daily specials for 8/27 @ washington st. (please scroll down for our weekly dinner specials!)

soup

chilled avocado & cucumber soup (pints only, in our display case)

pizza

1) chicken, basil pesto, and fresh mozzarella

2) pepperoni, fontina, and scallions

quiche

1) smoked bacon and cheddar

2) roasted vegetables and ricotta

stuffed bread

turkey with spinach and artichoke cream cheese

washington st. dinner specials for the week of 8/20 to 8/24

chilled tomato and cucumber gazpacho 4.25/pint

roasted summer vegetable lasagna with three cheeses 7.95

spicy shrimp and chorizo quesadillas with tomato salsa, guacamole, and sour cream 8.95

organic mesclun greens, fresh tomatoes, cucumber, and red onion with balsamic vinaigrette and a side of hummus 4.95

spring 2007 newsletter

Spring 2007 Newsletter
I. Spring already?
II. Flour2!
III. New website
IV. New look
V. Charity events
VI. Suggestions

I. Spring already?
As I'm writing this I'm realizing that the last newsletter we sent out was way back in September. Where did the winter go??

With the longer days and milder temps come a few changes that always make our customers and our staff happier. First, as many of you may already have noticed, we have set up our outdoor patio area! The addition of about 15 new seats means that there's more room for all of you to spread out and the dining room won't feel quite so tight all the time. Second, starting April 22nd, we will also switch to our Sunday Summer hours - we typically close at 3pm on Sundays but for the summer we stay open till 5pm. We can't wait!

II. Flour2!
We affectionately call our new sibling f2 but please know that it's actually more like a twin. We've done everything we can to make sure that the food and service are the same at our new location as the original. Flour Bakery + Café in Fort Point Channel opened late January with a bang and we've been thrilled with the response. Thanks to all of you who have stopped in to say hello - the folks from f1 who transferred over always get a huge kick out of seeing familiar faces among the new customers. And in true Flour fashion, the customers at f2 have become as loyal and welcoming as those at f1. We have our new regulars who stop in several times a day and whose drinks and sandwich preferences we have down to the letter.

Flour at Fort Point is located at 12 Farnsworth Street behind the Children's museum off of Congress Street. Our hours are 7am-7pm Monday - Friday, 8am-6pm Saturday, and starting on April 8 we will open Sundays from 9am-3pm. The menu is the same although the specials are different - each location's chef creates his own daily specials based on what he has in-house. We are not offering dinner specials at the new location either...yet. We'll keep you posted about when that will change.

III. New website
With the opening of our second location we realized that our website could use a little sprucing up, especially now that it is representing two Flours. We've enlisted the expertise of our very regular customer and friend, Daren Bascome, who owns Proverb in the South End, to help us create a new presence on the web. Daren's been busily putting together ideas and images and we're well on our way to a new look online. We hope that our new site will be easier to navigate, that it will hold more information such as staff bios and recipes, and that it will be a closer representation of who we are with more design elements and stories included. It will debut in the next month or so - please check it out and let us know what you think!

IV. New look
So not only did we decide we needed a new look on the web, we also decided we needed to jazz up our Washington Street location, especially since f2 just opened with glistening new tables, chairs, and counters. Studio FKIA, an amazing design-and-build woodworking outfit in South Boston, helped create the clean and slick new look at f2. They are working on new counters and other areas for f1 which will make the bakery shine. We have also updated our chairs - finally - to a more modern style (the old ones were donated to a local church through a friend of our chef) and we are getting new artwork as well.
V. Charity events
We are taking part in a number of charity events over the next few weeks and we'd love to see you there!

1. SOS anniversary event on April 23 at Tremont 647: Andy Husbands spearheads this fundraising effort for SOS (Share our Strength, a national hunger relief organization) and he's gathered an impressive roster of chefs to donate each course of this spectacular meal. Call up Tremont 647 at 617-266-4600 for more information. We are making our hazelnut-almond dacquoise with espresso buttercream and chocolate ganache.
2. NARAL 24th annual Chocolate Madness fundraiser on April 24 at the Cyclorama: This benefits reproductive rights for women and is an annual chocolate extravaganza! We will be making something rich and chocolatey and delicious. For more information email Pem Brown at pem@ProChoiceMass.org or call 617-556-8800 x14.
3. Rosie's Place gala on April 25 at Fenway Park: This event is a celebration of food, music and friends to benefit Rosie's Place here in the South End. For more information please visit www.rosiesplace.org. We will be designing a dessert course specially for this dinner.
4. Beyond Shelter 20th annual fundraising event on April 26 at the State Room: We've participated in this event since we've been open! It benefits Friend's of Boston's Homeless and it's a great time with lots of super restaurants taking part. We will be serving our milky way tartlettes. Please contact 617-534-2526 for more information.

