When Cooks of Crocus Hill moved to its current Grand Avenue location in the 1980s, it was a kitchen store, but it also had a deli and espresso bar.
“It was sort of ahead of its time,” said Marie Dwyer, co-owner of the space with Karl Benson. Apparently, at the time, customers weren’t quite sure what to do with the concept, so the owners at the time shelved the fresh foods and focused on the kitchen supplies.
But tastes and times have changed, and the community couldn’t be more excited about Bellecour Bakery (from chefs Gavin Kaysen and Diane Moua) moving into the store.
The concept, a bakery within a store, has been enormously popular at the Cooks location in the North Loop in Minneapolis, so the partners decided to bring it to St. Paul.
The grand opening is Aug. 12.
There will be pastries, including Moua’s social-media-famous crepe cake and croissants, as well as salads, quiche and sandwiches for lunch.
The team is also bringing back the gluten-free frangipane tart, which was popular at the now-shuttered Bellecour restaurant in Wayzata, as a St. Paul exclusive for the month of August.
“My parents are happy,” Kaysen said. “They were both born and raised in St. Paul, so they’re proud we’re coming here.”
It’s the first St. Paul venture for Kaysen.
If the North Loop partnership, born during the pandemic, is any indication, customers can expect long lines.
“When we first opened, the line went all the way to The Bachelor Farmer,” Kaysen said.
The partnership was the result of a friendship between Kaysen, Benson and Dwyer, who are always cooking up ideas — many of which never see the light of day. But when it became clear that Bellecour would not survive, they decided to make this one a reality.
“When the world ended, it was like, ‘Absolutely, we’re doing this,’” Kaysen said. “We got to save all these jobs and kept them baking.”
So now, bakers occupy the cooking school space during the day, and classes still take place in the evening. It’s a perfect, symbiotic relationship that keeps fans in crepe cake and croissants.
Moua, who left Spoon and Stable to concentrate on the bakery, said she “doesn’t like to get up in the middle of the night,” so has streamlined production so that her staff can start at 5 a.m., a relative luxury in the bakery world.
“It’s been great just to be able to concentrate on this,” Moua said. “We’ve figured out ways to do things more efficiently. It’s hard to find and maintain staff when you have to get up at 2 or 3 a.m.”
The partners couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to showcase Moua’s talent in the Saintly City.
“I like the whole thing because it’s so different,” Benson said. “There’s nothing like this. And the pandemic allowed us to have this conversation.”
Bellecour Bakery at Cooks St. Paul: 877 W. Grand Ave., St. Paul; cooksofcrocushill.com
