Sometime in the near future, Joy Road Catering, the bakery and catering business that's been part of the Penticton landscape since 2005 and was purchased 14 years later by affable Vancouver catering veterans Olivia Fobert and Brett Turner, will debut its adventurous Joy Road Bakeshop.
Architecturally engaging, the two-storey venue will house a production facility, a retail outlet, a café, and, on the top floor, a lavish bed and breakfast. If all goes according to plan, it'll be magnificent.
But that's still a ways down the road. And Fobert and Turner just couldn’t see waiting that long to launch a public storefront/café. So in January they found a suitable space and got to work.
And today, at 8 am, they officially opened the doors. It's called the Joy Road Pop Up Bakeshop, and it's delightful.
Situated at 557 Main St., where for four years Craft Corner Kitchen served up its unique blend of events, arts and food before its 2020 closure, the Pop Up Bakeshop is far more substantial and seemingly far more entrenched than its "pop up" designation implies.
PentictonNow dropped by the new enterprise just a day before its opening, and were immediately struck by how different the place looks from its Craft Corner days.
Bright and sunny, with an old world charm hidden within its sophisticated guise and clean white walls, it's clearly the product of a ton of planning and hard labour.
"A bakeshop was a natural evolution for Joy Road," said Fobert, currently eight months pregnant with the couple's second child but admirably busying herself like she wasn't.
"We always had a farmer's market stand, so to have an actual physical location was something we wanted to do when we bought Joy Road."
According to Fobert, this pop up will likely be around longer than most.
"You'll always be able to find a Joy Road Bakeshop somewhere, so this will exist until the other building is ready," she said. "Fingers crossed that we have the new building within a year, but we do have an ongoing arrangement here until the new building is ready."
We then hit hubby Brett Turner with the big question: What can patrons expect at something called a pop up bakeshop?
And he ran with it.
"First and foremost, we're a bakeshop," he said. "So we bake everything here, on premises. So our country sourdough loaf, our baguettes, our seedy sourdough. We have a full bread-baking program.
"We also have a dozen pastries we bake in house. We're laminating our own dough -- butter and dough layered into each other. Croissant type dough.
"And we have sandwiches on our own bread. The ingredients are all local. We buy directly from farmers all summer long, so the sandwich lineup will change often depending on what we're getting at the time. What comes out of the ground is what we're serving."
The shop also features a marketplace of sorts -- indeed, it’s the first thing you see when you walk in the door -- with a wide assortment of tasty treats, preserves and ingredients from local artisans and farmers, and from Joy Road itself. We spotted stuff like raw honey, cabernet wine vinegar and tomato jam.
Customers can grab and go of course, but they can also sit down and leisurely enjoy their goodies on the expansive patio.
"We have a large courtyard here," said Turner. "One of the reasons we wanted this space was in the event they shut down indoor dining, which they ended up doing."
Even with reduced pandemic occupancy, the patio will house 15 tables and 40 seats, making it one of the more spacious outdoor dining facilities in the neighbourhood.
And soon, it’ll be licensed.
"Our liquor license is on the way," said Turner. "Likely a couple of weeks. We'll have beer, wine and cider. We'll be regularly rotating our local wines, and you can even buy a bottle to go under the new program with the province. But you can also come and have lunch and a charcuterie board in the afternoon."
The patio will also become the temporary home of the celebrated Joy Road Alfresco Dining Series.
"We'll be holding them here until we're once again allowed to hold them elsewhere," said Turner, alluding to current government social gathering restrictions.
As for the Joy Road Bakeshop at 227 Winnipeg, first announced in December of 2020, Turner admitted there's been some "challenges" along the way.
"The project finally went out for bid three weeks ago," he said. "We had to re-think the building. Obviously, construction costs are through the roof right now on wood and lumber, so we re-engineered to have concrete walls.
"And multiple people at our engineering firm got COVID. But now it's out for bid and we're having five contractors bidding on it. So we're hoping to pick one this week and get going by June."
Turner roughly estimates 12 months to completion.
But in the interim, the Pop Up Bakeshop is open and ready to serve. Hours are 8 am to 4 pm Wednesday to Sunday. For more info, head here. The page will be updated shortly.