VI. Suggestions please
We couldn't do what we do without the support and feedback from you, our customers. Please continue to let us know how we can be better! We are constantly pushing ourselves to offer even better service with even more delicious food in an even more delightful atmosphere. It's pretty amazing to us that we can do what we love day-in, day-out and that you all seem to love it as much as we do. Thanks to each of you for your patronage and please don't hesitate to send us an email or give us a call or talk to us with your suggestions.

september 2006 newsletter

I. Goodbye Summer!

II. Happy Anniversary Flour

III. Recipe Sharing

IV. New Items

VI. Donations made possible by YOU

VII. Daily and Dinner Specials now online

VIII. Flour2 update

I. Goodbye Summer!

It seems that we were just telling you that our outdoor patio is open...and now we are getting ready to shut it down. The City allows us to keep the seats outside until around mid-October. As long as the weather cooperates, we'll keep the chairs and tables out for as long as we can. In the meantime, we've stopped our Sunday Summer Hours and are now closing at 3pm, not 5pm. It seems that a lot of customers are still trying to come in the late afternoon on Sundays, so next year we'll keep our Sunday Summer Hours through September into October as well. Thanks for understanding!

II. Happy Anniversary Flour

We are 6! On September 26 we will celebrate our 6th anniversary and as is our tradition we will be handing out mini cupcakes to all customers. It's our way of thanking YOU, our fantastic customers, for coming to see us every day, every week, every month. We couldn’t have made it to six amazing years without all of your support and suggestions. Please come see us on our birthday and enjoy a treat on us!

III. Recipe Sharing

We get requests occasionally for various recipes and we thought you might enjoy a recipe here to do at home. If you have questions please don’t hesitate to email us at joanne@flourbakery.com. Here's a very popular item at the bakery that is pretty simple to replicate at home. Happy baking!

Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

1/2 pound of bread, preferably day-old, cubed

3 1/2 cups half and half

3 tablespoons cocoa

2 eggs

4 egg yolks

2/3 cups sugar

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3 bananas, sliced thin

1. Put bread in an oven-safe 9" x 13" baking pan

2. Heat half and half and cocoa until cocoa is dissolved

3. Whisk together eggs, yolks, and sugar

4. Whisk half and half into egg mixture and strain

5. Pour strained mix over bread and make sure bread is submerged

6. Cover and leave in refrigerator overnight

7. The next day, preheat your oven to 300 degrees

8. Sprinkle chocolate chips and bananas evenly over bread pudding

9. Cover lightly with foil and bake until custard has set, about 1 - 1.5 hours.

10. To test custard, poke a knife in the bread pudding and push it to the side; if liquid moves around the knife, continue baking.

11. Let bread pudding cool completely before cutting and serving. Yum!

IV. New Items

With the change in seasons comes a new array of items to tempt you! As the weather gets cooler we'll be re-introducing our bran muffin and our pumpkin muffin into the mix. At some point rhubarb and raspberries will fall out of season and we'll say goodbye to our rhubarb-raspberry pound cake. We've recently started a fantastic new pastry called Butter Breton Cake, or kouign-amman for those in the know. It's a souped-up croissant, essentially - butter, yeast and sugar folded and folded and folded together to make a scrumptious, flaky, butter treat. Our apricot almond bar pairs sliced almonds with tangy apricot jam and apricot halves all on a shortbread crust - delicious! We just started selling ice cream cookie sandwiches - two cookies with a vanilla bean ice cream in between. We'd love to hear what you think!

By customer request, mint oreos are in; peanut butter oreos are out. And for all of those who have been clamoring for butterscotch pudding and chocolate pudding and other custards, we are bringing each of them back one by one for guest appearances. We featured a milk chocolate crème brulee, then we re-introduced the butterscotch pudding, then chocolate pudding...what's next? Wait and see!

And as it gets cooler and cooler we'll bring back some more of our popular winter items such as craquelin and apple brioche. We'd love to hear of other ideas and treats you'd like to see here at Flour.

