Swiss Bakery opens on Basin Street in Ephrata
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Tom Baur turns loaves of Zopf Thursday morning as he prepares to open Baur Bakery on Basin Street today.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Baur Bakery employee Michael Viglione spreads an egg glaze on rolls Thursday morning as the bakery prepares to open today.
EPHRATA — Tom and Ansh Baur decided to open a bakery in Ephrata because it was the friendliest town they found in Washington.
And because it was where they found themselves when their long journey came to an end.
“It was as far as we could afford when we got off the train,” Tom Baur, 29, said. “I’m not a fan of the water, and we had lots of that in Canada.”
“This was the mot welcoming town we encountered for opening this business,” his wife Ansh, 25, said. “It was a great welcome.”
“So,” she added as the smell of baking bread wafted from the oven, “We said, ‘Oh yeah, let’s try this.’”
The Swiss couple — he is from Thurgau, a small town northeast of Zurich, and she is from Obwalden, a small town east of the capital Berne — have spent the last two and a half years planning their new bakery and fighting with U.S. immigration to get their visas.
“It is a better choice than a restaurant,” Ansh, who is a trained chef, said. “There are no bakeries here, so we thought we’d try it.”
Painted on the bakery window is “A & T Bakery,” an older name that Ansh said they would have to repaint.
They aren’t planning on a celebration or a grand opening, Ansh said. They’re just opening their doors today, selling shortbread cookies, rolls, European-style pastries and pies, and a twisted sweet bread the Swiss call zopf.
They make everything there by hand with all natural ingredients.
In the beginning, Baur Bakery, located on 11 Basin St. in Ephrata, just two doors down from The Bookery, will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to noon Sunday.
And as befits a young couple that has wandered the world — even one with a 5-month old son Jacqimo, who babbles contentedly in a baby chair attached to a metal kitchen table — the Baurs said they “don’t like to make plans.”
But they’ve invested a lot in this business, from remodeling the space to buying all new equipment that gleams in the light.
“We’re going to start small and we will expand as we go,” she added. “If everything works out, we will expand.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.