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We would like to share with you this newsletter from our friends & Boston Bakes for Breast Cancer participant at Flour Bakery!

Flour Bakery + Cafe Newsletter

Winter 2011

1. Happy new year

2. Flour3

3. Cookbook

4. Manager Shout Out

5. Cookie swap/ Red Velvet swap

6. Specials

7. Keep in touch

1. Happy new year
Happy 2011! I knew that this next newsletter would be a bit late in coming (see Spring/Summer newsletter heading!) and I’m so happy to finally be able to share the latest with you. It’s been a very busy time at Flour and we’ve all been working hard to make Flour better for you and for us. We start off this year with a resolution that we think everyone will agree with: Stop and savor. We do this with our food and pastry every day to ensure that we’re making the best of everything for our customers. We hope to apply this approach to everything else we do in life, as much as we can. Stop, take a moment, savor the day, the conversation, the music, the meal, the company around you. Who knows what tomorrow will bring so enjoy every moment today as thoughtfully as you can.

2. Flour3
It’s been 6 months since we’ve opened our newest sibling, Flour3.  We’re on Mass Ave near MIT and Central Square. We are loving our new ‘hood. First, we have the BEST neighbors…Central Bottle. Nick and Liz and Mo and Dave and Stacy and David and the whole crew are just about the nicest people we’ve ever met. Maybe it’s all that cheese and wine? I’d be happy all the time if I drank wine all day long too. They have been wonderfully welcoming and we love them like family. In fact don’t be surprised if Flour4 is called Central Flour Bottle. Just kidding. (Too much wine for me.) We offer the same sandwich menu and pastries and our chef Aniceto comes up with his own daily soups and pizzas and dinner specials. Check out all of our Flour specials online here.

3. Cookbook
Finally, finally, finally the cookbook is out. And then, just like that, it sold out. Whaaaaaaat? We spent almost three years on this project and the first print run was intended to last at least 4-5 months and it sold out in 2? Now I know how all of those customers who come in for sold-out sticky buns feel – left out in the cold! Again just kidding. I’m completely floored by the response the Flour book received. Our publisher Chronicle can’t believe how quickly people snatched them up. THANK YOU to those of you who bought the book, are baking from the book, are emailing me pictures of the book (check some of them out here and follow me on twitter for daily updates as I get them). We are on second reprint as we speak and we’ll be getting a humongous shipment in about 2 weeks. When they come in you can also purchase them here: AmazonBarnes&NobleJessica’s Biscuit. If you want one signed and/or personalized feel free to come to any bakery or to Myers+Chang and I’ll be happy to do so.

The first printing of the book does have a few editorial changes which are listed on our homepage. So if you are attempting the sticky buns, the pop tarts, the granola, or the granola bars please do check out the quick changes. Thanks and happy baking!

4. Staff Shout Out
We have a few promotions to announce and I also just want to give a general shout-out to my stellar team for all they do to keep us trucking along. First let’s introduce the newest managers:

-At Flour on Washington Street, huge congrats to Liz who has been promoted to Head Baker under our Pastry Chef Brian. Liz worked as a front of house staff member a few years back and then went to New York to get her pastry degree. Love brought her back to Boston which was terrific for us as it also brought her back to Flour. She’s now very ably assisting Brian with the pastry department at Flour1. Go Liz!

-At Flour on Farnsworth Street, we are so excited to welcome back Paige who worked with us a while back before going off to Newton to help launch Pie, a pie bakery. We happened to send her a “we miss you” card about the same time she was thinking of moving on and the rest, as they say, is history. We couldn’t be luckier to have her as our co-Head Baker assisting Pastry Chef Sarah who runs a baking team of about a zillion. It’s not really a zillion but we do seem to have an ever growing team at F2. Welcome back Paige!

-At Flour on Mass Ave, we welcome and congratulate Lauren who helped us launch the opening of this Flour and who is now our assistant manager. She is assisting our Manager Elizabeth in guiding our staff to run the bakery smoothly and happily. Lauren comes to us from Chicago and we immediately tried our best to make Boston as welcoming as possible because we didn’t want her to leave. So far we’ve been pretty successful and we’re so thrilled to have her on our management team. Congrats Lauren!

If you haven’t meant our management team, please do check them out here.  They are a tremendous crew. Each person works so hard to ensure that his/her team is working together to fulfill our missions of making great food, giving warm friendly service, and having fun while doing so.

And certainly the reason why your pastry is so delicious, your morning greeting is so friendly, the bakery is ever so welcoming is that we have the most incredible staff members ever. I’m struck every day by the commitment and drive each person shows when he or she comes to work. Flour is not just a workplace. It’s a feeling of community and family that we all foster together so that we can offer you the customer the best experience possible. And we do it because we have the best staff possible. Thank you to every single one of them!

5. Cookie swap/Red Velvet swap
Christopher and I went to Maine in December to attend a cookie swap/book signing event hosted by Rabelais Bookstore (if you’re ever in Portland you must go check them out). It was the most fun ever! So much so that we decided to have one back here in Boston. The Sunday before Christmas we hosted a cookie swap with a $15 admission fee that went entirely to the Pine Street Inn. We let people know of the swap through Twitter (so you see, there *is* a reason to follow me on Twitter!) and we got about 30 people. We had ginger lemon sandwich cookies, almond tea cookies, spiced shortbread, chocolate chunk cookies, rum balls…the list was endless (well, actually about 30 long). Everyone had a blast! And Flour matched the money raised and we were able to donate almost $1K to Pine Street. Win-win!

Swapping seems to be in the air because we were approached by Christine Liu of Citysearch to host a Red Velvet Swap event to benefit Lovin’ Spoonfuls. What fun! We will be hosting this at our Farnsworth Street location- please email christine@howaboutwe.com for tickets and information.

6. Specials
Something that really makes Flour special is that we have the most amaaaaaaazing chefs. Each location has its own chef who works hard to make delicious soups, quiches, pizzas, stuffed breads, and dinner specials each day. Check them out daily on our website and/or get onto our mailing list to be sent a weekly email with our rotating dinner specials. We know that so many of you love to come here for lunch once, twice, five times a week and we couldn’t be more grateful. To make lunch even more fabulous for you, each chef has committed to offering a lunch special each week. It might be a chicken burger or a hot lunch or a new sandwich. Whatever it is, you know it will be scrumptious. Thanks to Chef Corey, Jeff, and Aniceto for creating these new dishes for us and let us know what you think. We are also running a super special donut on Thursday and Friday afternoons at our Ft. Point location. Wait for it…Peanut Butter and Jelly Donuts!!! You won’t want to miss out on these!

7. Keep in touch
There’s nothing we love more than hearing from our customers! Every email, letter, phone call is discussed with all of our managers and our staff to help us improve our food and our service. When we get compliments we post them for all to see and share; when we get issues and complaints, we address them immediately and try to figure out where we went wrong and what we can do going forward. We are always on the look-out for ways we can make Flour even better; your communications with us help us get there. So email/write/call! Our email addresses are joanne@flourbakery.comaaron@flourbakery.comnicole@flourbakery.com and info@flourbakery.com to get to all three of us in one go. Thanks so much for supporting us and allowing us to continue to grow and bring Flour love to as many people as we can.

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