Big Indian Bakery to emphasize community togetherness with new cafe, 'Gather'
Earl White and Adrienne Davis, who founded Big Indian Bakery in 2017, plan to launch the new cafe, "Gather," in mid-March after some weather-related shipping delays of equipment pushed back their original goal of opening in February.
The owners of the beloved local Big Indian Bakery have been working hard, preparing to open the doors to a new cafe above Harvest Moon on North Locust Street. Earl White and Adrienne Davis both have years of baking experience and share a vision of community members gathering under one roof to enjoy eclectic “world” food.
White and Davis, who founded Big Indian Bakery in 2017, plan to launch the new cafe, "Gather," in mid-March after some weather-related shipping delays of equipment pushed back their original goal of opening in February. “We’re getting close,” Davis said. “There are so many working pieces that have to fall into place.”
The couple moved to Floyd in 2016 having already formed close friendships in the area through events, such as festivals. “We knew people in the old-time music community and would come out here a lot for festivals,” Davis explained. “A musician friend suggested we look at Floyd because of the good water and the County Store. We just loved it when we came here.”
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Before launching Big Indian Farm Artisan Bakery, both spent time working in healthcare. White retired upon relocating to Floyd while Davis keeps her license active as an emergency backup plan. With their three sons at home, the duo wanted to start a home-based business that centered around something they were passionate about. At the time, Davis was “obsessed” with fermentation but found several others already producing sauerkraut locally. Baking quickly became her focus. “When we moved here, there wasn’t readily available organic, long-fermented bread,” she said. “I became obsessed with figuring out how to make a really good loaf.” After a number of trials and errors and eventually creating a really good bread at home, White encouraged her to sell the bread at local farmers markets, including Floyd's, and the spark for Big Indian Bakery was ignited.
Less than one year after moving to Floyd, Davis and White contacted Omni-Build to construct a 30-by-30-foot building that would become a dedicated bakery space right on their farm that they still use today.
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During the early days of Big Indian Bakery, most of the food prep was handled by Davis, including rolling each croissant “without specialized equipment. You can’t make big quantities doing that,” she said. The bakery now uses a dough sheeter, which allows for both an ease in effort and an increase in production. Davis still does a lot of the baking, but now she has trained a team to maintain consistency.
“Sourdough is alive and responsive. Everything affects it,” she explained. “Even if the indoor temperature is the same, outdoor temperature and humidity can change how long it takes the dough to be ready to bake. If not adjusted, it can affect the consistency of the finished product. You have to adjust the water temperature and ingredients according to the outdoor weather often. The weather changes here so rapidly.”
Big Indian Bakery has become a fixture at the Saturday morning Floyd Farmers Market, where the staff of Big Indian Bakery has built close friendships with both the customers and fellow vendors. These relationships continue to shape and redirect their new adventure of opening Gather, which will serve breakfast and lunch five days a week to start. Davis and White said they plan to add a dinner service three to four nights a week by early summer, potentially as soon as May.
Although the majority of the goods will still be produced and baked at the Big Indian Farm bakery, some pastries will be baked on-site at Gather. Retail bread and pastries will also be available at the front of the café. The menu will reflect what Davis describes as a “farm-to-table idea with international flavors with a menu that changes with the seasons.”
While still being finalized, Davis noted some breakfast ideas that are being considered including traditional plates of eggs, potatoes, and bacon or sausage, but also offer dishes like Shakshuka, a North African tomato and bell pepper sauce with poached eggs, served with crusty bread for dipping. Lunch will feature sandwiches, salad options, and soups, as well as Asian-inspired rice and vegetable bowls. Vegetarian and gluten-free options will be available.
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One team member, Dolma, who grew up in India will contribute her own culinary perspective to the evolving menu. “She’s an incredible cook,” Davis said. “I can’t wait for her to bring her wonderful flavors to the menu. The hard part is narrowing it down and figuring out what we can execute well,” Davis clarifies. “We need to get in 'our flow' before we add dinner. It’s easier to add things than take them away.”
Davis and White are excited to also feature music as a cornerstone of the Gather experience and incorporate a stage at the back of the cafe. The idea is to eventually host live performances that reflect White’s roots in the old-time music community while branching into jazz, blues, and world music. “We want to have live music playing, but it isn’t a club,” Davis said. “It will be quiet enough to have a conversation.”
Family has played a significant role in the evolution of Big Indian Bakery, and it continues to. The couple’s two older sons enjoy both cooking and baking. Their oldest worked at the bakery for years and pushed Davis and White into looking for a space to open up a restaurant of their own. Their middle son currently works at the bakery and plans to work at Gather as well. Even their youngest, who has "not developed the passion for cooking and baking...knows his way around the kitchen,” Davis said proudly. She added that several staff members are actually longtime family friends, including two full-time employees that are friends of her sons. “It feels like they are family,” she said. “We’ve been really fortunate to have employees who believe in what we’re doing and in the quality of the product.”
On any given day, Davis admits, she may feel either excited or exhausted. But mostly, she feels grateful because she “feels a lot of support from the community.”
“Most people here value having local businesses," Davis said." That’s one of the things that makes Floyd unique... In the past 10 years, we’ve noticed more places staying open, more creative things happening — that benefits everybody.”
While plans for opening and future growth are constantly evolving, the main focus of Big Indian Bakery's brick-and-mortar is simple and the name is telling: gather the food, gather the people, gather the music.