V. Donations

Every year we commemorate 9/11 by donating our sales for that day to two local organizations that are near to us both literally and emotionally, the South End Community Health Center and Project Place. This year we made out two checks of $2500 each to these two organizations and we couldn’t have done it without your support and patronage. Thank you!

VI. Daily and Dinner Specials

Just a reminder that we post our daily specials along with our weekly dinner specials online at www.flourbakery.com. Check them out and come on in!

VI. Flour2 Update

As we mentioned in the last newsletter, we are opening a second Flour in the winter, hopefully by the beginning of December. We are thrilled and excited to be able to bring Flour treats and smiles to another neighborhood. You'll see some familiar faces at the new place as we transfer a few people over to help us out. The location is Fort Point Channel behind the Children's Museum; the time frame is early December if all the stars are aligned. Please come see us at our new location and spread the word among your friends!

As always we invite comments and questions on our food, service, this newsletter, the color of the bathroom walls, anything and everything! We feel so lucky to be able to be doing what we love -- offer delicious food with warm welcoming service -- every day to our customers, and we'd love to hear how we can do better. Thank you for coming to see us!

may 2006 Newsletter

I. Warm Weather
II. July Closing
III. Employee News
IV. Flour2
V. Commonly Asked Questions

I. Warm weather is finally here!
And with the warm weather comes the unveiling of the outdoor patio, the commencement of our Sunday summer hours, and the introduction of new summer time items. Many of you have already enjoyed a cappuccino or grilled roast chicken sandwich out in our outdoor seating area; for those of you who haven't we invite you to spend some time people-watching and partaking in Flour treats a fresco. Our patio is open till 9pm during the weekdays, 6pm on Saturdays and 5pm on Sundays.

"Till 5pm on Sunday??" I can hear you say. Yes we are now open from 9am until 5pm on Sunday for the summer! And don't forget that we are also open until 9pm every weeknight with a take-out dinner special menu that changes weekly. Check them out online at http://www.flourbakery.com/ and click under "dinner specials."

We will be adding a new roster of summer items to go along with the warmer weather. As soon as berries and melons come in season, we'll feature fresh fruit cups each morning. We've already gotten a lot of enthusiastic feedback for our raspberry-rhubarb pound cakes - we'll keep these on until spring rhubarb becomes scarce and then we'll move onto some of the berries and stonefruits that come available during the summer. An apricot streusal bar is in the works as is an apricot cream cheese brioche. We've bid adieu to the apple honey buns but we'll bring them back in the fall. Corn muffins have replaced bran muffins and plum tarts will make an appearance when plums become plentiful. The summer is a really fun season for bakers, and we hope you'll enjoy the new products as much as we enjoy creating them.

II. July Closing
Every July we close for a short period to rest and renovate. This July we will be close starting Tuesday July 4 until Saturday July 8, reopening for business on Sunday July 9. We hope to make some minor changes to our appearance so let us know if you like the new look.

III. Employee News
We've got some great family news to report! Congratulations to Jim Morris on the birth of his son Michael James Morris. We've got pictures of little Mikey out front near the cash register if you want to see him.

And congratulations to Aaron to his upcoming nuptials in July to fiancee Melissa and to Michelle for her wedding to fiance Colin the following week. Whoowee!!

IV. Flour2
We swore it would never happen...Flour2 is on the way! We are wildly excited about bringing Flour food and friendliness to a whole new neighborhood - we'll be a few miles away in the Fort Point Channel area. For those of you not familiar with this area, you will be soon: the new ICA is opening up there this summer, the new convention center has been booked several years out, the Children's Museums is expanding their current location, several new hotels and shopping areas are being planned, along with a number of new residential areas with lofts and condos galore. We plan on offering much of the same menu there as we do here, and you'll see some familiar faces there as we transfer some people over to help us with the expansion. But don't worry: Flour will remain the same here - we'll always be dedicated to bringing you the best food and the friendliest service we can. We'll just be doing it in two places! We hope to open by the late summer or early fall of this year.

