What started as a passion project for owner Rochelle Kelvin has quickly transformed into a local hub for hospitality and standout baked goods.
The first thing you notice when you enter Gardiner Bakehouse isn’t just the smell of fresh bread. It’s the number of times you hear smiling customers saying “See you tomorrow!” as they walk out the door.
In just one year, this bright bakehouse nestled within the Full Circle collective has become a social center of Gardiner. What started as owner Rochelle Kelvin’s hobby has transformed into something far more significant: a gathering place that’s strengthening the local food economy one loaf at a time.
The Full Circle collective space includes Gardiner Bakehouse, Benton restaurant, the Living Room event space, and Hudson Valley Trail Works. Here, neighbors meet for coffee, grab a burger, or attend community programs. Farmers drop off their harvests, fiber artists weave tapestries, families stroll together, and children play outside.
Photo by Nicholas Ano
“This has become a center of Gardiner’s social life, and we see the same people over and over,” Kelvin says. While they get tourists, the backbone of what they do is serving the local community.
A Year of Growth
The numbers from the bakehouse’s end-of-year newsletter tell an impressive story. In 12 months, they’ve baked and sold 17,000 loaves of bread, hand-rolled 20,000 croissants, and poured 32,000 cups of coffee. But Kelvin’s favorite statistic speaks to something deeper.
“We brought in over 22,000 eggs from Goodnow Family Farm right here in Gardiner,” she says. About half were folded into croissants, challah, quiche, and scones. The other half were sold by the dozen and carried home by customers.
The partnership proved its resilience during last spring’s bird flu crisis, when egg prices skyrocketed nationwide. “They didn’t have avian flu in their flock,” Kelvin says. “So nothing here changed. Our price of seven dollars per dozen never changed. And our customers never felt the strain that others outside the community may have.”
Photo by Nicholas Ano
This ripple effect has extended to other farms throughout the community. The bakehouse provides bread to three local CSAs: Huguenot Street Farm, Phillies Bridge Farm Project, and Taliaferro Farm. Over 10,000 sandwiches have been made at nearby Grazery on focaccia that Gardiner Bakehouse bakes fresh for them nearly every day. The bakehouse also sources ingredients from Wright’s Farm, Willow Pond Sheep Farm, Full Moon Farm, Dressel Farms, and Tantillo Farm.
“Every one of these connections shows how powerful it is when neighbors choose to support neighbors,” Kelvin reflects. “Buying from local farms and businesses doesn’t just nourish our tables; it strengthens our local economy.”
A Passion Project
Kelvin’s journey to open Gardiner Bakehouse began during the pandemic while baking sourdough at home. Yet her background in sustainable agriculture is what set her apart. “Once I discovered that, ‘Hey, this bread tastes really good,’ and my friends were kind of clamoring for me to make it for them, I immediately started to think about the flour,” she says.
Photo by Nicholas Ano
That curiosity led her to three mills in the area (Farmer Ground, Wild Hive Grain Project, and Milestone Mill) that use freshly milled New York State grain. “Really, the heart of what I do is teaching about regional agriculture through our bread,” Kelvin explains.
When people think about farm-to-table, bread rarely comes to mind. “You’re thinking vegetables and apples and meat and eggs and milk,” Kelvin says. “But grain is like the forgotten child of agriculture.” Yet the Hudson Valley used to be a breadbasket.
As Kelvin grew more serious about opening a bakery, she studied at the San Francisco Baking Institute and staged at Kingston Bread & Bar, among other bakeries throughout the Northeast. “Staging is when you work at a bakery in exchange for knowledge,” she explains. “I gave them hands, and they gave me an education.”
Kelvin is also a part of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, an association that helps craft bakers troubleshoot challenges and build their skills. She credits Wide Awake Bakery in Ithaca, a groundbreaking operation that started in tandem with Farmer Ground Mill, as a major inspiration. When Kelvin spoke to one of the owners there, he was brutally honest about what opening a bakery would take. “For a couple days, I was shook,” she admits. “I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, what am I doing?’ And then I just pulled it together.”
Photo by Nicholas Ano
The opportunity to open Gardiner Bakehouse came through close friends at Hudson Valley Trail Works, who were developing the Full Circle collective. “Knowing the people behind it, I was like, ‘I am all in,’” Kelvin recalls. The collective was built with the vision that food, farms, and community could come together in one space.
The result is a bright, tall post-and-beam building filled with natural light. Walking through, Kelvin is eager to show off the towering speed racks filled with fermenting sourdough and the impressive sheeter imported from France that rolls croissant dough into delicate ribbons.
All About the Details
The bakehouse uses high-extraction flour from Farmer Ground that retains more of the bran than typical white flour, giving it a fresh, nutty flavor. All breads and pastries are hand-crafted daily. The traditional long-fermentation process of mixing, resting, folding, proofing, shaping, retarding, scoring, and baking can take up to 30 hours from beginning to end.
Something many customers don’t know is that Gardiner Bakehouse’s croissants are actually sourdough, an uncommon practice outside of artisan bakeries. “The sourdough gives it that depth of flavor that makes a croissant, we think, exceptional,” Kelvin explains.
