Rise Gluten Free Bakery, the first gluten-free bakery in the District, will open at 2409 18
th Street NW this summer. Owner Mike Koritko, who quit his job with a project management consulting firm to focus on the bakery, says that though Rise is the first such bakery in the District, he wouldn’t be surprised if others opened shortly afterwards.
The bakery is located on the ground floor of a three-story building in Adams Morgan. The 815-square-foot space will be remodeled, but as of now, Koritko and his team are still waiting for their building permit. Til then, they're testing and refining the recipes.
Rise will have a staff of five, including an experienced bread baker and an executive pastry chef--Mollie Bird, formerly with Wolfgang Puck’s The Source restaurant--who is developing the menu of offerings.
Koritko, a home baker who eats gluten-free himself, says the bakery will have a line of its own breads, sub buns, rolls and croissants as well as pastries like cakes, pies, cupcakes and Danishes. Everything but the bread will be baked in house (the bread is being imported from an
unnamed supplier in Michigan; Rise will be an exclusive distributor of the bread in the D.C. area).
Pricing is still being determined. “Gluten-free flour is expensive, but we want to keep the price in line with nicer pastry shops in the area,” says Koritko, who adds that he's thinking of $3.50 to $4 for a cupcake. “We’re not like a grocery store that has gluten-free products. But we also don’t want to be the most expensive” bakery.
Koritko says he chose Adams Morgan because “it’s a great neighborhood. It has the desirable demographic for what we’re doing,” he says. “We’ll fit right in.”
Koritko says there has been a lot of interest in the bakery as he began developing the concept and plan. “I think we’ll be an instant hit.”