Flour Bakery Rises in Harvard Square
Flour Bakery & Cafe in Harvard Square. / Photo provided
The fifth location of a beloved local bakery rises and shines this week in Harvard Square. The newest Flour Bakery & Café opens Tuesday, November 1, at 6:30 a.m.
The bright space will look familiar to fans of Flour, with cool-colored tiles to complement the blue-and-yellow logo, a handwritten menu on the wall, and a glassed-in counter displaying an impressive array of sweet and savory scones, cookies, croissants, kouign-amann, sticky buns, and other Flour favorites.
It debuts with Flour’s full menu of pastries, cakes, and tarts, plus lunch items like sandwiches, salads, and soups, and it will also open with this year’s holiday menu and online ordering. Sous chef Orlando Hercules is overseeing the daily menu, which will eventually include rotating specials.
Currently, the Harvard Square team is perfecting a red velvet cupcake as a Harvard-only treat. The largest cake James Beard Award-winning Flour proprietor and Harvard alumna Joanne Chang ever made was such a crimson cake to celebrate the university’s 375th anniversary, and the individually sized portion is a fun way to say hello to the Square, she says.
The Harvard location is part of a broader Flour expansion, with a Cambridgeport takeout store on track for a December opening and a café coming to Dalton Street in Back Bay this February. Flour first opened in the South End in 2000 and moved into its first commissary kitchen in summer 2015. One of the reasons for the steady growth is to give employees a track to expand their career opportunities, Chang has said. Indeed, Hercules, the Harvard Square sous chef, has been with Flour for a decade.
Formerly a Chili’s, Flour is on the ground floor of a Harvard University building near the MBTA busway. The 2,300-square foot café has about 44 seats at bistro tables and a counter overlooking Mount Auburn Street. Flour will be open weekdays from 6:30 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday hours (8 a.m.-5 p.m.) begin November 20.
114 Mount Auburn St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, 617-714-3205, flourbakery.com.