Gardiner Bakehouse is a Community Supported Bakehouse, or CSB, a concept inspired by the Community Supported Agriculture model. Every Tuesday, about 100 subscribers come to pick up bread that’s been reserved for them. “That frees us up to be creative,” Kelvin explains.
Photo by Nicholas Ano
The subscription program creates a direct connection between artisan bakers and their community. When subscribers commit to purchasing baked goods regularly, they receive discounted pricing while helping create a secure market for the bakehouse and minimize food waste.
Subscribers can choose between two tracks: a weekly loaf of country sourdough, or the “baker’s choice” option, which features rotating varieties like sesame semolina, jalapeño cheddar, cranberry walnut, and shokupan, a Japanese-style fluffy milk bread.
“I have an amazing team of bakers,” Kelvin says. “Amazing, hands down.” Finding bread bakers isn’t easy, but the bakehouse maintains a creative, collaborative atmosphere. “We really try not to stifle creativity, but promote it instead.” Kelvin often takes her bakers on trips to visit other bakeries and mills. “I want them to know what other parts of the industry are about,” she says.
The Offerings at Gardiner Bakehouse
After our interview, Kelvin lays out a sampling of the bakehouse’s offerings to try. The pain au chocolat is a sensory delight, with impossibly flaky layers that shatter at first bite, revealing a tender center and soft baton of dark chocolate tucked inside. That sourdough fermentation Kelvin mentioned comes through in a subtle tang that balances the richness of the chocolate perfectly.
Photo by Nicholas Ano
The pumpkin cream danish strikes a delicate balance between seasonal and indulgent. A pillowy danish base cradles a smooth pumpkin cream filling that’s spiced just enough to be interesting without overwhelming, managing to feel both comforting and refined.
The loaf of country sourdough has a burnished golden-brown crust that crackles when you break into it. Inside, the crumb is open, airy, and soft. It’s bread that needs nothing more than a smear of good butter and a dash of flaky salt, though it would be equally at home supporting a hearty sandwich or soaking up the last bits of soup from a bowl.
The flourless chocolate cake is surprisingly light for something that’s traditionally so intensely chocolatey, with a delicate texture that defies expectations. It’s gluten-free by nature rather than by compromise, and rich enough that a small slice satisfies completely without feeling heavy.
The cinnamon knots, sticky and fragrant, showcase the bakehouse’s laminated dough technique in a different form. Each knot pulls apart in buttery layers laced with cinnamon sugar, the kind of pastry that disappears faster than you’d planned.
Photo by Gardiner Bakehouse
Each item demonstrates the attention to detail and commitment to quality that has made Gardiner Bakehouse a destination worth the drive. These aren’t just baked goods; they’re expressions of craft made with exceptional ingredients by people who genuinely care about what they’re putting into the world.
And while the bakehouse is known for its bread and pastries, its offerings extend even further. Sandwiches like the Southwest Turkey showcase how versatile the sourdough can be. Roasted turkey is layered with three-pepper Colby Jack cheese, roasted red peppers, red pepper aioli, cilantro, thinly sliced red onion, and arugula for crunch.
The shelves are also fully stocked with a carefully curated selection of local grocery items. Milestone Mill tortilla chips sit alongside milk from Stap Dairy in Pine Bush. Wright’s Farm fruit jam, Pancake Hollow Sugarworks maple syrup, and Jerry’s Local raw honey offer pantry staples sourced from nearby producers. Products from Willow Pond Sheep Farm, Full Moon Farm, and more round out the selection.
Setting up for a Bright Future
Despite the bakehouse’s success, Kelvin is intentionally keeping the business manageable. When asked about her dreams and plans for the future, she laughs. “My biggest dream and plan would be to have a day off.”
Photo by Nicholas Ano
She has no plans to open a string of bakeries or expand into wholesale distribution. Instead, her ambitions center around spreading knowledge within her community. She’d love to add educational series about bread itself. “People don’t have the language to talk about bread here,” she explains. She envisions seminars about the history of bread, the culture of bread, and breads from around the world.
“As the team at Gardiner Bakehouse looks ahead to our second year, we feel both gratitude and momentum,” Kelvin reflects. “There are new breads and pastries we want to craft, more partnerships and projects to explore, and more stories to share across the counter and around our tables. But at the heart of it all remains the same intention we began with: to create a place of flour and joy, of gathering and nourishment.”
Photo by Gardiner Bakehouse
It’s a refreshing perspective in an industry often focused on growth and expansion. “We’ve figured out what works, and we’re just going to try to stay there,” she says.
The dream Kelvin described years ago, of a bakery built in tandem with local grain producers, creating an integrated system that strengthens the regional food economy, is already taking shape. With each of those 22,000 eggs purchased, each weekly bread share pickup, each “See you tomorrow!” heard at the door, Gardiner Bakehouse is strengthening both the local food economy and the community it serves.
Gardiner Bakehouse is located at 297 Bruynswick Road within Full Circle in Gardiner and is open every day (except Wednesdays) starting at 8:30 a.m. For full hours and additional information, call 845.419.2206 or visit its website.
Related: 6 Seasonal Hudson Valley Drinks That Go Beyond Pumpkin Spice
