Bread from the Back Alley
With a wood-fired brick oven,
a Hastings bakery strives to bake the perfect, crusty loaf.
Story by Tina King
Photography by Bobbi and Steve Olson
In these hurried times in which convenience is king and quicker is better, John Hamburger is either a throwback or a trendsetter. He likes slow food. Organic food. Bread with “teeth.” Attempting to make the perfect, crusty loaf, he mixes up sourdough and slides it into a rare Nebraska find – an old-world-style, wood-fired brick oven.
Hamburger built the oven three years ago at his Back Alley Bakery, a two-room
shop that’s open just two afternoons per week; it’s what he does
in his free time away from his full-time job as a building contractor.
“It’s a hobby that’s
gone crazy, in my opinion,” he laughed.
The bakery’s “artisan
breads” include nine-grain, sweet potato, pepper wheat, sun seed and sweet
raisin loaves. There’s no guarantee what customers may find each weekend;
selections are “baker’s choice.”
“I love doing it,” Hamburger
said. “It’s different every weekend. The bread is different. The
people are different.”
Hamburger’s project not only
reflects his passions, but also the spirit of Hastings, an artistic community
where many residents appreciate doing things a bit out of the ordinary.
The bakery’s once-neglected
building at 609 1/2 West Second St. was one of four purchased by the city’s
Community Redevelopment Authority about 13 years ago. It took 11 years to find
the right buyers.
Those buyers were Todd Brown and his
wife, Cody Carson-Brown. They had watched as friend Angela Graham bought and
renovated a nearby downtown building. She turned the bottom floor into Graham
Gallery and Framing, and the top floor into her home.
The couple decided to join the revitalization
effort, using Hamburger to help gut and renovate the space. The two-story building
became home to a boutique – Great Dames – and three apartments with
original wood flooring and exposed brick walls. The single-story rear of the
building, however, was condemned. The men gutted it and took the rotting roof
off.
“The only thing left standing
was the brick walls around it,” said Redevelopment Authority Director
Randy Chick.
Because of their shared loved of good
bread, Brown and Hamburger had previously experimented with small ovens. They
decided to build an oven and bakery in the renovated space. Brown and his wife,
both architectural designers, found the vintage light fixtures and ceiling tiles.
Hamburger, owner of Carmichael Construction Company, built the oven using plans
from famous oven-builder Alan Scott. The oven was a $3,000 project. The bricks
can withstand heat up to 2,000 degrees, and the heat is held in by steel doors
that were salvaged from a former Safeway grocery store.
