This morning a reader emailed me about the closing of Flour Bloom, a self described “bakeshop & botanicals” is a shop that sells NY-style baked goods like rainbow cookies, butter cookies, and cannoli. Plus plants and pottery. He wondered what’s up, so I went ahead and asked. I learned that they’ve decided to close their doors for the next month, mostly for production reasons, and will reopen on Thursday, August 29.
More On Flour Bloom
Flour Bloom opened up in the old Stark Vacuum space there on the northwest corner of NE Grand and Couch (I often catch a glimpse of it when I’m taking the 12 bus into downtown) in November 2023. It was started by Bree Licata, who grew up on Long Island and amassed lots of experience in food production over the years. She wanted to bring the familiar treats and tastes from LI to PDX.
The rainbow cookies get a lot of attention, understandably—because rainbow cookies are awesome. And I love her inclusion of an Oregon element in the use of marionberry jam instead of raspberry or apricot jam.
On their Facebook page I saw their recent nod to the cookie-croissant mashup trend, using a rainbow cookie in place of the more common chocolate chip. And it looks like they offered a Paris Brest, too. Their menu will change, as it does seasonally, but some of the other things they’ve offered aside from sweet East Coast-style baked goods are some laminated pastries, a variety of sandwiches (lunch and breakfast), and of course, coffee. And glitter!
What’s Behind the Closing?
For full transparency, I have not been to Flour Bloom personally, so I can’t really tell you what it’s like to interact with the space, staff, and food. What I am going to tell you is what owner Bree Licata told me after I reached out to her to better understand what’s behind the temporary closing.
She wants to “keep some stuff a surprise,” which will likely be revealed after their soft launch re-open on Thursday, August 29. “We have a lot of exciting things coming and we CANNOT wait to share with you all!” she exclaimed.
Regarding the closing: “Essentially we had an influx of demand for wholesale and catering,” she explained. “And we needed to reassess our kitchen and the needs to meet that requirement.” So they are going to take some time to adjust things to work better with their current business needs.
The Dining Room, Expanded Hours, and Staffing
Bree also revealed that they are busy reconfiguring their dining room: “I’ll be adding some fun new furniture to the dining area to make it more inviting, as well,” she says. They also want to expand their hours on the weekends. And they are working on their fall menu (here’s their most recent menu, for reference).
“When I first opened, I had envisioned a late night cafe spot,” she remarked. But after opening their doors, they got slammed with demand, leading to a need to hire. Good news: “Now we have the staff to accommodate the needs of the community, which is really nice,” she said.
So stop on by on August 29 to check out all the changes they’re putting together. They are also looking forward to seeing you at their block party with Urbanite on Saturday, August 31.
Many thanks to Bree for sharing all these details. I wish her and the Flour Bloom lots of relaxed focus as they make the changes for the business.
Flour Bloom [reopening August 29, 2024]
103 NE Grand Avenue, Portland
flourbloompdx.com | Instagram | Facebook
Meg Cotner
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Lol, I’m a barista that lives in Portland, and I know one of the lead baristas from Flour Bloom — the owner is absolutely not telling the truth. Not the author’s fault, as Bree has been described to me as a liar and, well, not a very nice person, overall.
Flour Bloom closed because a good deal of staff quit or were fired due to abusive management practices from the owner herself. They had to hold a team meeting to address it and hire new people to replace those who didn’t want to withstand the abuse anymore.
This article is not the truth, that’s why she’s been deleting negative reviews from former employees about the business online.
Don’t go here unless you want to support the baristas directly — otherwise, avoid this place like the plague if you want to support well-run businesses owned by good people.
I worked at flour bloom for 5 months and it was straight up the most vile and toxic place I’ve ever worked. I can rant for hours on it but ultimately I would recommend never supporting these twisted humans that run this place 💜
I smelled bad business before they even opened their doors! So desperate to appear cool but with no substance or integrity. One of their merch designs was a complete copy of our beloved Enchanted Forests original art. When confronted about it, the owner took zero accountability and blamed everyone else. Completely blew off the Tofte family. Blocked me on their socials. You mean to tell me a rich kid from Long Island going for “heavy 70s vibes” who could’ve afforded to hire an artist to do their own original imagery and not rip off a struggling icon is a terrible boss?? Happy the staff got out of there. No amount of glitter can save this mess. Karma is a B!
interesting to me that she claims to “have the staff” after firing a few people for personal reasons and others quitting bc they didn’t want to put up with the abuse anymore. also the three job listings on poached. stay away from this place. the owner and managers are horrible people.
i also find it funny how bree constantly complained about how poor she is (amusing in itself) and how the business wasn’t making any money and now suddenly she has money to re-furnish the entire place
The comments being left on this article seems so desperate. It’s sad how disgruntled people try to badmouth things because they didn’t get their way. Sounds like a bunch of entitled adult babies. The few times I’ve been there I had a great time and shared amazing memories with friends. It ashamed cute business like this Have to go through the BS. Wishing flourbloom the best!
