Breakfast Got Better

Subject: Breakfast Got Better


Baking Genius Gingerbread cookies, wintery treats, and fruitcake that's a little slice of heaven. All of these are available for the holidays in our pastry case. We'll special order any of our breads and goodies for you, along with our heavenly Challah and newest, bialys!

You should know Hi*Rise delivers! Free! Whether you just want lunch brought in, or if your office has Bagel Friday every week, we can help you out. We also have pastry trays for morning meetings, as well as sandwich trays and box lunches for larger meetings. Call us at 303.296.3656 and get Hi*Rise when and where you need it!

Keep up with us! On Twitter we are @Hi_Rise. On Facebook search for Hi*Rise and look for our logo so you can become a fan!

Breakfast got better Our new release this month is a set of fantastic breakfast sandwiches! Bigger, better, and full of flavor, we're sure you will like them as much as we do.

-Breakfast Panini We went back to the drawing board and created a new focaccia we're really excited about! Moist, tender, and flavorful, it goes with just about everything. For our new breakfast panini, we load it up with sausage and a fresh cooked egg, then spread some Spinach and Artichoke Cream Cheese and grill! Delightful! Or, go with tomatoes and Jalapeno Cream Cheese for a lively kick of a sandwich.

-Stuffed Cinnamon Toast Question - how do you make something sweet but not too sweet, gooey but not too gooey, creamy but, well, you see what we were up against. That's what we created with our new Stuffed Cinnamon Toast. Warm and buttery, cinnamon toast is essential comfort food. It may be the first thing you learned to make yourself. We start with our softest focaccia, grill it just right, then add your choice of Strawberry Cream Cheese, Sweet Ricotta, or Honey Walnut Cream Cheese. A little butter, a little cinnamon sugar, and just like that, an old favorite becomes a new favorite.

Our latest lunchtime offerings, the Chicken Pesto Panini, the Cuban, and the 5 Spice Beef Panini, have become favorites for many, and still just $6.50 each!



Thanks for supporting your neighborhood bakery! Doug and the Hi*Rise team



Hi*Rise Handcrafted Bread 2162 Larimer Denver CO 80021

All Angles

How good is good enough? When do you stop fighting and just go with it? When do you toss the whole thing out and start from scratch? Came close, but not yet.

Talking about bread, and the realization that we've modified every formula we have in the past few months. Clearly better products are the result. I have to start with a note of thanks to Chad White, the Certified Master Baker at Udi's. Chad came into Hi*Rise on business when we first opened, and he's been a good friend and invaluable resource ever since. This is a man so into baking he can critique both recipe and technique by looking at a slice of bread, let alone tasting, smelling, or touching it. I describe talking to Chad about bread being like trying to drink from a fire hose. So my thanks to Chad for the many conversations we've had about bread.

Instead of a litany of changes, here are a few highlights.

Baguette - discovered that in our attempts to "age" the dough for a sourdough-like flavor, we were letting the yeast create acids that were making the crust too hard. Solution - fresh starter, shorter fermentation.

Pugliese - This bread has gone from the bottom rung to the top with the simple realization that it wants to be ciabatta. More hydration, a light touch, and plenty of time to rise have made this bread more popular than ever!

Buttermilk biscuit - somewhere along the way the original formula for this biscuit get adjusted to the point of being unrecognizable. We went back to the first version and got exactly what we wanted - a light, rich biscuit that melts in your mouth!

9 Grain - our most popular bread was having growing pains. Undesirable flavors and textures were creeping in even though we hadn't changed the formula. What to do? Again, it came down to timing. How long to soak the 9 Grains? Just long enough and not a moment more.

Upshot - keep it simple. The dough will tell you what it needs, just gotta have the right ears to hear.

This is the latest email sent out to our mailing list. Thought I would share it here:

Hi from Hi*Rise
We Love to Talk In addition to this long form update, we throw out a few specials and Tweet almost daily on Twitter.com. Sign up to follow us @Hi_Rise. We're also on Facebook. Just do a search for Hi Rise and look for our logo.
A Belated Congratulations to our Lead Baker, Sammy Marquez, for winning Best Overall in the cupcake contest at A Taste of Colorado! You can get the best cupcake in Colorado almost every day (almost - if we haven't sold out), and it really is a treat. Chocolate cake and rich chocolate icing! Congrats again to Sammy for beating out nine other Colorado bakeries and cupcake shops!

