If you live in and around Olympic Village you should be stoked for the coming of Fife Bakery & Toast Bar at 64 East 3rd Avenue. It’s a narrow-fronted, big-backed facility focused on making high quality breads using old school ferments and local, sustainable ingredients. I popped in to check on progress with co-owner/baker Felix Yau and found him already testing loaves via a big, 160 kg capacity Esmach mixer. (I took one of these big suckers home – a coarse milled red wheat beauty made with kamut; the result of three day slow ferment process. We sliced it up for dunking into a hearty potato hock soup I made — delicious stuff!) It appears as if the first phase of the operation – retail bread sales, coffee, etc. (I spied Bows x Arrows beans on the counter) – is nearly good to go. Felix told me that he’ll be ready for the first customers in about 2-3 weeks, at which point I trust the vast back of house area will be closer to being finished so they can start ramping up production to where they eventually hope to be, which is baking upwards of 500 loaves a day. Take a look inside and get an eyeful of those tasty loaves!

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