Lol, your own personal experience as a customer means absolutely nothing to the employees and what is being discussed here.
Okay well I’ve been there while the staff was crap. Refused to help customers. When asked questions about products I was looked at like it was pulling teeth and they were being put out by having to help a Customer and to have to engage or answer anything was a burden. I’m grateful she got rid of all you cry babies. Grow up! You work in customer service. I didnt wanna have to mention how horrible the staff was but they sucked!! Happy she had the right head on her shoulders to get rid of all the bad seeds and start over.
Bree?
Nope! Just a customer who found this place as I live in the neighborhood and truly enjoy it. It’s sad to see ex employees try and bash a great place because you all couldn’t get your way. It’s sad. I feel bad for the owner and all the bad energy she’s had to endure. Praise them and their strength to get through with their head held high.
Former employee here.
Did you ever think that bad service was because of the horrible work environment?
They have lost/fired/transitioned at least 8 Leads since being “open” because leadership sees more of the bullshit and refuses to stick around or were improperly hired for the job in the first place and fired. The direct contact with Bree (the owner) is what breaks most people.
Not even management has anything nice to say about her.
They lost three of their best people in one day because *some* of management likes to stir the pot and tell people, off the clock, information that hasn’t been talked about with all of management and ownership or confirmed in any way.
The information we learned was from Instagram, rarely was anything effectively communicated even though we had Slack.
This place was so toxic it lives in it’s own category of toxic. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. Straight up traumatic.
Management couldn’t run the shop because Bree would be triggered and management had to manage her mental health (and endour abuse) instead of being able to put that energy into running the business.
Deadlines were never met for menu flips, it was rare that there was communication for new products, and when we asked to make the coffee better we were told to serve a drink that was literally half syrup.
Staff was rarely listened to.
And even if we were listened to, Bree didn’t want to hear any of it.
If you believe this place is great but the staff sucked, maybe you really need to reevaluate what you’re actually seeing.
She didn’t get rid of any bad seeds.
She is the bad seed and this business will never survive with her at the top.
She is a toxic and unsafe person, we even had to have a mediator for a meeting because staff was terrified to have a meeting alone with her- without an outside source to calm her down if we said anything that might “trigger” her.
Which was literally anything, she couldn’t take constructive criticism and made excuses for everything. She literally fought people over the internet who had anything to say that wasn’t gushing positivity.
Oh, and staff is required to sign a sketchy NDA to work there and their policies, like the most recent attendance policy, is screaming white supremacy.
Funny, this place has had so many problems from day one, with several false starts, unexpected closures, and horrific stories from former employees. I wonder what the common factor is after all the turnover…could it be the owner? Nah, probably just jealous haters. So delusional.
Calling it now, this place is done.
found the owner lol
im mutuals with a couple ex-employees and there experience tells me Flour Bloom is the most toxic place ever. owner/manager would constantly gaslight employees, extreme turnover bc she’d just fire someone if she didn’t like them and/or employees would be so mentally drained that they just give up on the spot. oh, and…. she stole this her logo design from the Tofte family.
also find it hilarious that bree has ZERO small business experience and wouldn’t be shocked and she hasn’t washed a dish in her life. her dissociation from the working class service industry tells us everything we need to know about why this place is being run into the ground.
ps not the writers fault for knowing the owner is a terrible person
Bridgetown Bites, please consider making a follow up post citing the abuse and toxic behavior that these former employees are explaining. Bree has created a troublesome environment and does not deserve the respect of the SE Portland community, nor our money.
former employee here. everything everyone has already said is true. the most toxic work environment I’ve ever been in.
Another former employee here. Can confirm what everyone else is saying about this place. Nightmarish environment. Bree yells and refuses to take responsibility. The staff has had to sit down with her multiple times to try to iron things out so the shop can be a healthy and productive atmosphere. But nothing changes. Communication is either nothing or too much. Favored staff being told by management that certain employees are going to be let go, but we literally find out about things happening at our job on Instagram. The closure was never explained to employees as a group or on Slack. Employees were told about it individually. And it’s happening because so many people have quit because it’s a horrible atmosphere, and they know their reputation is ruined so they’re trying to revamp and rebrand and rehire. AGAIN. And they blame the employees at every turn. But any good leader would recognize the patterns of this place as failure on the part of management. And like someone else said, it’s WILD that employees were constantly told how “poor” Bree is and now she’s getting new furniture for the shop? And selling a bunch of NEW THINGS that were bought for the shop and NEVER USED, because the amount of money spent in the beginning was INSANE. One look inside the spot can tell you that. And having the audacity to charge a 20% auto grat instead of paying your employees more when it’s clear that a fuck ton of money went into building out an ICONIC Portland facility…I could go on for days, but I’ll end it here. Do with all of that what you will.
