Restaurant Love: I've Got a Crush on Back in the Day Bakery

Confession: I've got the biggest crush on Back in the Day Bakery. As I was scrolling through my photo albums through years (phone photos, Facebook albums, and scrapbooks) I started to notice, 1. I have a lot of pictures of food. 2. Most of them are food photos from Back in the Day Bakery.

Today on Fork This, Savannah I explore a brief history of my restaurant crush and some of my favorite items on their menu.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY RESTAURANT CRUSH

Love at First Sight

I stumbled upon the bakery in early 2007 when I was looking for cupcakes for my vintage inspired 17th Birthday Party. The nice folks at Paris Market and Brocante referred me there when I asked where they got their delicious pastel butter cream cupcakes.

When I walked into the bakery for the first time, I fell in love. The decor was retro. Pops of pink, blue, yellow, and green pastels. There was a big crystal chandelier wrapped in white Christmas lights hanging over a vintage farm table. Elementary school style storage cubbies served as a bar counter. The walls and floors were unfinished. Pages from cookbooks were pasted on the wall in patches.  Bright pink roses in milk bottles adorned each table. It might of been the cupcakes, it might have been the decor. It might of been a mixture of both. As I purchased the cupcakes I needed for the party, I was already planning my next visit.

17th Birthday with my first Back in the Day Bakery Cupcakes

And visit again I did. When I was an undergrad at SCAD, Back in the Day Bakery became my token lunch place. I went before or after classes. Sometimes I'd order their flaky ham and cheese croissant. Or the best chicken sandwich on earth, the aptly named Super Chicken (thick slices of roast chicken and white cheddar between slabs of airy ciabatta, topped with lettuce and onions, and smeared with a rosemary infused miracle of a mayonnaise). I've probably celebrated three or four birthdays there since finding them.

My 18th Birthday at Back in the Day Bakery

But when I graduated from college in 2011, I wasn't in the area anymore. So I didn't visit as often. I'd stop by on a Saturday here or there. But I thought I'd finally gotten over my crush. I was in my early twenties. Too old for crushes!

Nowadays
Now back at SCAD for graduate school, I started stopping into Back in the Day Bakery during the twenty minute time slot I have between work in midtown and classes in the downtown area. During those twenty minutes, I'm usually stressed about balancing work and school. Worried about an assignment. Worried about finding a parking place close to Arnold Hall.

But Back in the Day Bakery is always a little respite from those worrisome thoughts. You get the sense that the folks working at Back in the Day Bakery actually like working there. The gals behind the counter always have a smile on their faces. Never mind that the place is slammed at lunchtime. Or that the person who just ordered was short with them. They greet every customer with genuine smiles and they seem just as excited about the food as I am. They gush over the flaky, buttery buttermilk biscuits Back in the Day serves on certain days. Or something new they've got in the baked cases that day. With that kind of enthusiasm, you can't help but let your worries slip away a little. Besides, how can you worry when you're tearing into a Tomato Caprese sandwich that's bigger than your face?

Caprese Sandwich (Tomato, balsamic, fresh basil and mozzarella)

I post Instagram and Facebook photos from the bakery regularly. Without fail,  Back and the Day serves up their sandwiches and sweets looking cookbook photo-shoot ready. So it's no wonder I can't help taking a picture of every blessed thing I eat there (Sorry for making you hungry, Facebook friends).

Jam and Biscuits with Iced Tea and Newborn Cupcake

The Happy Day Salad (You can read about that on my first post ever)

Vanilla Buttercream Cupcake

 I often bring one of Back in the Day Bakery's white to-go bags to class. As I pull out my buttermilk biscuit and jam or Mexican Hot Chocolate shortbread, my classmates gaze at me jealously, "Where did you get that delightful thing?"

And I just smile, "This place called Back in the Day Bakery. You have to go there."

Sounds like I've totally gotten over my crush, right?

SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ON THE MENU

If I'm in a bad mood, I can always count on something like the Strawberry Pie Bar (If a fruit cobbler and a strawberry pie got married, then Back in the Day's  Strawberry Pie Bar would be their child. A winner of the culinary genetic lottery, trust me) to brighten my mood.

You cannot eat something like this without smiling. The man sitting next to me kept staring at me as I devoured it. Finally, he shyly asked as I brushed crumbs from my face, "What was that delightful thing?


Back in the Day Bakery's Cinnamon Bun Saturday is probably my favorite way to kick-start the weekend.

On Saturdays only, you can sit down to one of Back in the Day's house specialties. Their massive sticky buns slathered in rich, creamy white icing. If you're used to Pillsbury or Cinnabon, you'll never go back after having one of these. It's like tasting butter for the first time after being raised on margarine

You know how the best part of most sticky buns are the middle? Not so with Back in the Day's buns. The whole bun is like the center. It's sticky, bready, twisted heaven.

I may not be doodling "Back in the Day Bakery" on my binder but let me assure you, I'm crushing on them. And if they keep feeding me things like their sublime Strawberry Pie Bar, and sinful Saturday sticky buns, something tells me I'm not getting over this crush anytime soon.

Back in the Day Bakery

2403 Bull St, Savannah, GA 31401

(912) 495-9292

Hours Open: Tuesday-Saturday 8am - 5pm
Closed Sunday & Monday

"Where Everybody Knows Your Name": Three Reasons I'm a "Regular"

What is it about those restaurants we return to over and over again? Is there that one menu item, that special sauce you just can’t live without? That quirky barista who serves up your soy latte with a smile. That fry cook who can spout a one-liner like he’s the star of his own sitcom?

What is it that keeps us sliding into those same booths week after week, picking up the menus we’ve read so many times we know it by heart, “I’ll have the B-1 please, ginger on the side.”  Announcing to our friends outside the packed restaurant, “It’s cool. They know me here.”  You know the places. The places where ordering is really just a formality.

In Savannah there are three, maybe four restaurants where I have that kind of relationship. Folks at these places know me by name. And they know what I’m going to order. And I know right where I’m going to sit. That’s right. I’m what they like to call a “regular” in the dining industry.  But why?

1. I Feel Comfortable Eating There Alone

I’m full time grad student and I also work full time.  So I don’t have a lot of time to make plans, so I find myself going out to eat more than a sensible person would. And my lack of planning usually means I’m dining alone.   And I want to go somewhere I feel comfortable doing so. For me that means the servers are friendly, but not too chatty to the point that I feel like they should be pulling up a chair. The worst are ones that actually do. Slide in beside you and whip open a notepad, gum smacking in their teeth, “What’ll be, sweetheart?”  

Then there are ones that ignore you completely. Or fail to acknowledge the fact that you’ve eaten at the place seven days in a row and ordered the exact same thing. When you arrive on the eighth day, you walk up to the counter, and nothing. Not even a hint of recognition.  Just a, “What can I get you?”  like you’ve never eaten there before in your life.

Bottom line, if I feel comfortable dining alone at a restaurant, it means I'll keep coming back.

2. Location, Location, Location 

I form habits out of convenience. Anyone who’s been following this blog so far might have noticed I’ve covered a lot of restaurants in the Sandfly area of Savannah.  So it should come as no surprise that I live in that area. I go to restaurants that are near where I live. Or on the way to the places I frequent. Places I know I can drop in and out of quickly when I’m in a hurry. 

3. The Food is Delicious 

I frequent places where I know pretty much anything on the menu is amazing. You know that place, the one where you’re often stumped when ordering because, well, everything on the menu it just so darn delicious.  Consistency matters too. I need to know that I can order my favorite sandwich with the sauce on the side, and it’ll be equally tasty the first and five hundredth time I order it. 

So what about you, what makes you a “regular”?