New Flavors We've been serving our version of the classic Cuban sandwich for a few weeks now, and it is a definite hit! Smoked ham, roast pork loin, Swiss cheese, yellow mustard and dill pickles, all pressed together and served hot on crusty bread. No wonder its a classic!

Starting this week we have a new Pesto Chicken Panini, featuring tender chicken breast, house made basil pesto, smokey roasted tomatoes, and Provolone cheese served hot on our Italian pugliese bread, a tender white bread similar to ciabatta. This one is all about big flavors, and nothing but smiles from the lucky ones to have sampled it for us!

We're happy to debut our new 5 Spice Beef Panini, which our crew already refers to as the Pho-nini. Served on our soft focaccia, this sandwich starts with a sesame flavored mayonnaise, thin sliced roast beef, scallion, and dash of Chinese 5 Spice seasoning. If you've had Pho, you'll recognize the flavor immediately! We grill the sandwich panini-style, then finish it with fresh arugula and a sprinkle of sesame seeds.


Catering /Free Delivery many of you have already taken advantage of Hi*Rise delivery. It's free with a minimum order ($25) and available pretty much anywhere in or close to Downtown Denver. In a bind for breakfast? We can bring bagels, pastry trays, even coffee and OJ to make the morning sing!


Next Up Exciting new breakfast items are on the horizon, plus special holiday items you'll want to pre-order for your feasts!

Thanks for reading and we'll see you in the shop soon!
Thanks for supporting your neighborhood bakery! Doug and the Hi*Rise team

Really. 3 months. Impressive. Promise I'll be better.

The "WhatsHerName" contest got a good amount of interest from our customers. Over 30 entries were received in the shop and by email. A few names were received multiple times. "Lola" was entered 3 times. A name we like, but also the name of another restaurant. "Heidi" got a couple of entries, specifically "Hi Rise Heidi". One "Hi Rise Hanna", two "Hi!Lary" (Hillary), a "Latte Lana". Some others in no specific order:

Javina Schmearma (fun!)

Naan Lavash (bread joke - look it up)

Lenore

Rexene

Persephone

Neandertall

Cup-a-Jo Anne

Stella

Our patio is in place and getting good use. It's in a fantastic shady spot along the Larimer side of our building, and with umbrellas in place its an oasis all day long.

Ch ch ch ch changes

All (minor) hitches aside, we've been open for 12 days and we're on the right track. Thank goodness for our crew of bright, friendly, and interesting people. Their many hands make light the work and I am thankful for them. In off moments the conversations run from food to family to food to who has tickets to the upcoming Phish shows and back to food. Always food. It's the one interest we all have in common and so many experiences and so many stories are always interesting.

Rule #1 - pay attention to your customers

We've gotten feedback on topics from coffee cups to wifi to wall coverings. There is no universal theme, no cosmic path revealed, which is both comforting and frustrating. Comforting that we don't have blinders on to a glaring omission. Frustrating that, as with most businesses, we need to continue forward step by step, finding our way amid the landmines. Feedback is the key here, both in what is said and what is not said by our customers. It's fairly obvious when a menu item is popular. But why is it? And what is it that makes another menu item unpopular? Ah, the mystery continues...

Couldn't post without adding some photos. Fancy interior shots coming next time.

Seriously Open

3:48AM Just shy of 2 hours before we open for the first time. An hour ago I parked in my now regular spot (thanks landlord) and started the block to the shop. Realized its my first time here at 3AM. There's a trailer parked next to one of the pawn shops with a neon "OPEN" sign glowing, and painted on the trailer is "Chicken and Waffles". I have no cash and no time. Mental note: leave early tomorrow and bring $. Larimer is quiet except for a few cars several blocks up. Lights are still on in the Whiskey Bar, chairs are up on the tables, and I can see people inside sitting at the bar. They're on the end of one day and I'm on the beginning of the next. Baker is at the door waiting for me. And we're off.

Service time

Another milestone - first meal served. Granted, these people were paid to eat as we sampled the menu with the crew. Several hits, a few misses, some tweaking to be done.

