Philly’s latest hit bakery is all about the bread (but the pie is really good, too)
What once was a Mount Airy insurance office is now a sunny bakery/cafe selling fresh sourdough, bagels, sandwiches, pies, and cookies.
If you’ve ever gone out of your way to visit a bakery only to discover the early birds snatched up all the good stuff, you know the cold, hard disappointment of a baked good denied. Philly’s latest pop-up bakery turned brick-and-mortar, Mount Airy’s Downtime Bakery, sees you.
Opened in early December at 6624 Germantown Ave., Downtime is perhaps the only bakery in the area to have a publicly posted daily baking schedule: Its sourdough loaves, brioche buns, cookies, and quiche slices debut at 9 a.m. Focaccia hits at 10:30, followed by sandwiches and tomato pie slices at 11. Come 1 p.m., there’s a parade of fresh-baked pie slices, baguettes, and cookies.
“I wanted us to be able to always have something in the case,” says co-owner and head baker Dayna Evans, a Delco native who edited Eater Philly before pursuing her bread-baking hobby professionally in 2022. Now that Evans' pop-up bakery has graduated from her home to its own brick-and-mortar space, she and partner/co-owner Sam Carmichael have help from staffers Theo Cobb, Emary Parisi, Sophie Wieber, and Haley Peckman.
Besides relaxing the pace for Downtime’s bakers, the schedule ensures maximal freshness and gives late-risers an incentive to stop by and stay a while. “People [can] come in the afternoon and know that the thing that they’re getting in the afternoon has not been sitting there all day,” Evans says. “If you know you’re coming in at 1 and I’ve just baked this pie, there’s nothing like that feeling. ‘Oh, hot pie. Sure, yeah, I’m definitely gonna come have a cup of coffee.‘”
There’s a potential downside — “if you both want pie and bagels, you’d have to stay all day,” Evans says — but the preponderance of customers so far have been locals who don’t mind swinging by a second time. Plus, Downtime’s 20-seat cafe is so cozy, you won’t mind staying awhile.
“We would love to be a bakery that anyone wants to come to, but I think our goal was to really make a terrific neighborhood spot. We’re not chasing Instagram trends or anything,” Carmichael says. “We just want people to come and sit and hang out.”
Evans and Carmichael took about a year to convert this former insurance office into a full-on bakery. They tapped friends and family to outfit the space with warm, welcoming touches. Newtown Square-based woodworker Nat Fry built a custom sales counter and shelving out of maple and cherry wood. Designer Dayan D’Aniello branded Downtime’s merch (essential for a new-school bakery), using the bakery’s logo — a girl hugging a baguette, drawn by illustrator Hannah Robinson — as a jumping-off point. Artist Cat Park painted four canvases that form a giant dinner-table motif that hangs over the seating area. Evans' mom, Stephanie Cocchi, threw the ceramic plates and mugs. Thank You Thank You coffee whiz Cody McGregor devised a custom blend for Downtime with Poem Roasting.
The ingredients in Downtime’s bread also lean local (and organic). All of their flour comes from Pennsylvania mills, including Small Valley Milling in Halifax and Castle Valley Mill in Doylestown. Evans and Carmichael also source produce for sandwiches, pies, and other baked goods (think persimmon muffins) from Weavers Way’s Northwest Philly farms.
Given its sourcing, you can expect a seasonal — and idiosyncratic — bent from Downtime. Recent items include a sweet potato-rosemary shokupan (Japanese milk bread), a maple candied-walnut sourdough loaf, and focaccia topped with fingerling potatoes, garlic confit, and rosemary. Thursdays always feature a one-off bread variety, while other specials — like the handheld mince pies Evans made around the holidays — fluctuate with the three-baker team’s daily workload. Canelés waltz in every now and then. Pie fillings and focaccia toppings can change on a lark. Sandwich stuffings will be somewhat static till spring, which Evans is looking forward to.
“When there’s fresh fruit, we can make sour cherry pies. With the sandwiches, an asparagus-lemon-goat cheese combination ... When tomatoes are in season, we’ll do tomato sandwiches on the pane Siciliano,” she said. “By that time, I feel like we’ll have expanded our menu enough to have even more things.”
What you can count on at Downtime are sourdough baguettes and bread (country, seeded, and sesame-crusted pane Siciliano, made with durum flour); four varieties of bagels (they always sell out); quiche with a spelt flour crust; sweet and savory brioche buns; puffy squares of tomato pie (“people are going nuts for it,” Evans says); and focaccia and ciabatta sandwiches (always vegetarian). If you haven’t noticed, bread rules the day.
“I really wanted to start the bakery as a bread bakery, and people come for bread,” Evans said. “That’s the thing I care the most about.”
Downtime Bakery at 6624 Germantown Ave. is open Thursday through Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Check its Instagram, @downtimebakery, for updates.