Great news, Twin Cities, one of Minnesota’s most important bakers is making big moves later this fall.
Shawn McKenzie, longtime head baker at Rustica Bakery and therefore contributing pastry chef for Parlour and P.S. Steak, co-founder of Café Cerés, former pastry chef for Isaac Becker’s Burch Steak, Bar La Grassa, and 112 Eatery, one-time shortlist nominee for the James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef in the whole darn country, is opening a new bakery and café in south Minneapolis. Welcome: Evergreen Café, coming soon to the (newly vacant) good vibes-filled Sun Street Breads location at Nicollet and 46th, offering pastries, bread, brunch, and coffee.
“I’m scared out of my mind, but I wanted to push myself and apply all the knowledge I’ve amassed since I was a little kid in the Pacific Northwest,” McKenzie said. The name Evergreen is a dual tribute to her childhood in Olympia, Washington, and her adopted hometown here in the North Star State.
At Evergreen, expect pastries, bread, cookies, scones, and biscuits with eggs and all the fixings for sit-down breakfasts and lunches. “I’m trying to lean into where I’m from and offer a little salmon in the mix,” says McKenzie. “Maybe some oysters, maybe a smoked salmon BLT. I’m also thinking about granolas that are outside of the usual flavor profiles; more savory with earthy notes.” For these, think buckwheat, hazelnuts, puffed rice, and other flavors that take granola out of the realm of sweet. Northwest flavors like mushrooms, zucchini, kale, nutritional yeast, and tofu will hold down the café’s vegetarian offerings.
“I really love that old hippie dippie vibe,” McKenzie told me. “Obviously my world is pretty heavy into flour and butter, but I think a little of those nutritional-earthy-nutty flavors that were so big when I was a kid in Washington and Oregon are really good.” In the “back-to-the-land” category, expect elements like a hearty wheat bread for toast, and an update on McKenzie’s famed brown-butter-raisin Cowboy Cookie, the cookie that rocked all Minneapolis best-bakery-cookie discussions. “I’m thinking about making a version with hazelnuts and calling it the Oregon Trail Cookie,” she said. (Dear audience: Insert your own Oregon Trail joke here: Ox wanders off, lose two days?)
But the Oregon and Washington influences will only be part of the Evergreen Café experience.
“I’m going to really hit on what I’m known for—laminations,” McKenzie said. Lamination is the baking process of folding, rolling, and chilling dough and butter to make layered, flaky pastries like croissants and Danishes. At Evergreen, you might see a laminated savory pastry topped with McKenzie’s own version of dukkha, an Egyptian nut, seed, and spice mix. McKenzie told me that in her development kitchen, along with the usual suspects, she’s been playing with a mix of hazelnuts, seaweed, nutritional yeast, and black sesame seeds, taking pastry in directions I’ve never seen around here.
McKenzie says that one of the reasons she’s scared about opening Evergreen is that she’s taking a big leap from baker to owner-operator—she’s never been in charge of everything in a food business before, from the bookkeeping to the dishwashing and menu design. To make things a little more manageable, she’s going to open with a reduced menu, hopefully in November. The first stage will include pastries, coffee, bread, and limited hours—maybe just 7 a.m. until noon for the first several weeks. Next, she’ll expand hours till 3 p.m. and incorporate brunch. A third stage will come some time in 2027, with full hours and an expanded menu, maybe even with cheffy options like a Northwest coast oyster pain perdu.
Let’s all be excited about what this winter holds, Minnesota—we’re going to get new treats from one of the greatest talents Minneapolis has. 4600 Nicollet Ave., Mpls.
Dining and Cooking