Joanne Chang and Christopher Myers Have a Kendall Square Spot in the Works

Joanne Chang photo by Kristin Teig. / Photo provided for “Five Tips for Low Sugar Baking from Chef Joanne Chang“

In a profile piece on Joanne Chang published this week, the Boston Globe learned the baker and restaurateur has two new projects in the works: She is scouting out locations for a fifth Flour Bakery + Café, and she and husband Christopher Myers, co-owners of Myers + Chang, are “in talks to open a second restaurant … on the Novartis research campus just outside Kendall Square.”

While Chang was preparing to open the fourth Flour in Back Bay in 2012, she told Boston magazine that a fifth bakery wasn’t her priority. “If there happens to be another location at some point in the future, that works for our management team and for me, I am certainly not going to rule it out. But it’s not a goal,” she said.

In yesterday’s Globe piece, she said the forthcoming location could be somewhere in Harvard Square. The current cafés are in the South End, Central Square in Cambridge, Back Bay, and Fort Point, and Chang’s preferred mode of transportation is bicycle. “I can’t imagine a Flour I couldn’t get to all the time,” she told the Globe.

Flour recently opened a commissary kitchen in Allston, which will help the company efficiently continue growing, the Globe reports. About 15 years after opening the first Flour in the South End, Chang said finally created a plan for the company about a year ago. “Until now, it was relatively seat-of-your-pants,” she told the Globe.

Among the reasons she has expanded the brand into different neighborhoods is to give her staff growth opportunities within Flour, and she also feels confident in her staff to focus on growing the brand. Chang said. The company “should be something that makes the lives of her customers and staff better,” according to the Globe.

Chang credits her husband with having the vision to grow both her brands: “If it weren’t for [Myers], I’d still be living above the first Flour. He’s the one who kind of saw the potential to do more—and encouraged me to think bigger.” In the 2012 interview with Boston, Chang said she and Myers believe their Asian restaurant is “an idea that would do well in other places.”

Boston magazine has reached out to Joanne Chang to learn more about her plans for the new venture with Myers.