Replacing the short-lived Homemade Kitchen, Town Bakery and Cafe has taken residence in the Rheem Shopping Center. The cafe features a variety of pastries, breakfast and lunch dishes, and beverages, while emphasizing customer satisfaction.

Manager Jon Reyna explained that the restaurant is still having trouble maintaining popularity. “As of now we’ve just been relying on word of mouth, saying ‘Hey, this place is open,'” he said. “I know a lot of people have come in recently and said ‘Hey, I didn’t even know this place was open,’ but we are.”

Although it is still working out some kinks, the cafe has received positive reviews. “We definitely have things we have to work on such as things like our menu. We need actual grab-able menus, and just better ways to communicate with the community. So far, everyone’s been really generous and excited about us,” Reyna added. “Other than being a restaurant, we want to be a cafe, just a place to just hang out and do homework and stuff like that, too. So we kinda just wanna get the word out here that we’re not just serving food, but it’s also a casual place to chill.”

Reyna explained the cafe’s main focus is on improving and pleasing its customers. “We are trying to be really flexible as we can be. Since we’re new, people are giving us suggestions that we highly look into and we recommend people giving us suggestions. We’re trying to do things like a punch card, like buy 6 and get 1 free,” he explained, adding that the bakers are willing to cater to special orders at a customer’s request.

Reyna said certain menu items have been doing quite well. “If we’re talking about our actual food, chicken and waffles have been pretty popular. In terms of pastries, the almond croissants are really good; I’m not a big almond guy, but I like them,” said Reyna about the cafe’s most popular items. “I personally like the brownies with the icing on top. Our pastries are doing really well, and honestly, I think our coffee is underrated, like it’s Oakwood based and it’s really fresh. Our baristas are really chill- they’ve been working for years, so you’re going to like your drink.”

Town Bakery takes pride in having its bread baked fresh every day, with bakers coming in the middle of the night to make Oakwood-roasted bread and rounds of pastries.

Along with managing their opening, Town Bakery is working to improve operational hours to accommodate the community. “We have early hours, especially on the weekends. We leave at 3 after brunch, but we’re hoping with the weather, once its in spring we’re starting to put a patio with umbrellas and stuff, and on the weekends we are aiming for [closing at] 8 pm, and on weekends we are aiming for [closing at] 6 pm, but our dinner menu will be basically a lunch menu,” said Reyna.

If you are looking for a quick, tasty, and relatively inexpensive meal while staying in town, the new Town Bakery and Cafe is a perfect destination.