I’m a small business owner in SE Portland, and have had multiple conversations with ex-employees from Flour Bloom. As someone who has some equity in this neighborhood (specifically SE Industrial), we should not be okay with Bree treating employees the way she does.
Also, Flour Bloom needs to consider their shop, it’s aesthetic, and the historical building they are in. The shop is beautiful, but the industrial district pays homage to blue-collar, hard-working, everyday people who make a city like Portland tick, and unfortunately, Flour Bloom is anything but that.
Flour Bloom: treat your employees with dignity, pay them well instead of adding an insane gratuity charge, and take a step back to educate yourself about your neighborhood…and that may require some series changes to your shop. Do those things, we we’ll welcome you with open arms. Don’t do those things, and we’ll continue to guard our neighborhood and its people.
I hope that the younger folks starting up in the service industry find this article and read the comments about Flour Bloom.
Those of us who are weathered and experienced have been saying we would not to touch this place with a 10 foot pole because it was suspect from the very beginning. Turns out we were right.
Some random person with a lot of money behind her (obviously) and very minimal experience of her own is doing a brand new build out with high end design and construction companies is not going to be a good leader unless they’re educating themselves on how to be that by hiring consultants for baking, coffee, running a cafe etc. None of that comes naturally to anyone and you either should have self awareness and teach yourself or throw money at the problem and have someone else teach you or do it for you. She’s had experienced people in her comment sections when she was first posting quite a bit before opening talking about this. So it’s not like she just didn’t know.
Reading that she’s always talking about how poor she is is wild but perception is reality and she probably does believe she is poor for her standards because I cannot imagine how she’s making money running a business like this. It’s fine if wealthy people want to start a business. But by all means, do it the right way.
I hope she finally decides to on this new re-work of the business.
I worked with Bree at a bakery here in PDX over 5 years ago. She struggled the entire time she worked there and managed to really get under the skin of a lot of staff. She was not a great team player and came in with an attitude of entitlement and arrogance. She did not take feedback well and often took things personally. She would talk at lengths about her personal life and we were basically a captive audience. I’ve heard it all. And I can confirm that her complaining about being broke was a major annoyance back then too. She just seemed so out of touch. We were also forced to listen to her bitch about her then boyfriend (who seemed like a genuinely good guy and hard worker). She would unashamedly get in yelling matches on the phone in the break room and just seemed to have a lot of drama going on. She just seemed kinda unhinged to be honest. All in all, she was not a great employee/team player and her baking skills were those of a novice baker. She lasted well under a year, not even sure if it was 6 months to be honest.
She had such little industry experience and could barely handle the stress of our bakery, yet she would always yap about her opening her shop and how it was going to happen relatively soon. Her Dad wouldn’t give her the funds to open a business until she got a little industry experience; you know things actual first time, small business owners should consider. She would complain about how frustrated she was at the fact that her Dad payed for her brother to open a business, but he still didn’t trust her enough to open her own place (meanwhile she had maybe 1yr experience total and a fancy culinary school degree at lol). Us who worked with her saw this coming years ago, and it’s a shame to see her experience such a reality shock. She truly has been around yes people her entire life, and now she’s dealing with the reality shock of what it actually looks like to run a business, work hard and take accountability. The responsibility of being a business owner/leader is HUGE and she thought she could do this with no industry professionals helping to guide her. Ouch. That reality check must really hurt.
I can’t imagine how bruised her ego is right now, but I really hope she is able to get out of her victim mindset and see reality for what it is. She clearly has the resources to create something amazing, I hope she is able to course correct and use this as a learning experience.
all these comments from ex-employees and other Portland small business owners confirmed what I’ve felt all along. fun fact: 6 of the 9 stories on the “our team” story highlights on the flour bloom IG page is Bree, and it’s videos of her GETTING A PHOTO SHOOT OF HERSELF.
Customer here, really loved this space concept and enjoyed being in it but man was everything expensive. I did witness a few times employees being mistreated or on the verge of tears. You could kind of hear conversations happening in the back. There was a weird energy there. I felt so bad for the workers especially when I would come back to find alot of faces “no longer” worked here. People were like a rotating carousel and that saddened me. The owner seems to take everything personally and lacks a PR person, watched her make alot of defensive statements on Instagram involving people leaving reviews on Yelp; which people are allowed to judge your business. This accounts back to very poor management skills which is why you hire a good operations manager. I think as an owner it’s important to take feedback and step back because you need to remember that a business is nothing without its customers. I wonder if they will be able to remain open in the future, especially with this huge liquidation of assets-abrupt closing and reopening, it’s not a good look as a business and seems very hectic and unorganized.