OK, the Wheat Thins in the third picture weren't on the menu. That photo was from a staff meeting. Working backwards, the food shot is a roast beef sandwich on semolina bread, a killer sandwich possible only needing a cheese change. That bread is so good I can't even tell you. The roast beef is perfectly rare, tender, juicy, and sliced thin. We've gone back and forth about using goat cheese or blue, as excellent goat cheese is available locally yet we've tracked down a fantastic buttermilk blue cheese that would be perfect. This version had the goat. The top photo is the front part of the dining room, effectively looking down Larimer from inside the front door. I love the way the view from the entrance includes the different heights of seating along the front windows.

Bread formulation is almost 100% ready with the major exception of bagels. One piece of large equipment after another has had issues, until finally we replaced the faulty electronics on the big mixer Friday night and mixed a batch. That thing makes such gorgeous dough I was beside myself. And with the proper mixing time and fermentation time the bagel machine made smooth, uniform bagels which are now retarding for a test bake this weekend. After seeing how the machiner was screwing up our timing we changed our training plans for next week, and even made a contingency plan to open without bagels on the menu. But now we can get back on track and work things out. We'll mix a couple more batches on Saturday and try out the blueberry and maybe cinnamon raisin. One foot in front of the other.

The Bakers

Baker is a fine word. For our Executive Baker, Jacqueline Blanchard, it only covers part of what she has in her arsenal. Jackie graduated from Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, LA and founded the Horticulture Society there. She is active in the Slow Food movement and while in school competed and won medals in several regional Jr American Culinary Federation competitions. In school and out, she held positions at restaurants such as Restaurant August in New Orleans, The French Laundry Farm (apprentice), Chez Panisse (stagier), and Bouchon (Chef de Partie), all in CA. Jackie came to Colorado to work at Frasca (Chef de Partie) in Boulder, plus get a little bit of time on the slopes. She is responsible for refining our menu and including some terrific Cajun and international influences to our sandwiches.

Natalia Spampinato is a Denver local whose schooling includes studies at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, and CU in Denver. Her professional career started at Andre's Confiserie Suisse in Denver (Pastry Chef, Baker), then Frasca in Boulder (Assistant Pastry Chef). While excellent at baking bread, Natalia makes mouth watering brioche and to-die-for cookies. I know you'll want to try some (and box up a dozen) when you come in.

Opening Soon. Seriously.

Finally, a date. We'll throw open the doors on Saturday, March 14. A day when, according to the weatherman, it will be cloudy and 48F. A hot cup of coffee on a day like that would be nice. We'll have it ready.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. Some items of note.
*The end of construction
*All permits signed off
*Certificate of Occupancy issued
*Second baker hired/started (more on the bakers very soon)
*Equipment repaired
*More equipment repaired
*Checkbooks balanced
*Almost 300 responses to online job ads
*Resumes reviewed, minds read, personalities dissected, work habits scrutinized
*Interviews scheduled and conducted
*Budgets checked
*Specialty flours delivered - we're like kids in a sandbox!
*Breads, cookies, and some pastries baked tested
*First batch of bagels baked (not good enough for sale, but still..)!
*Opening schedule planned
*First food order placed

Coming up: If you're in the area and happen by 22nd and Larimer in the first part of the week, you will see
*Signage going up. Window decals, the big "Hi*Rise", and the ubiquitous neon "OPEN"
*Boxes. And boxes. And boxes.
*Furniture being moved
*Samples being handed out. Seriously, if the door is open, poke your head in. If we have baked something recently, we'll be glad to share.

Pushing it

We've reached the point where almost everything is in the building but still constantly moving. An odd juggling act it is. The spiral mixer has to be in place to make sure the electrical connection is right, then all (600? 700?) lbs of it has to be moved because the ceiling above is going in. The bagel machine has to be taken apart for cleaning and new belts, put together temporarily to check placement and connections, then moved and taken apart again. It causes a certain level of brain damage. And it shows how this is such a business of details. The best part - seeing the plans become real, getting excited about baking/cooking in the space, seeing how the flow of equipment and raw materials will make the menu that's only been in mind and on paper til now.

