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 Floriole Cafe and Bakery has been a fixture in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood since 2010, but fans have been enjoying their pastries and bread via Green City Market since 2006. That’s when Sandra Holl, along with her husband, Mathieu, began their bakery journey with a commitment to following the region’s seasons for ingredients and building connections with area farmers. Becoming one of AGC’s founding members in 2016 was an extension of that dedication; local flour is just as important to Floriole's creations as fresh fruit, milk, or eggs.
And just as good ingredients make good food, employees are ingredients, too; with that in mind, Floriole takes regular stock of how to shape its work environment. Early on in her career, Sandra baked at Tartine in San Francisco, and credits that bakery with influencing her approach to creating a learning workplace. Among other things, that means offering stages—training opportunities for people interested in getting hands-on experience at a bakery or restaurant for a short period of time.
 Sandra and Mathieu have long been invested in creating a business that is welcoming for women, and as awareness of systemic racism in America surged last year, that dedication deepened. To create a more equitable workplace, Floriole has moved to a transparent wage scale to ensure that team members know the pay for each position in the bakery. Sandra’s also been active in the equity work that AGC has been doing, including participating in a series of more than a dozen conversation circles with Interrogating Whiteness over the past year.
Floriole’s efforts extend to the community in many ways. When the pandemic hit and stay-at-home orders were announced, Sandra raised her voice with other bakers and chefs, calling on the governor to support the hospitality industry. And Sandra was one of the primary bakers that AGC relied upon in conceptualizing what would become the Neighbor Loaves program. Floriole’s participation in Neighbor Loaves, and the supply chain support that the effort provided, netted a notice by the James Beard Foundation; Sandra was part of their 2018 Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership cohort. The bakery also contributed to both the Bakers Against Racism and Dough Something fundraisers/awareness campaigns in 2020-21.
And of course, Floriole’s community work centers around producing and sharing their delicious breads, pastries, and other creations. In 2018, Food and Wine recognized the bakery for making some of the best croissants in America, and on another list, stacked them among the best bread bakeries in the country. Floriole’s cafe space is currently undergoing renovations and not accepting orders, but when they reopen later this summer (follow their progress using the social links below, and we’ll keep you posted, too!), you can enjoy their baking through a bread subscription program. Their monthly mail-order service ships anywhere in the country, and is one of the bakery’s many pandemic-pivots. And check out their honey pecan sticky buns—a delicious offering of the Georgia pecans from New Communities that Floriole has been purchasing, and the topic of our Kneading Equity talk tomorrow, July 12th. We're also big fans of Floriole's merch, especially their ‘pro-gluten, pro-filterole, pro-secco’ t-shirts.
Sandra and her team at Floriole baked these apple normandy wedding cakes with Calvados-infused buttercream and apple compote filling for AGC's Alyssa Hartman, who was married in a small ceremony mid-pandemic.
Photo by Lindsey Kathryn Photography
Sandra has been part of AGC’s Steering Committee since its inception more than three years ago, and we are immensely grateful for her service. During that time, she’s taught classes with us, hosted Bread Alone Bakery founder Dan Leader for a public talk in November 2019 when his latest book, Living Bread, arrived, and contributed in crafting the future direction for our blossoming network during a time of significant development and change. Sandra’s tenure on the Steering Committee is soon coming to a close, and we’re so appreciative for her service in that capacity.
So, stay tuned to Floriole’s social for info on their grand re-opening, and to be nourished with beautiful grain-y photography. (Note: they’ve got a whole separate Instagram dedicated to their gorgeous cakes—it’s worth a scroll!)
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