V. Commonly Asked Questions
A few newsletters back I answered a bunch of questions that we regularly get from customers and some people have asked that I reprint those answers. So here they are. And we'd love to hear from you as well - questions, suggestions, ideas, problems, anything. Let us know how we can continue to make your Flour experience as wonderful as we can! Email us here, drop us a note in our suggestion bin, or talk to me or a manager on your next visit. Hope to see you again soon and as always thank you for your patronage!

a. suggestion: can you make bagels?
Homemade bagels are delicious and personally they are one of my favorite things to eat. As with any offering, for us to make homemade bagels we would have to make and sell a certain number of them to justify the labor involved. And unfortunately that number is fairly high. That's why there are entire stores devoted to bagels -- you have to sell a LOT of bagels before you break even. So while we would love to offer bagels for our customers and we would love to experiment with making them, it would be difficult for us to include them in our menu unless we were willing to commit to making dozens and dozens of them. Right now we don't have the space or the staff to do so. We often suggest our country roll, raisin pecan roll or multigrain roll to those of you looking for bagels.

b. suggestion: why don’t you offer full sized cakes in the case?
We are committed to only offering the freshest of pastries and that includes our cakes. When we put cakes in the case for sale, sometimes customers buy them and sometimes they don’t. Then we are left with the problem of what to do with cakes that don’t sell. If we keep trying to sell it, it becomes at some point stale, old, and not up to snuff. If we throw it away, well that's not a great option either. So what we have decided is to ask our customers to order cakes in advance so they can be prepared specifically for you without compromising freshness. We do sell carrot cakes and dacquoise from the case on a regular basis, and on the weekends we make a point of making a chocolate cake or two for the last minute customer who is in need of a full cake.

c. suggestion: can you get another register to help the long lines?
We would LOVE another register. It bothers us as much as you, if not more, when we see a line that snakes through the dining room and outside. We love that our customers are so loyal to us but we feel your pain when you have to wait in a long line for your order! However, as always, it becomes a question of space. We physically have no space for another register. If we were to have another register, we would not have as much space for all of our pastries and cakes. We've thought and thought about how to get around this, and if you have any ideas we'd love to hear them. Our solution has been to focus on training our counter staff to be efficient and quick so that they can get you through the line as quickly as possible.

d. suggestion: please make such-and-such new product.
We love our customer product suggestions! We've tried to introduce as many as we can - peanut butter oreos, granola parfaits, lowfat chocolate cakes, cheddar scallion scones -- these are all regular menu offerings that started out as suggestions on a suggestion slip. We read all suggestions carefully and do try to include as many as we can. Because we offer so many different items and because our space in the kitchen is tight, if we introduce a new item we often have to remove an old item. So if you make a suggestion it may take us time to phase it in since we have to figure out what we are phasing out. But keep the suggestions coming; they help us in achieving our goal which is to make great food that our customers love.

january 2006 newsletter

I. Happy new year!
II. New extended hours
III. Dinner service update
IV. New items
V. Upcoming events

I. Happy new year (and happy Chinese new year - Year of the Dog)
The crazy holiday season has come and gone, and we at Flour Bakery want to thank all of you for your loyal patronage. If you ordered holiday items from us and have feedback to help us with next year's holiday menu, we'd love to hear from you. Now as we enter a new year, we are re-energized and jazzed about continuing to offer you the best possible food and service we can. We've been extremely fortunate in having customers who come again and again; we want you to know that we don't take any of you for granted. From the early morning "Table" crew to the residents who come for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the commuters and hospital folks who stop in on their way home, we are grateful to each of you. Each day we push ourselves to see how we can make the service smoother, quicker and more welcoming, and the food even more delicious and scrumptious.

II. New extended hours
We hear you, we hear you! Since introducing our dinner menu almost a year ago, customers have been clamoring for us to stay open later 5 nights a week rather than just 3. Sounds like a good idea to us, so starting Monday, February 6, our hours of operation will be 7am-9pm Monday -Friday, 8am-6pm on Saturday, and 9am-3pm on Sunday. That means that you can pick up dinner and desserts from us each weeknight! We are excited that you've responded so warmly to our dinners and look forward to offering them Monday through Friday. We are making some adjustments to our dinner offerings...read on....

III. Dinner service update
We've been thrilled with the reception of the dinner menu. So many of you have told us how much you enjoy picking up dinners and desserts here and how we've made cooking in your own kitchens obsolete. We have noticed, however, that most of you take these dinners to go and heat them up and eat them at home. While we'd love to have you here in our dining room, being homebodies ourselves we fully understand wanting to just get take-out and go home and curl up on the couch. (Okay, maybe that's just me!)

Thus in order to streamline the dinner process, rather than make you wait for us to cook your dinner just so you can go home and re-heat it, we've decided to offer all our dinner items already prepared to be heated up at home. You won't have to wait anymore; you can just point to the item you want and take it with you.

