Bryant said. “This is where we got our roots in Savannah and with this community. Mark and I live out this way. We have no intention of pulling our retail out of Sandfly.”
If anything, customers will be able to see an expansion of services at the current location, including a full-service coffee bar.
Bryant said that she is “pretty married” to her proposed name for the restaurant, and “Mark is onboard.” As yet, no signage has been ordered, and for now, they are understandably keeping mum on the marquee moniker, at least until the opening is imminent.
Good. That gives us all a few months to gossip about what it might be.
Auspicious Baking Co. (7360 Skidaway Road in the Shops at Sandfly) is open Wednesday through Sunday (7 a.m. to 3 p.m.).
