DETROIT – The City Bakery, one of New York City’s most popular food establishments and one of Detroit’s most-anticipated new eateries, will open its first location outside New York and Japan in Detroit’s iconic Fisher Building on Monday, Jan. 29.
City Bakery opened its doors in 1990 and has become a New York staple that has led the next generation of bakeries: a combination of bakery, coffee house, chocolate shop, café, and catering company. The bakery’s choice to locate inside the Fisher is yet another sign of Detroit’s resurgence and the growing attraction to the New Center neighborhood.
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“By opening The City Bakery in New Center, we continue the celebration of local artisans, artists and makers who provide the cultural foundation of Detroit’s neighborhoods,” said Dietrich Knoer, President and CEO of The Platform. “The mix of retailers in the Fisher Building reflects the local talent and small-business entrepreneurship in our great city of Detroit.”
City Bakery’s arrival comes on the heels of three other highly celebrated openings in the Fisher Building. In November, popular local fashion mogul Rachel Lutz opened her Peacock Room flagship store in a stunningly restored original Fisher storefront along Second Avenue, as well as her new modern clothing store Yama. A few weeks later, Lisa Waud, a plant and floral designer who has drawn international acclaim, opened Pot+Box along Lothrop. Popular boutique tailor and seamstress William & Bonnie set up in the Fisher Concourse this fall. These new additions to the Fisher family join other longtime tenants such as Pure Detroit, the Detroit Gallery of Contemporary Crafts, Fashion Place, Stella Good Coffee, Russell’s Pharmacy, Vera Jane and Workshop.
City Bakery at the Fisher Building will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, offering breakfast, lunch, afternoon desserts and catering to all, whether office workers, neighborhood residents, theater patrons, or visitors to the beloved National Historic Landmark.
“City Bakery is a neighborhood bakery with a worldwide reputation,” said founder Maury Rubin. “We could not be more excited to call the Fisher Building our home. To be in such an amazing example of architectural and artistic creativity is a gift and an inspiration, as creativity is the very lifeblood of City Bakery.”
A key signature of the City Bakery brand is its commitment to sourcing its ingredients from local farmer’s markets to create menus that are sweet and savory, and seasonal in nature.
“A great deal of our ingredients, such as our vegetables, fruits, cheeses and organic flours and grains, are grown in Michigan,” Rubin said. “The best in locally sourced ingredients remains an integral part of all the food we make.”
City Bakery also has helped introduce a new generation to the wonders of hot chocolate. The City Bakery Annual Hot Chocolate Festival, held in New York each February, attracts more than 50,000 chocolate lovers to taste a kaleidoscopic hot chocolate menu, which Detroit will now get to enjoy during its own winters.
City Bakery has hired local workers, and those seeking to join the City Bakery team in Detroit can walk into the Fisher Building location and ask for an application.
A companion development to City Bakery was the construction of a full-service commissary in the Fisher Building’s Concourse, which will not only allow City Bakery to create its delicacies but also enable the Fisher to meet the culinary needs of future restaurants, pop-ups and others. “This is another major step in our work to bring life back to the Fisher Building and make it a gathering place in the center of the city for people from every corner of the city,” said Peter Cummings, executive chairman of The Platform. “The Fisher returning to its glory is the centerpiece to the rebirth of New Center and the rest of the city.”
ABOUT THE PLATFORM
The Platform was established in 2016, when the acquisition of the iconic Fisher Building brought Peter Cummings and Dietrich Knoer together. With more than 60 collective years of experience—and a legacy of successful development projects in Detroit—they made a conscious decision to build a platform that would contribute to the city’s resurgence. They assembled a team of young professionals poised to be the next generation of developers through ongoing mentorship and hands-on experience. The Platform’s vision includes developments that create quality residential and retail opportunities along the Woodward Corridor, as well as the neighborhoods that embrace the whole of the city in equally vibrant and sometimes unexpected ways.