We'll offer whole roast chickens to go, along with separate containers of roasted vegetables and chef's choice of potatoes. We'll also continue to offer at least 2 dinner specials that one person can eat as a meal, such as beef and ginger stirfry or angel hair pasta with shredded chicken, parmesan and basil. We hope you enjoy the new set-up and would love to hear what you think.

IV. New items
A baker's work is never done. On a recent trip to Paris, I ate croissants that almost made me cry, they were so flaky and buttery and tender. I came back with a vow to make ours just as amazing. I'm happy to say that as of tomorrow, the croissants that we are making are ones that you'd be proud to offer to a Parisian. For those of you who've had our croissants in the past and not been wowed, we urge you to try again and hopefully we'll change your mind!

Previously you had to work at Flour in order to enjoy the guilty pleasure of eating raw Flour chocolate chip cookie dough. Now we extend that indulgence to all of our customers by selling our cookie dough in containers-to-go. We've got baking instructions right on the container; each one kilogram container of dough makes about 20-24 cookies and sells for $14. Currently we're offering chocolate chip and oatmeal. If you want others just let us know. Please note that the dough does contain raw eggs so if you are avoiding raw eggs you should bake the dough off as cookies.

The new dinner format means that we'll be able to introduce several new pastry items a week to be sold in the afternoon and evening crowd. Lately we've been in love with making sweet pizzas - tender slightly chewy pizza dough topped with various sweet toppings. We've done chocolate and hazelnut; and roasted pear, ricotta, walnut and honey. We hope to offer a new pizza every few weeks or so. Check it out!

V. Upcoming events
Project Place is a neighborhood non-profit that is dedicated to helping homeless individuals lead self-sufficient lives. They do an incredible job of working one-on-one with clients training them on how to get a job and find housing. Several times a year they host various fundraising events to help raise money for their efforts. On February 5 they'll be hosting their annual Gospel Brunch at the Fairmont Copley Hotel. Flour Bakery, along with a number of area restaurants, is donating brunch items; 2-3 gospel groups will perform; a grand time will be had by all. It's always a very popular event and attendees always return the following year. For more information and to purchase tickets ($60 in advance/$70 at the door) please contact Elizabeth Mullaly at 617-262-3740. Hope to see you there!

On February 9 Flour Bakery will be participating in a fundraiser for the Asian American Civic Association. The AACA is developing a new civic center on 87 Tyler Street and proceeds from this event will go towards this effort. We will join Ming Tsai and other chefs in providing samplings of our menus; a cultural entertainment program is also planned. For more information contact Mary Chin at marychin@aaca-boston.org.

Finally February 14 is Valentine's Day; don’t forget your honey! We will be offering cupcakes and desserts and especially our famous sweetheart cookies. Each cookie is hand-frosted and decorated with a special message ranging from "Be Mine" and "True Love Always" to much more X-rated messages. Please come visit us and take a look!


As always, if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions to this newsletter or to anything we do at Flour, please don't hesitate to write to Joanne at joanne@flourbakery.com or Aaron our manager at aaron@flourbakery.com. Thank you and happy new year!

september 2005 newsletter

I. Hurricane Katrina
II. Dinner service
III. New items
IV. Upcoming events
V. Answers to commonly asked questions

I. Hurricane Katrina
All of us here at Flour are devastated, shocked, and saddened by the scale of tragedy that we have witnessed in this past week with Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. Each person is involved in his or her own way in helping the relief efforts. Jake, our resident rock star, is playing at three benefit fundraisers; he is selling his CD (Cyanide Valentine) here at Flour and donating those sales to New Orleans. Heidi is opening her home to friends who were stranded and left homeless by the hurricane. Many of our counter staff members are donating their tips to relief efforts.

We are donating our sales from September 2 entirely to relief funds. At times like these we are reminded of how we are all linked together and how we must work together to help those in desperate need.

II. Dinner service
What started off as somewhat of an experiment for us has grown into a full-fledged, bustling part of Flour: dinner service! We are thrilled at the response we've received from customers and for those of you not familiar with our dinner offering, please check out the menu every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It is posted online (www.flourbakery.com) starting every Wednesday and on our front door as well.

Our dinner service was featured in the September issue of Bon Appetit (in which the article raved about our buttermilk fried chicken and huckleberry tart) and we also won a 2005 Best of Boston award for Best Takeout for our dinners. Our chef, Aniceto, and our cooks work hard every week to create delicious, fresh and simple meals for you to enjoy here at Flour or take home to eat. We hope to see you here!

