Little Loaf Bakeshop is best known to pastry-lovers in the Hudson Valley and beyond for their gourmet vegan pastries and sandwiches sold at pop-ups and farmers’ markets. But in the very near future, they’ll open their first full-time brick-and-mortar bakery and cafe in the Village of New Paltz.
Little Loaf, founded and co-owned by Colleen Orlando and Rian Finnegan, was borne of the feeling of isolation during the global Covid pandemic. Le Cordon Bleu-trained Orlando was working at the Oakland location of the renowned Bay Area wood-fired bakery Firebrand Artisan Breads, and Finnegan was a branding and employee experience leader at the northern edge of Silicon Valley.
“When I was in high school, college, shortly after I worked in coffee shops, and it was always the favorite thing I did for work,” said Finnegan. “And when I kept moving in through tech, the space of like a coffee shop and what that provides people was always something that was really impactful for me, especially as a young queer person in Northern Virginia. It was like the first time I really saw myself and saw other people that were like me.”
That vibe of warmth and inclusivity is at the heart of what Little Loaf is all about. “We’re an LGBTQ-owned vegan bakery that creates daily moments of joy through creative, fun, high-quality pastries and other treats,” reads the opening paragraph of the “About” page on their website.
“And I think that that comes across in our baking because we appeal to not only vegan people and we market ourselves really as a queer business first and a vegan business second,” said Orlando. “And a lot of people don’t even know that we’re vegan.”
The mere mention of vegan baking may still confound or befuddle anyone who hasn’t much experience with it, but as Orlando said, “Vegan food has come a long way.”
“I wasn’t trained in vegan baking,” she said. “I went to Le Cordon Bleu a long time ago and it’s traditional like French baking, right? So you learn how to do the génoise, you learn how to do all of the traditional pastry creams and custards using eggs and butter and milk. And so having done that and butter croissants, and then now moving to vegan ingredients, I personally think that like flavors can really shine.
The decision to move from vegetarian to vegan was an ethical one, a natural progression for Finnegan and Orlando, who have two little loaves – cats — as part of their family.
“We started dating six months before Covid and then Covid hit and we’re like, I guess we’re living together now forever,” said Finnegan. “I was still working in tech and we started talking about what we wanted to do with our time here and how we wanted to make a more positive impact.”
That conversation led to the packing of a U-Haul truck and a move across the country to the Hudson Valley, where in 2022 Orlando and Finnegan started Little Loaf in the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, which was redeveloped several years ago with a shared-use commercial kitchen, artist studio spaces and loft apartments. Little Loaf, which has a staff of nine on top of Orlando and Finnegan, quickly outgrew their Poughkeepsie space and earlier this year identified a new home in an A-frame building at 218 Main Street in New Paltz.
“The Underwear Factory has been incredible,” said Finnegan. “It helped launch our business. We didn’t have to buy all this equipment. But we’re using the space as it’s not intended. We’re taking over all the hours. And we’re busting at the seams.”
Finnegan admits that there were times over the past several months where they wondered if their dreams of expanding might never happen.
“Whether it’s the town meeting or like honestly going through the SBA (Small Business Administration) process, it felt like every week we’re like, is this gonna fall through?” they said. “Are they gonna say no? Are we not gonna get the funds? I call this like my — or our — era of anxiety. And I feel like we’ve got a lot of resiliency now built up from this process.”
For the next few weeks, Little Loaf will continue operating their Thursday-Saturday morning pop-up at the Underwear Factory, along with their farmers’ markets in Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow, Beacon and Cold Spring. And their pastries can be found locally at Sweet MAresa’s and Blackbird Infoshop in Kingston, Lagusta’s Luscious in New Paltz and the Taste NY Market in Lagrangeville.
Little Loaf keeps it local with locally sourced ingredients from Wild Hive Farm, Field and Larder Farm, 4Wall Farm, Treeline Cheese, Liberty Orchards and Buon Pomodoro.
Back of house in New Paltz should be up and running before Thanksgiving, while front of house has been hit with delays, making their grand opening a bit more nebulous. Once they’re open for customers, they’ll have indoor and outdoor seating, a dedicated parking lot and two EV chargers. Their own delivery truck is electric.
Just last week, Little Loaf closed the book on a successful crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter, raising $28,428 to help with eco-friendly packaging and training for new staff. For more information, visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/litteloaf/little-loaf-community-fundraiser.
Soon, Little Loaf’s New Paltz home will ideally be a thriving trans-and-queer-owned vegan bakery.
“It is important for us to be a visibly queer/trans business here in the Hudson Valley,” said Finnegan. “New Paltz is very LGBTQ friendly, Beacon is as well. But I feel like it’s almost once a (farmers’) market, that someone comes up and they’re like, ‘Are you trans or like a really young person?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ And they’re like, ‘Me too. I just came out, I just changed my pronouns’.”
That connection is critical, they added.
“I think it’s important for people to see and to normalize being trans, being queer and being a business that’s successful and a partnership that’s successful and out in the world,” Finnegan said. “And to create a space where people can feel really comfortable as themselves.”
For more information about Little Loaf Bakeshop, visit: https://www.littleloafbakeshop.com/.
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