🍞 Mid-July miscellanea: Laune Bread is pausing, then scaling back

The arrival of Front Porch Pies isn't the only bakery shakeup coming to 36th and Lake. The owners of Laune Bread announced yesterday that they'll shutter the bakery for six weeks starting next month, and will return with just the two original bakers and co-owners.

Running the bakery "has brought unforeseen challenges, financially, physically, emotionally, and mentally," owners Tiff Ri and Chris MacLeod wrote in their newsletter, "and we no longer see a path to sustainability under our current model." They say they hope the changes — which include laying off the remainder of the staff and scaling back their hours and offerings — will allow them to stabilize the business and "regain the perspective and alignment that brought us to baking in the first place."

Upon reopening in October, the bakery plans to be open one fewer day per week and one fewer hour per day: Thursday through Saturday, 7:30-1. They'll also return to a retail-only operation, without wholesale, pre-orders, or subscriptions. (They currently supply bread and pastries for a handful of businesses around the city, including Shepherd's Table.) The assortment of products will be reduced, too, "but not drastically."

The duo opened Laune in the old River-Lake Hardware at 36th and Lake in 2021. It specializes in naturally leavened sourdough bread and baked goods, with ingredients sourced as locally as plausible, and has become both a neighborhood staple and a destination for aficionados. The New York Times featured the bakery in a rundown of how to spend 36 hours in Minneapolis, touting its "hearty sourdough loaves made from Midwestern grains."

Laune reported spending more than 80 percent of its 2025 ingredients budget in the Upper Midwest, including 31,000 pounds of grain grown and milled in Minnesota. Their Bread Fund has donated thousands of loaves of bread since 2020, including to Longfellow's Soup For You Cafe. The bakery also sources some of its ingredients from neighbors, most notably from a popular annual rhubarb drive.

The closure will mean a temporary pastry drought for a corner that for years has been spoiled with two destination bakeries. Laune's last day will be August 15, two weeks after Savory Bake House decamps for St. Paul. Laune plans to reopen on October 1, the same target opening date as Front Porch Pies.

• Related: Laune Bread wants to buy your rhubarb (May 2025)

🖼️ The popular Minnehaha Falls Art Fair has canceled its opening day today to avoid the worst of the hazardous air quality. It'll continue as planned Saturday from 10-7 and Sunday from 10-5.