'We're still open': Back in the Day Bakery building listed for sale
The ping on the phone came around noon, Aug. 7, a message from a friend with a Realtor.com post showing 2401-2403 Bull St., the Art Deco-era flatiron-style building that was once home to the Starland Dairy General Store was up for sale.
“What’s going on with Back in the Day?” the text message read.
Was it true — the cheerful, venerable Back in the Day Bakery, home of the Super Chicken sandwich and the pastel-frosted Old Fashioned cupcake, for sale?
The post had already appeared on Facebook from another friend, and in a short time had amassed 30-something messages full of lamentations and speculation.
Owner-baker Cheryl Day was surprised by how quickly the listing sparked worry, “I’m not news, you know? But then, I started thinking about the legacy.”
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'All because we took a chance on this neighborhood'
Cheryl and her husband Griffith Day opened their scratch bakery 22 years ago inside the corner shop at the intersection of Bull and 40th streets in what is, technically, the Thomas Square Streetcar District. Back then the shop was called Brownsville, a charming gift-décor-vintage boutique Cheryl had founded with her older sister Natalie Brown, who passed away in 2006.
Back then the fledgling "Starland District" felt miles from downtown Savannah, even though it is within a first ring suburb of the city center. There was Lester’s Florist up on 37th Street and Starland Café, which was a coffee shop at the time, and waves of attempts to revitalize the Victorian-era and early 20th century community. There were no condos or storefronts between their corner and 41st Street, where the Starland Creamery building is being renovated, like there are now.
From the dining area of the bakery last week, Cheryl looked out onto Bull Street. The old Save-a-Lot grocery store has been remade into a salon, restaurant and courtyard, with other businesses lining up for the new spaces. Even the Old Savannah City Mission has gotten a facelift. But the Boys II Men Barber Shop, a real community treasure where Eric Hines, one of the owners, would come across the street to buy a box of hot, sticky cinnamon buns slathered with cream cheese frosting for his barbers, is being transformed into a bar.
“All because we took a chance on this neighborhood, because we always thought we could see the potential… You know, it just needed some love.”
Those early customers were often afraid to get out of their cars, she recalled, but couldn’t resist the 1940s-era vibe of the décor and the sweet smells coming from the kitchen.
Just like in Field of Dreams, Back in the Day built community “one biscuit at a time” and people came. All the kids who grew up here, graduating from “newborn” mini cupcakes to full-grown Chocolate Heavens to Baby Cakes topped with Italian meringue, like they were marking their height against a door frame year after year. They are all in college now or bring their own families back to make food memories. There was the elderly gentleman who had a small box of lemon squares tied with a striped string set aside for his wife every Friday. Griff’s sourdough baguettes and rosemary ciabattas ran out usually before 10:30 a.m. when the bakery was open six days a week at 8 a.m.
The late “Hollywood Ron” Higgins started running his movie tour trolley south out of the Historic District so that tourists could disembark, take a complimentary newborn or cookie, and buy boxes of fresh-baked goods. Paula Deen featured the bakery and Cheryl on her popular Food Network show, then long lines formed out the door. They were so busy, a judge who patronized the bakery almost daily, married Cheryl and Griff during a lunch rush.
In 2012, The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook was released by Artisan and sold enough to make the New York Times Bestseller List. Then came a second cookbook, then a third – Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking, which was nominated for a James Beard Foundation award. She was invited to be a founding member of the JBF Investment Fund for Black and Indigenous Americans. Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street came calling.
But then, the pandemic showed Cheryl and Griff what was possible when not “tethered” to the building and the bakery.
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'We're still open'
Both Cheryl and Griff turned 62 this year. They have been rising with a 3 a.m. alarm every day the bakery has been open the past two decades to prepare breads, bread and banana puddings, cookies and pies – all from scratch, all by their own hands. That labor, even though it’s done in love, is hard on the body.
“We’re still open,” said Cheryl over coffee and a tray of her stamped Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies – a classic recipe from the early days of the bakery. “We will remain open until [the building] sells. I mean, I have no idea when that’s going to be, and we’re in no hurry.
“But to answer your question: What made us put it up for sale? I think it’s time to start thinking about building community. Now’s the time for us to start thinking about [the future] while we’re still healthy. What else can we do? What other ways can we build community? There are so many projects.”
And so many big ideas.
She is concepting another cookbook, her fourth. She has created a mood board and her ideas are starting to come together. It will be steeped in history, she said, inspired by the African concept and symbol of Sankofa, which literally means to return, go, look, seek and take – to bring forth the wisdom of the ancestors into the future.
In recent years, she has found herself in the position of “auntie,” a role that she loves, serving as a mentor to other bakers and restauranteurs. She relishes teaching and is holding Pie Camp over two days this coming September, and many of the 29 participants are bakers traveling from across the country and heading to Savannah to improve their pastry skills.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Cheryl co-founded the nonprofit Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, or SRRJ (pronounced “surge”), which has raised $3 million in just three years to ensure that “Black-owned restaurants are seen, heard and can build these legacy businesses.” SRRJ is now a program incorporated under the chef Edward Lee’s LEE (Let’s Empower Employment) Initiative and sponsored by Heinz.
Cheryl and Griff will remain in Savannah, they assured. If the building sells, they will find another place to teach, to mentor, to create.
If it doesn’t sell, Cheryl said, they’ll pivot and pull from another one of their big ideas. “We’ve given ourselves permission to imagine something else. I’m excited. It’s bittersweet, of course, because I wouldn’t have traded this experience for the world.”
Amy Paige Condon is a content coach and editor for the Savannah Morning News. Her first job when she moved to Savannah in 2009 to attend graduate school at the Savannah College of Art and Design was as a "sugarnaut," working the front counter at Back in the Day Bakery. She was bold enough to write on her job application that her career objective was "to be a celebrated food writer." Cheryl and Griff gave her that chance when they invited her to help write their first cookbook. Since then, Amy has collaborated with other chefs on their cookbooks. You can reach Amy at acondon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah's Back in the Day Bakery remains open while building is listed for sale
