Our story
Every loaf we sell descends from one jar of flour and water started in March 2014.
The starter
Agnes began in the back of a farm-share kitchen: stone-ground rye, well water, and the skins of orchard apples for company. She's named for Nora's grandmother, who kept a starter through three moves and one flood and would have found a bakery named 'Larder' extremely sensible.
She has been fed twice a day, every day, since — through two locations, one oven rebuild, and a week in a cooler during the 2021 power outage that nobody here will discuss calmly. A dried backup lives in a labeled tin at each location, which is the closest thing we have to an insurance policy.
Sourdough this old doesn't make bread faster or easier. It makes it slower — eighteen hours from mix to oven — and that slowness is most of what you taste.
The short version
Agnes is started — rye flour, well water, apple skins, and optimism.
A folding table at the farmers market. Forty loaves, gone by nine.
The Corner opens on Geddes Lane with one deck oven and no seating.
The power outage. Agnes survives a week in a cooler. We got a generator.
The Depot opens in the old freight depot — bread counter and workshop bench.
The wholesale program starts delivering to cafés before sunrise.
Two counters, eleven hundred loaves a week, the same jar of starter.
The people
Owner & head baker
Started Agnes in a farm-share kitchen in 2014, sold boules from a market stall for two summers, and signed the Geddes Lane lease when the stall's line got embarrassing. Still mixes the country dough herself most mornings.
Bread lead, night bakes
Runs the ovens from midnight to eight — the ryes, the miche, and the loading order are hers. Claims she can hear when a bake is done. Has not yet been wrong.
Pastry lead
Laminates every batch of croissant dough by hand and keeps the case's seasonal danish honest — if the fruit isn't from the market, it isn't in the pastry.
The Depot & wholesale
Opened the Depot counter in 2022 and now runs the wholesale routes — if your favorite café serves our country loaf, Tomás drove it there before sunrise.
Flour in, bread out
Our flour comes stone-ground from two small mills — Stonebriar Mill in Chelsea and Little Fork Grains up in Fenton (both fictional, like the rest of us). Whatever doesn't sell by close goes to the day-old rack at half price, and whatever outlasts the rack rides to the food-rescue kitchen on Liberty Street.
“Bread this slow can't be rushed, hidden, or faked — which is the whole point.”
— Nora Bell, owner & head baker of Larder Bakery
The pre-order book
Choose a pickup day, see exactly what's baking, and claim your loaves before the counter wakes up. Order by 4 pm the day before.