In July 1990, Marvelous Market opened and was a nearly instant success. Just nine months later Uptown Bakers opened in Cleveland Park and not too long after that Baker’s Place joined us and began to open stores very quickly. Then Marvelous Market’s first baker left and opened Firehook in Alexandria. For a moment it appeared […]

Back in the ‘90s I knew someone who owned a delicatessen on the east side of Manhattan. He was very successful, his store always crowded as food places can be in New York, Paris, and San Francisco. My friend had what seemed to me then a novel way of pricing his foods. He always made […]

My mother died this week a few months before her 105th birthday.  That she was so old suggests who she was. We have said for years that what kept her alive was overwhelming cheeriness and her determination to live; but others, most people, frequently said to me, “You must have great genes.” And indeed my […]

If I wanted to do so, I could go every few months to a food show. These are expos held in municipal convention centers, generally in New York or Chicago or San Francisco. They can be very big like the show put on each May by the National Restaurant Association. Or they can be specialized […]

I don’t permit tipping at Bread Furst and now am wondering whether my opposition to it can be justified. For me this is an aesthetic issue and I take my lesson from what I have experienced as a customer: I order at the counter from a young woman in torn jeans and a wrinkled and […]

I proposed recently to the owners of Politics and Prose that we collaborate in selling a list of my favorite cookbooks. For any who don’t know, Politics and Prose, a half-mile from Bread Furst and 30 years old, is one of the most successful independent bookstores in America. It is a Washington monument left by […]

Mark Kuller died today. We knew he would but what a loss.  Mark was the creator/owner of Proof, Estadio, and Doi Moi, three wonderful Washington restaurants. He was a giant of a man, six feet six. When he hugged me my head met his chest. But height was not the only way in which he […]

My son, Francois, the historian (whose new book, When the United States Spoke French is available at Politics and Prose bookstore – shameless son-promotion – says, “It was a noble attempt but, like Scottish independence, defeat must be conceded.” I wanted particularly to hear his view as it was his idea to put breakfast out […]

We are doing all that we can think of doing, within the limits imposed by our young age and modest experience, to make Bread Furst a place with which the neighborhood can be pleased. We have been embraced far more quickly and tightly than I expected. Since we opened in May, customers have said to […]

A customer accosted me on the stairs a couple of weeks ago. “Why do you put butter on everything,” she asked. “What do you mean,” I asked her. “The sandwiches,” she said, “You put butter on the sandwiches.” “We put it on the ham and cheese. We don’t put it on the grilled vegetable sandwich. […]