19 December 2023

This is the weekly-ish newsletter from Loaf in Stirchley, keeping you abreast of our bakery and cookery school, and other news we think you might be interested in.

It's the week before Christmas and the bakery is about to get busy! Here's how best to shop with us in the last few days.

Scroll down for this week’s lunch menu and cookery school dales.

🍞 Pre-order your bread and pastries 🥐

We’ll have plenty on the shelves all week, with lunches served from noon on weekdays.

Our opening hours are:
Wed - Fri: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1
Christmas eve (Sunday 24th): 9-1

How to shop at Loaf this week

Hopefully you all got your orders in before the cutoff on Sunday night. If not, all is not lost.

If you have an order to collect and don't need any more baked goods, we'd advise you to skip the first couple of hours after we open to avoid any queues. We'll be open til 6pm weekdays and 1pm at the weekend, so there's plenty of time.

If you don't have an order in the system then you'll likely need to queue around opening time. We'll be baking as much as we possibly can but, inevitably, stocks will go quickly. Going by previous years, the queue will start building in earnest about half an hour before opening.

Unfortunately we can't take any reservations for this week, by email, phone or in person. We're baking at full capacity and everything is now locked in. We've tried taking last-minute Christmas reservations in the past and with the best of intentions it never really works. Thank you for your understanding!

Gifts, gifts, gifty gifts

As you're queueing in the shop, be sure to look to the sides at the wonderful range of local produce, Loaf merch (including our new aprons, pictured below!) and baking supplies we have on offer.

For the most last-minute gift of all, remember our cookery school vouchers are sent by PDF so can be bought throughout the holidays.

And that's the end of the hard sell. No more hard sell for another 11 months. Phew!

Salt beef sandwiches this Friday

Behind the scenes we weren't sure if we'd have time to make our legendary salt beef sandwiches this Friday but Dorit and Dave crunched the numbers and, thank the heavens, they're on! Hooray!

Christmas opening and closing updates

Reposting from last week in case you missed it.

In order to make sure we have time to bake everything we can possible bake, we'll be opening from 9am to 1pm on Christmas Eve, Sunday 24th. All other days up to then will be normal opening hours, Wed – Fri: 12-6, Saturday: 8-1

Our winter shutdown will be three weeks this year: two for a much-needed break and a third so we can spend some time planning 2024 properly. This has been a very busy year and next year promises to be even busier as we head towards moving into our new building. We want to get all our buns in a row before the baking starts again.

We'll re-open on Wednesday 17th January. Pre-orders will be available from the Saturday before.

Cookery school dates

The following cookery school classes have spaces as of this newsletter. We hope to schedule some more in this period and will inform the alert lists as soon as they are out.

• Dumplings – Tue 16 Jan – Book here
• Ramen – Wed 17 Jan – Book here
• Knife Skills & Maintenance – Tue 23 Jan – Book here
• Thai – Wed 24 Jan – Book here
• Dosa – Wed 14 Feb – Book here
• Wholegrain Baking with Tom Baker – Sat 17 Feb – Book here
• Sausage & Charcuterie – Sat 24 Feb – Book here
• Bread: Back to Basics – Tue 27 Feb – Book here
• Thaali – Wed 28 Feb – Book here
• Seafood Masterclass – Sat 2 Mar – Book here
• Dosa – Wed 6 Mar – Book here
• Dumplings – Tue 12 Mar – Book here
• Sweet Breads and Viennoiserie – Tue 19 Mar – Book here
• Bread: Back to Basics – Sat 23 Mar – Book here
• Thaali – Wed 27 Mar – Book here

All upcoming classes are listed on this page and you can sign up to be alerted as soon as new ones go on sale here.

Lunches this week

Wednesday

• Tarka daal with sourdough (Ve)

Thursday

• Soup: Roasted tomato and red pepper with focaccia (Ve)

Friday

• Curry: New potato, chickpea & spinach with sourdough (Ve)
• Salt beef on challah bun

Wed – Sat:

• Sausage rolls
• Vegetable rolls (V)

Wed - Fri

• Sourdough pizza: Roasted butternut squash, red onion, sage, chilli flakes and mozzarella (V)
• Ham and cheese croissant
• Tomato, spinach and cheese croissant (V)

Lunches are made fresh weekdays for 12 noon.

Our menu for the week — with ingredients and allergens — is on the website.

Thanks for all your continued support. See you next week with something special!

Team Loaf: Molly, Neil, Dave, Pete, Dorit, Sarah, Martha, Ian & Rach

Website: loaf.coop
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