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Batch Baking Company bringing dessert date nights and nostalgia-filled Squareos to 12th Ave

Squareos, palmiers and chocolate chip cookies (Image: Batch Baking Company)

With memories of dates at Cafe Septieme and inspiration from recent delicious examples like Hello Robin and R&M Dessert Bar wafting from their planned open kitchen, bakers and business partners Jared Watson and Scot Partlow are hard at work bringing together a new sweets-forward, nostalgia-inspired bakery on 12th Ave across from Seattle U.

Watson calls Batch Baking Company a “dessert focused, small batch” bakery paying “special attention to cookies” with “a bit of a nostalgic bent to it.”

“Homemade Oreo-style Squareos, Nutter Butters, Pop Tarts — puff pastry with real fruit. We’ll add savory pastries.”

But, Watson says, “cookies are having a bit of a moment.”

 

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The project will be the next baking entity to take over the location after Crumble and Flake’s gluten-free sister Niche closed in the space last month.

Partlow, a Central District resident, says 12th Ave has the right “neighborhood feel” for the project.

“It feels like a neighborhood here,” he says. “All the work at Yesler Terrace. We’re very close to Seattle Academy and near the Squire Park neighborhood.”

The business will also benefit from the yearly influx of student sweet teeth with the start of every school year across the street at Seattle University.

Both men are self-taught bakers who met more than a decade ago while working on the board of the Seattle Pride Foundation. Batch will be a major transition for both of them after long careers in the nonprofit and corporate work worlds. They’ve been friends for nearly 15 years but baking together for nine months, working Batch through a startup phase selling directly to customers. Now they’re ready to move their new careers into a new arena. But don’t expect baker’s hours.

“I legitimately love to bake desserts,” Watson said. “And I don’t need to do a 4 AM schedule.”

That doesn’t mean it won’t be hard work. This week when CHS spoke with the bakers, they were covered in dirty grease, not flour and sugar, as they were clearing out the old Niche space for their new project.

When it debuts in December, Batch Baking will have a “clean, and open” feel. It will keep daytime hours but expect a date-night appropriate setting in the evening with beer and wine. Partlow says they’re already working on excellent pairings. We’ll let you sort out what beer goes best with a Squareo.

The plan is for a small push of small renovations to create a kitchen that is open to the customer area and changes to make the baking part “more open.”

“We love the idea of baking while customers are here,” Watson said, describing a scene with a patron’s questions inspiring some new, novel baking experiment.

For some bakers, that intimacy might be their worst nightmare but Watson and Partlow say they see the customer connection as the center to what they hope to accomplish with Batch.

Partlow says Batch Baking is definitely being run rigorously as a business —  “A lot of decisions are based on guts,” he said, “But we’re pretty realistic about data and knowing what we need to do to make things work.”

“We both love the creative angle of baking,” Watson said.

Batch Baking is planned to open in December at 808 12th Ave. You can learn more at batchbakingco.com.

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Seth Watson
Seth Watson
4 years ago

Stoked…welcome to the neighborhood, Batch!