Kajsa Soderlund and PopTop Rising are hosting an opening event this Saturday, May 1, to introduce their selection of baked goods. Sampling tickets will be available and everything will be at a reduced, introductory price. There will be Mother’s Day cakes, raspberry mousse cake, and chocolate mousse cake, as well as free coffee. Soderlund says, “We will be taking orders for Mother’s Day cakes or other requests too.”
The event will take place on May 1 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm at the former Culinary Communion house, 2524 Beacon Avenue South.
“A Touch of Sweden” is renting kitchen space from the new tenant of the house, so it won’t be a full-time bakery just yet. However, Soderlund tells us that they plan to have open hours when people can stop by to place advance orders, though the hours aren’t yet finalized.
The kitchen will be busy; we hear that there may be a new restaurant opening in the Culinary Communion building soon. We’ll post more details about the restaurant as we get them.
In the meantime, Soderlund says “We are very happy to be able to bake at this beautiful kitchen and would love to see you there.”
I’m glad to see a new restaurant willing to make a go of it in this space, but I’m especially glad to see that they are renting the kitchen out to diversify their income sources. Hopefully it will help them succeed with the relatively high rent that being asked for that property and the limited density of potential customers in the neighborhood.
Furthermore: Mmmm… Pastries… I wish I wasn’t going to be in class all day Saturday…
Yeah, I agree with Brook that its great there will be a new restaurant going in there, and the bakery is exciting too. Fingers crossed that they are both excellent and successful!
Kajsa’s and PopTop’s goods are just great! I wish them all the best – they deserve it!
Ooh! I’m very excited about this. I’m a little disappointed there won’t be a storefront, though; I would make a frequent detour over Beacon Hill to pick up a choklad biskvi and a cup of coffee. Will there be minimum orders, in terms of quantity or cost? I hope more information is posted soon.
I have had Kajsa’s pastries, and they are absolutely delicious! I would definitely stop by to pick up treats!
My dream is to open up a Swedish Coffee shop in Ballard! I’ll be there to taste and try out all the goods.
Brook- I’m curious-do you have some personal knowledge of how much the rent at this building is?
Way to go Kajsa…I’m glad to see your hard work paying off. Can’t wait.
No personal knowledge, just using publicly available information. When it was on the market last year, I looked it up online through one of the commercial real estate listing sites to see what was being asked.
I don’t recall the specific rate per sf, but when you figured in the triple net, it came to quite a bit per month. Of course it’s entirely possible that the restaurant moving in negotiated a lower rate, if the building owners (also easy to look up online if you’re so inclined) agreed.
I’ve long had fantasies of opening a restaurant, but whenever I do the math I come to the conclusion that I’d better get rich first. Thinking about it in that space, I thought that the commercial kitchen was a good asset to try to rent out to add to the potential income and so I was kind of excited to whoever rented the space had the same idea.
Kajsa makes great cookies! I had them delivered last week to Tucson and it made my day with all our political turmoil here. I was homesick and her ginger cookies were wonderful. I miss Seattle but it was nice of her to get these to me!
Thank you !!
I’m hoping it will make the neighborhood smell delicious!
We heard about The Station too, and sent an email to Luis asking for more details. Stay tuned to this blog—we will post when we know more.
A Touch of Sweden is happy to announce that we are going to be vendors at Beacon Rocks on Sunday from 1 pm.
If you want to get your taste buds rocked, come and see us at The Chop House parking lot on Sunday from 1 pm right next to the main Beacon Rocks event on S Lander Street.
We will have various items on the menu such as; Home made Swedish meatball sandwich, different types of pastries such as almond and chocolate beskvi (macaroon) cinnamon rolls, apricot custard pie, decadent chocolate praline cake, carrot cake, banana bread etc.
The Beacon Rocks Specials will be Apricot Custard Pie, Decadent Chocolate Praline Cake, Beskvis (macaroons), Carrot Cake. Anyone who places their order by Sunday will receive 15 % off the regular price.
We hope to see you there.
We are unfortunately not going to have any of our pastries at The Station. We will however announce the winners of the raffle which took place during the sampling event shortly.
I just want to add a Thank You to The Chop House who have graciously giving their permission for us to use their parking lot.
A Touch of Sweden are sad to announce that we are going to need to close our business in Beacon Hill due to a family emergency. My dad who is in Sweden has cancer. It has become increasingly hard emotionally for me to be this far away from him, especially since learning to know his cancer has spread. Because of this, we have decided to go back to Sweden in August. At the end of this month, we are going to move to Minneapolis where PopTop is from and stay there until we leave for Sweden.
We are going to have a garage sale/bake sale on this Sunday June 21st which will be between 1308 and 1312 Beacon Ave S (13th Ave S/S Judkins Street.)
We will sell furniture (like a platform bed, a dresser etc), glassware, books and other items to economically support our move. We would be most grateful for any donations or tips.
We will also have some baked goods for sale at this event.
Please, spread the word among friends, neighbors, and friends. We need all the help we can get.
Thank you,
Kajsa and PopTop