Healthy breads, fresh treats at Great Harvest
LIBERTY LAKE – A health-conscious bakery known for its fresh and flavorful breads has opened in Liberty Lake.
Great Harvest Bread Co. opened Nov. 26 in a retail center along Country Vista Drive near the west entrance of The Home Depot complex. The franchise bakery is a bread store/sandwich and sweet shop, serving daily specials and regular menu items for take-out, take-home or eat-in.
“We’re known for our honey wheat bread,” says baker and co-owner Ross Umbdenstock, noting the monthly calendar flier customers can pick up that lists the days’ freshly baked bread varieties – that typically amounts to some 200 loaves per day. “Every single day we make honey wheat, country white and lite wheat, and then it varies from day to day so we have a calendar.”
Varieties range from cinnamon chip to basil parmesan to challah. And the sweets case is typically filled with muffins, scones, cinnamon rolls and cookies. The deli menu includes hot and cold sandwiches that range in price from $3.75 for a half, to $6.95 for a whole sandwich. Soups of the day are available as well.
“We’re a whole grain bakery so we mill our own wheat berries into wheat flour daily on-site, so our flour is absolutely as fresh as it can be – and fresh flour has the highest vitamin content,” Umbdenstock says.
He said the store’s recipes include collections from company headquarters in Montana and others perfected over time by his Liberty Lake business partner and longtime Spokane Great Harvest franchise owner Jacque Sanchez.
The corporate office allows its franchise owners to add to the basic menu with their own recipes. Known as “freedom franchises,” it allows local owners the ability to showcase their own kitchen creativity. The main stipulations for franchise owners are they must buy wheat berries from corporate-approved vendors and make the honey wheat bread similar to the 32-year-old company’s original recipe.
Companywide, recipes are created without the use of additives, preservatives or dough conditioners. Umbdenstock says breads at his store come out of the oven each day at noon, are available while supplies last for no more than 36 hours on the shelf, and are guaranteed to stay fresh at home for seven days.
Umbdenstock, a 24-year Spokane native, says he began baking professionally about a year ago when Sanchez asked him to learn the tools of the trade at her South Hill bakery and to consider opening the Liberty Lake bakery with her.
“She knew I’d been in restaurants all my life,” he said, “and that I recently graduated from Montana State University with a business degree.”