CLOSING: GLUTEN FREE BREAD BASKET

















I just received the sad sad sad news that the Gluten Free Bread Basket--the GFRAP bakery in Chester, New York--will close on Saturday, December 30, 2006. From the bakery's email newsletter:

We regret to inform you that as of Saturday, December 30th, 2006 the Gluten Free Bread Basket will be closing.

For the past year and a half we have enjoyed creating and serving our fresh gluten free baked products for you. Our decision to close was a very difficult one to make but one that has become necessary.

Our original vision was to create a bakery with fresh-baked gluten free breads, cakes, cookies and more. We have delivered on this vision and this has truly been a labor of love. As we do not use any commercially available mixes and prepare all of our recipes ourselves from scratch, the process to create the best gluten free products is a very labor intensive one.

Unfortunately, the intense hours and labor involved have begun to take a toll on ourselves and our family life. It is with this in mind, that we have made the decision to close the bakery. If we cannot serve our customers as well as we would like, then we feel it is in the best interest of the business to bring it to a close.

We have enjoyed meeting the many of you who have been able to travel and come to our shop. We have come to know so many of you personally and we will miss serving you.

We are open for business Thursday December 28 through Saturday, December 30

As a farewell gift to you, we will be having a sale on all our gluten-free packaged products. All packaged products (pasta, cereals, pretzels, etc) will be discounted 20% during this time. We will not be taking any orders for shipping during these final days.

Thank you for supporting our bakery. We hope we will get a chance to see you before Saturday to help you stock up on our breads and other baked goods. And, of course, to say a proper good-bye.

Best wishes,

Kathy Iozzino & Marisa Frederick

I still remember when Kathy and Marisa proudly introduced some of their delicious baked treats to a very enthusiastic crowd at a meeting of the Westchester Celiac Sprue Support Group. I finally visited the bakery itself last November, as the first stop on a road trip. It was a cozy, friendly place where my traveling companion and I were able to take out our cold cuts and enjoy them with fresh breads that offered hearty sustenance during and after the journey.

To my surprise, I spotted a flock of rare gluten-free black-and-white cookies on display along with moist bundt cakes. I planned to feature the above photo of the cookies in a post about that trip and hoped to make the bakery a regular stop on future upstate excursions, so now I'm very saddened that the photo is making its debut in this context, as the Gluten Free Bread Basket joins Happy Happy Happy as an outstanding and responsible gluten-free bakery that shut down in 2006.

Here's how the CeliacChicks covered the bakery in March.

Photo: David Marc Fischer