Our Executive Baker, Jackie, and I had our first meeting with our food distributor today. The lineup of products they carry is mind boggling. Spent most of the time talking about food (as it should be) with a fair amount of packaging, cleaning supplies, and brand identity thrown in. Surprises - its 2009 and the options for unbleached/recycled paper products is pretty limited. They're out there. But it's cheaper, and often more acceptable, to have paper products bleached and virgin instead of brown and recycled. Buy brown. We're trying to source as many recycled paper and packaging options as possible. We'll recycle and compost too. If anyone reading this knows of a community garden or other group that would like waste for composting, contact Doug at info@hirisedenver.com.

Shouldn't this be simpler?

When you come in to the restaurant I hope you notice the floor. For a simple slab of concrete it sure became a pain in my a&& in January. We knew the floor had issues. In order to seal it to meet health code, we would have to grind it. "Grinding" the floor removes the top few millimeters of concrete. The floor grinder looks like your standard janitor floor buffer on steroids, which is a fair comparison. Once ground, the floor should be ready to finish.


To keep a long story short, the grinding worked but the finish process didn't. A chemical reaction (or two, or more) caused the floor to be cloudy and several professionals to claim "I've never seen this before". The remedy? Take it all off and start over. back to the grinding. What should have taken a week took almost a month and we lost valuable construction time, but there was no option to fix it later.

I describe the finished look as "leathery". The light colored specks you see in some photos are the aggregate (gravel) in the concrete. Normally you wouldn't see them, but they show themselves after grinding. Except for the time, this is what we had hoped for. Here are some photos of the finished project.

Next: cabinets and equipment.

The First Commandment of Sandwich

The First Commandment of Sandwich: Bread is King

- Michael Showalter



Check out his Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywv65lWZkM



I ran into a couple the other day as I was leaving the shop from a good day of unloading equipment. One of them asked "Is this going to be a restaurant?" A bakery and sandwich shop, I answered. She said. "What kind of bread?" Really good sandwich breads, baguette, focaccia, kaiser rolls, bagels, ciabatta. "Cool! We can't wait!" When I tell people about Hi*Rise, the conversation rarely strays far from bread, and everyone has a favorite. "Will you have croissant?" (yes). Folks with an East Coast upbringing often ask if we're going to boil our bagels (yes). Donuts? (no) But a donut sandwich does have a certain appeal.


(Tangent: Mitch Hedberg does a bit about going into a deli to order a pastrami sandwich. The waiter asks him his favorite bread and cheese he likes. Hedberg answers but the waiter cuts him off. "I am not making you a banana bread-pastrami-cottage cheese sandwich. That would severely ruin my reputation.")


When the bread is right, the sandwich is easy. Nothing has to be dressed up. The flavors speak for themselves. If you wouldn't eat the bread by itself, you shouldn't make a sandwich with it. That's the approach we have at Hi*Rise. The bread comes first. Bread is the expression of the baker's control over ingredients, time, and temperature. Vary the combination to get crusty and chewy vs. tender and yielding. See the personality? Good bread has character and purpose. That is the basis for any sandwich's combo of ingredients, and will be the focus of everything Hi*Rise does.

She's a big girl

01.17.2009 Saturday - This is a day I've been looking forward to for a very long time. The big oven is here! After a trailer full of assorted parts and panels, these photos show the face being brought in. She is the biggest thing in the kitchen - almost an 8' cube - so she had to come in first. I don't believe one should get all wistful about machinery, because they can't be wistful back. But this is an OVEN! 250,000 BTUs . Six revolving shelves (think Ferris wheel) each three sheet pans wide - 58". The shelves are stone lined, the best surface for most of the breads we will be doing. It will take a couple of days to put her together. Not super complicated, just BIG. Then hours firing up at the absolute lowest temperature, slowly rising to 500 degrees to temper the stones. After that, we'll get down to baking!

In the interest of clarity, I should point out that while almost 63 square feet of oven stone and a quarter million BTUs is a lot, mine is the smallest model revolving oven this company makes. As my friend Simone would say, "Yeah, but still...".

Construction is ongoing, and getting down to the details. We are currently in the process of staining the concrete floor. Then the final push to occupancy as all the equpiment, cabinets, and furniture can come in. If you want to read a well written and comprehensive restaurant construction blog, try http://www.startingarestaurantblog.com/.

Thanks to all of you who have stopped by to look, introduce yourselves, and see what's going on. Send an email to info@hirisedenver.com and we'll include you in announcements and pre-opening events.