Bentley’s Bakery and Café Opens its Doors

Going out for “a lit­tle some­thing” just got bet­ter in Danville. Bentley’s Bak­ery and Café (named for the own­ers’ first dog) has final­ly opened on Hill Street.  Since 2008, when con­trac­tor Mark Greaves’ truck began appear­ing in front of the emp­ty hard­ware store, word buzzed around town. A bak­ery and cof­fee shop sound­ed great, but until recent­ly, when a white hand-let­tered sign hung in the front win­dow announc­ing “April 7” appeared, there was ques­tion about it becom­ing a reality.

“The econ­o­my did delay the café for a year,” said Jeff Framp­ton, who owns Bentley’s with his wife Nan­cy. But the wait was worth it. In the first week of busi­ness, cus­tomers poured through the door and tast­ed the wares that proved to be eye-can­dy as well as tasty. Local pas­try chef Tarah Faulkn­er pre­sent­ed some remark­able look­ing cre­ations in the two glass cas­es from which cus­tomers peruse and order.

The Framp­tons val­ue Tarah’s exper­tise with pas­try. She grad­u­at­ed from the New Eng­land Culi­nary Insti­tute in 2008 with an Asso­ciate Degree in bak­ing and pas­try. Her intern­ships helped hone her skills at the Wood­stock Inn in Ver­mont and at the Bilt­more Estate in Ashville, North Car­oli­na. Now liv­ing in West Danville with her 19-month-old daugh­ter, Aubrey, and fiancé, Brad Fontaine, she thank­ful­ly hasn’t far to go when she meets Nan­cy in the ear­ly morn­ing hours to bake the pas­try for the day.

   

Besides the smell of good food, the space is filled with light from the large front win­dows, and morn­ing sun­shine pour­ing into the kitchen from the east. The Framp­tons’ design allows cus­tomers to see into the kitchen, mak­ing the con­nec­tion between bak­ers and din­ers a com­mu­nal event. Their orig­i­nal hope was to receive a his­tor­i­cal ren­o­va­tion grant for the build­ing. Though the grant didn’t come through, by the time they had gone through the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, they felt a com­mit­ment to keep the his­tor­i­cal feel of the build­ing. “It was the first down­town build­ing rebuilt after the 1895 fire,” said Jeff. This atten­tion to his­tor­i­cal detail has pro­vid­ed a theme for the inte­ri­or that is homey and com­fort­ing. “It’s total­ly up to code, now,” said Jeff, “top to bot­tom.” It’s green, too, an ener­gy effi­cient old­er build­ing that proves it can be done. Jeff relied on the exper­tise of Effi­cien­cy Ver­mont and Mark Greaves to help in this area.

 

The Frampton’s, who live on Maple Lane in Danville, orig­i­nal­ly came from Mon­tre­al, so the con­nec­tion with French pas­try is strong (crois­sant is a spe­cial­ty item). After the first three days, Nan­cy reports the biggest lunch sell­er had been the quiche. “The pas­tries are fresh every day,” said Nan­cy, as she rolled crois­sant that would be baked the next morn­ing. She explained how a crois­sant is made and to demon­strate turned on a mechan­i­cal won­der, called a “sheeter,” that sits in the kitchen. “This is real­ly Tarah’s machine,” she explained. It is used to incor­po­rate but­ter into the dough, a labor-sav­ing device that is a crit­i­cal time-saver for the chefs.

“The menu will change to keep things new,” said Nan­cy. In the morn­ings, there are pas­tries and cof­fee from the espres­so bar or tea. The lunch menu is light, fea­tur­ing soup, sal­ads, quiche, ham and cheese crois­sants and Pani­ni sand­wich­es.  Local man, Tim Ide, tried out both ends of the day on Fri­day with a choco­late crois­sant in the morn­ing and Pani­ni at noon. He appeared quite hap­py with the results. Spe­cial­ty pas­try orders, includ­ing wed­ding cakes, can be tak­en as long as they are giv­en in advance. “We use as many Ver­mont prod­ucts as pos­si­ble as well as local con­trac­tors,” said Jeff. “We real­ize val­ue of keep­ing Ver­mont viable.”

 

In plan­ning the menu, the cou­ple want­ed to fill a niche that they felt wasn’t being cov­ered by oth­er food estab­lish­ments in town. “We talked with the oth­er own­ers before we came up with out plans. We didn’t want to com­pete with their busi­ness; we want­ed to work with them.” One of the things that they heard often was the need to be open on Sun­day, and the have com­plied. Bentley’s hours are Wednes­day through Fri­day, 6:30 to 1:30 and Sat­ur­days and Sun­days, 8:00 to 1:00.

     

The only kitchen dis­as­ter on open­ing day was relat­ed to get­ting used to the new equip­ment. “In a pan­ic, I called the man who had installed our cof­fee machine, explain­ing the cof­fee was cold,” said Jeff. “He calm­ly told me to flip two tog­gle switch­es in the back that allowed the water to heat.” They had worked into the night the day before open­ing day. So busy was Jeff with last minute details, he didn’t have time to change into his Bentley’s shirt until the first cus­tomers had enjoyed a breakfast. 

The hap­pi­est sur­prise for the Frampton’s has been the over­whelm­ing sup­port they have felt from the vil­lage. For that, they are most thank­ful. The com­mu­ni­ty is thank­ful, too, for anoth­er way to cel­e­brate com­ing togeth­er over a delight­ful del­i­ca­cy in a pleas­ant setting.

To see the com­plete pho­to album click here.

This arti­cle first appeared in the May, 2010 issue of the North Star Monthly.