As announced on twitter the other day, the wife and I are opening a small sourdough bakery in South East London frighteningly soon, and I’m very proud and excited to reveal both the name and logo, right here, right now.
We had such a lovely response from lots of people wanting to know more and offering words of encouragement, and whilst there’s still a HUGE mountain to climb and lots of questions we don’t have all the answers to, there’s a bunch of stuff that we do know.
Brick House is going to be a small artisan sourdough bakery based on an industrial estate just off Peckham Rye Common in SE22. We’ll be specialising in slow fermentation sourdoughs combing old school methods, with new school techniques that I picked up whilst studying out in San Francisco. All our bread will be shaped, scored and baked by hand, and where possible will use organic ingredients.
Our dream initially was to have some kind of retail location, but despite all the government’s talk of re-generating high streets and backing small businesses, actually getting a loan seems to be about as easy as getting laid in a nunnery, if you’ll pardon the analogy. So to start with Brick House will be a wholesale and delivery business, supplying local cafes, restaurants, shops and pubs.
But we’re also looking at other options of getting our bread into your hands including weekly farmers markets, having a pitch at a train station selling to people on their way home, milkman style door to door to door deliveries, and so on. If any of the above tickle your fancy, or you’ve got any other suggestions, or if you’re a business owner who’s potentially interested in using or stocking Brick House bread, drop us a line.
We’ll hopefully be picking up the keys to our unit on Monday the 16th of April, and at the moment it’s a blank space. There’s lots of work to in terms of buying equipment, plumbing, electrics and getting the space compliant from a health and safety point of view, but we’re hoping to be open for business some time from around mid to late May. Time permitting, I’ll be documenting the process in a diary of sorts here on Hand To Mouth.
So it’s with a bit of a heavy heart that I’ll be saying goodbye to the guys at E5 Bakehouse when I finish work there at the end of this week. I’ve really enjoyed the 5 or 6 months that I’ve spent with the crew down on Mentmore Terrace, but the plan has always been to open up something up ourselves, so it has to be done.
Last but not least, I need to say a BIG thank you to my good friend Tom H of Nation for doing such a sterling job on The Brick House branding and identity. Yet again he’s done me proud.
Tags: Artisan, Bakery, Brick House, Delivery, Diary, East Dulwich, Logo, Nation, Peckham Rye, SE22, Sourdough, Wholesale
Ferg so excited for you guys! Cannot wait to get my chops round some, southfields is dripping in delis if you want some names?
Ferg I’m speechless. What a fantastic thing to be doing! I’m pleased and proud and wishing you every success in your new venture. See you soon I hope, once you’re all set up down there I’ll have to bring some bubbles down about the same time as you start rolling loaves out of the oven. Best// don x
ditto all of the above comments. Congratulations. Good luck.
Ferg, so happy to see you following your dreams! I am sure your business will be a great success. I will definitely pop down with the wife some time!
good work Fergie – what about a ‘kneads up’ bakery warming? I want to see the unit..
Well done mate. Didn’t expect things to move so quick, but I guess – if not now, when?
Massive congrats to you both. Now the hard work starts so if you need a hand, you know where I am.
Good lord! As a Peckhamite i look forward to it all coming together!
Huge congratulations! Your logo looks awesome and I know from reading your fabulous blog that the bread will be incredible. Looking forward to hearing more about the consumer sales side of things – I’d love to get my hands on one of your loaves
Congratulations! I’m very excited for you both.
I’m looking forward to finally trying some of your sourdough.
Hi Ferg/Sharmin, just back from a weeks holiday, and read this great news. Congratulations. You must be properly excited.
If we can help in anyway, let us know.
Looking forward to meeting soon and discussing your application for the Apprentice next year.
Cheers,
Anil x
Great name! Really looking forward to your bread.
Brilliant – good skills Ferg and Sharmin.
Congrats and here’s to making a lot of dough.
Amazing work by you both to get your new venture started, incredible drive, passion and commitment to your dream. Huge respect. Will spread the word.
Thanks for all your lovely messages peeps
Great work both! Wishing you all the best with this… when can I pop down the road and visit?
Best of luck to you both. Very exciting.
What a wonderful adventure!
I will keep my eyes and ears out for your bread.
x.x
There is a sough dough place here in Shrewsbury called the Shrewsbury Bake House. Amazing breads. One thing they do well is engage people on twitter and do lots of “guest” breads, using ingredients from other local producers – breweries, fruit farms, etc. Makes for lots of variety and cross promotion of businesses. Hope the venture goes really well for you both. Look forward to seeing the blog posts.
Wow, exciting! I’ve recently moved to Peckahm so just down the road from your new premises. Would love to be able to buy your bread somewhere retail…Peckham farmers market perhaps?
Great news. Good on you mate. Good Luck.
Craig
nice one Fergus and Sharmin,
this is excellent news, well done for working this out – and sorry for only noticing now
Sanne loves making her danish rye bread from sour dough, and looks after the sour dough like a third little baby! I know she will be really jealous of you guys…
good luck with the renovations
Peta
Ferg, great news mate – #really# exciting times ahead for you both. Look forward to keeping up with progress and eventually tasting some product!
Andrew and Imx
[...] « Introducing Brick House [...]
Congratulations on your new venture! In the unlikely event of you having any leftovers, maybe you could hook up with FareShare? We’re just up the road in SE16. Best of luck.
Sounds good. Lets stay in touch. Fergus
Dude, This is awesome news and I love the branding.
Can I sponsor a bench out front?
Tried the sourdough on saturday23/6, as good as the famous Hackney Wild in my opinion. Well done.
Thanks, Glyn. Fergus
Congratulations to London’s best loaf!
Very much looking forward to visiting your bakery with Florian and South London’s Food Trip early December!
Cheers from Germany!
Michaela