III. New items
With the fall season comes a change in our rotating muffin selection. We will be phasing out our Ginger Peach muffin and introducing a more seasonal selection. On the roster are the return of the Bran and Good Morning muffin, as well as the Pumpkin Spice. We've recently introduced homemade granola parfaits in response to customer requests for a more healthy start to the morning. The parfait consists of layers of nonfat vanilla yogurt, homemade granola and fresh fruit. And of course every week we create a new dessert offering or two as part of our dinner menu.

On the savory front, we are taking out the Grilled Vegetable sandwich and introducing a Hummus, Cucumber and Tomato sandwich as a substitute. The Tuna sandwich is changing as well -- this is still in the works in the kitchen. And a popular sandwich from the past, the Grilled Italian, will be making a reappearance on a semi-regular basis. You'll see these changes in the next few weeks or so -- let us know what you think!

IV. Upcoming Events
We are participating in a Progressive Dinner benefiting the Children's Hospital on Saturday October 15 in Plymouth, MA. Along with Chefs Barbara Lynch, Marc Orfaly, and Michael Schlow, Joanne will be creating a course (dessert of course!) for attendants to enjoy as they get a sneak peek at a new community that has been developed called the Pinehills. We are making chocolate pudding parfaits, lemon meringue tartlettes and mini cookies. For more information, contact 888-209-8880.

On Thursday November 3, we are participating in a fundraiser at the Westin Hotel in Waltham called REACH, which is the only emergency domestic violence shelter program serving 27 cities and towns in Greater Boston. For more information please call 617-331-7676.

V. Answers
Many of you are aware that we have a suggestion box that we check every day. We try to respond to suggestions within a few weeks, and we post our responses on the bread rack where hopefully those who have written can check out our answers. Some suggestions, we find, are offered with enough frequency that we want to answer them again, more fully, here so that you can let us know what you think.

a. suggestion: can you make bagels?
Homemade bagels are delicious and personally they are one of my favorite things to eat. As with any offering, for us to make homemade bagels we would have to make and sell a certain number of them to justify the labor involved. And unfortunately that number is fairly high. That's why there are entire stores devoted to bagels -- you have to sell a LOT of bagels before you break even. So while we would love to offer bagels for our customers and we would love to experiment with making them, it would be difficult for us to include them in our menu unless we were willing to commit to making dozens and dozens of them. Right now we don't have the space or the staff to do so. We often suggest our country roll, raisin pecan roll or multigrain roll to those of you looking for bagels.

b. suggestion: why don’t you offer full sized cakes in the case?
We are committed to only offering the freshest of pastries and that includes our cakes. When we put cakes in the case for sale, sometimes customers buy them and sometimes they don’t. Then we are left with the problem of what to do with cakes that don’t sell. If we keep trying to sell it, it becomes at some point stale, old, and not up to snuff. If we throw it away, well that's not a great option either. So what we have decided is to ask our customers to order cakes in advance so they can be prepared specifically for you without compromising freshness. We do sell carrot cakes and dacquoise from the case on a regular basis, and on the weekends we make a point of making a chocolate cake or two for the last minute customer who is in need of a full cake.

c. suggestion: can you get another register to help the long lines?
We would LOVE another register. It bothers us as much as you, if not more, when we see a line that snakes through the dining room and outside. We love that our customers are so loyal to us but we feel your pain when you have to wait in a long line for your order! However, as always, it becomes a question of space. We physically have no space for another register. If we were to have another register, we would not have as much space for all of our pastries and cakes. We've thought and thought about how to get around this, and if you have any ideas we'd love to hear them. Our solution has been to focus on training our counter staff to be efficient and quick so that they can get you through the line as quickly as possible.

d. suggestion: please make such-and-such new product.
We love our customer product suggestions! We've tried to introduce as many as we can - peanut butter oreos, granola parfaits, lowfat chocolate cakes, cheddar scallion scones -- these are all regular menu offerings that started out as suggestions on a suggestion slip. We read all suggestions carefully and do try to include as many as we can. Because we offer so many different items and because our space in the kitchen is tight, if we introduce a new item we often have to remove an old item. So if you make a suggestion it may take us time to phase it in since we have to figure out what we are phasing out. But keep the suggestions coming; they help us in achieving our goal which is to make great food that our customers love.

As always, if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions to this newsletter or to anything we do at Flour, please don't hesitate to write to Joanne at joanne@flourbakery.com or Aaron our manager at aaron@flourbakery.com. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your summer!