On the comeback trail with Sub Rosa

Nobody would have blamed Sub Rosa Bakery for relocating after a fire burned through the upper story of its iconic building on the corner of N. 25th Street and Jefferson Avenue in November 2024. After all, the beloved bakery, which has operated at its 620 North 25th Street address since 2012, had already survived one damaging fire in 2013, and it had only grown more popular in the intervening years. Perhaps a newer building, a bigger building, a building unburdened by the memories of fiery catastrophes past, would be in order. A tabula rasa for Sub Rosa.

Church Hill’s croissant connoisseurs can breathe sweet relief, though, because the thought didn’t cross co-owner Evrim Dogu’s mind. “Not even for a second,” he told The Lookout in a phone interview earlier this month. Having first taken up residence in Church Hill in 2003, “I've been in and out of the neighborhood for over 22 years, and I both love the neighborhood, and I want to support something that I love happening in the neighborhood.” Having acquired the building in 2012, he and his sister/co-owner Evin, are sticking with it.

“I think I would feel lost somewhere else,” he added.

While Sub Rosa isn’t lost to the neighborhood, it hasn’t re-found its footing yet, either. But the five-time James Beard semifinalist is very much on the comeback trail. In late April, several Lookouts relayed photos of construction crews on Jefferson Ave. doing renovation work on Sub Rosa’s upper floor, which sustained the most damage from the November blaze. (Recall, the fire, which was determined to have started due to faulty wiring in the building’s attic, displaced the bakery’s upstair’s tenant—Second Bottle owner Erin Keene.)

“The part [of the building] most affected by the fire was the south side of the building's roof,” Dogu explained. The company got a separate permit to replace the roof faster, and that work has since been completed by Corinthian Construction, which is handling the entire renovation. Inside, smoke damage from the fire required the entire building to be stripped to the studs; when we spoke mid-month, Sub Rosa was in what Dogu hoped would be the final stages of conversation with the city about permitting for the interior renovation. While the basic layout of Sub Rosa will remain the same, its third iteration will feature one huge difference: a new, electric oven.

“That’s obviously a major, major change,” said Dogu. The bakery’s wood-fired hearth is “part of our name and part of our our whole form and identity. But we felt that right now, the issues that we were facing with that oven were somewhat insurmountable, and especially with everything being reduced to like a construction site again, we [knew] we weren’t to get this opportunity to change things we wanted to.” The new unit, a ~$60,000 Bassanina EcoPower deck oven, is currently being assembled in Italy, with a projected delivery in September-October.³ If all goes according to plan, the goal is to be fully reopened by Thanksgiving 2025.

Baking with electric heat vs. wood is a dramatic difference, but the veteran baker feels up to the challenge. “It’s like saying, ‘How will you feel moving from a paddle boat to an airplane,” he said, chuckling. “But I feel like the adjustment is actually much more psychological” than technical. After ramping up, he added, Sub Rosa’s bakers will be able to take advantage of precision control, plumbed-in steam, and even shorter hours thanks to increased efficiency and automatic loading.

But that’s not to say they’re not currently baking: they are, at Hatch in Southside, and slinging their wares at Birdhouse Farmers Market in Randolph every Tuesday afternoon. “It is different, but we're doing our best with what we have, still working directly with farmers, milling the flour ourselves, and making the products,” Dogu said, crediting Sub Rosa’s core staff for their flexibility and poise as the beloved bakery navigates pastry purgatory.

As with a potential relocation, no one would have blamed Sub Rosa’s owners for having a bad attitude after what they’ve gone through, either. But after their all-too-familiar devastation, Dogu says they’re on the mental comeback trail. “Yes, it's annoying, but we're going to be back, and we're going to have such a strong team and so many people passionate about what we were doing,” he told The Lookout. “When you look at it that way, it's really quite a dream that we're living.”

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

🏚️ Union Hill demo application sparks alarm

Last week, Historic Richmond posted an alert to its Instagram account warning its ~5,800 followers that the new owner of the house at 2228 Cedar St. had applied to demolish it and build “two new single-family attached dwellings” in its place.¹ According to the nonprofit—which itself is quite historic, given 2025 marks its 90th anniversary of preservation work in the River City—the circa-1840s Greek Revival house is one of the oldest still standing in Union Hill. It may not be standing for much longer: the Commission for Architectural Review met Wednesday to consider the application, but because Richmond’s building commissioner had already recommended demolition, the architecture authority may not have, well… the authority to block it.

But that’s not to say the story of 2228 Cedar is over. Far from it. “This is a super-complicated situation,” Cyane Crump, Historic Richmond’s executive director, told The Lookout in a phone interview this morning. The upshot is that while the house is clearly within a City Old and Historic District (COHD), its previous owner’s decades-long neglect rendered it so dilapidated that building commissioner David Alley determined “the structure to be [u]nsafe and in an imminent state of collapse” after his site inspection earlier this month.⁴ Crump characterized this development as “really unusual,” noting that CAR itself has the remit to consider “structural integrity” as it evaluates applications—though, in this case, the building commissioner’s authority as the leader of the city’s Permits & Inspections division may override that remit.

Neither Alley nor Alex Dandridge, CAR’s secretary, immediately replied to The Lookout’s emailed requests for comment.² As Danielle Porter, director of preservation at Historic Richmond, said in her comments to CAR Wednesday night, the 2228 Cedar debacle “is not the fault of any one person, but the failure of a broader system. Despite these challenges, we still believe that this building can be saved.” And it may yet—as of Friday morning, Historic Richmond is not aware of a formal permit for demolition of the house, and I was not able to locate one, either. “Some people were optimistic that that might leave the door open for a different resolution,” Porter told The Lookout by phone this morning. She is encouraged by the mere fact that the current owner has been willing to engage in discussion with Historic Richmond (a small but potentially meaningful concession, given many property owners elect not to do so unless required.) I’ll have more reporting on both the situation at 2228 Cedar and the regulatory dynamics that produced it in the coming weeks. If you know more, get in touch. If not, stay tuned.

🦩 Beware the neighborhood de-beaker

The Lookout’s tipline received some very disturbing news late last week from S St. There, resident Lisa Zulawski says she returned from a long trip earlier this month to find her beloved flamingo figurine “tossed down the street to a neighbor’s home and debeaked.” The leggy lawn ornament “originally hails from my hometown of Buffalo” she told The Lookout. “Buffalo is very into lawn flamingos.” Apparently, it’s a bit of a tradition in The City of Good Neighbors to hold “flocking fundraisers,” at one of which she secured the currently beakless bird you see above. “So, this bird is a bit sentimental for me and would love to restore her to her true glory.”

Three things:

1. If you happen upon a beak-like piece of plastic in the vicinity of S St., please don’t throw it away! Respond to this email and I’ll connect you with the owner of the bird from whence it came.

2. Odds are this was a random, albeit frustrating, act of petty vandalism, but we can’t rule out the possibility that there’s a serial de-beaker in our midst. Keep your eyes peeled and your avian yard accessories safe.

3. We should probably one of these flocking fundraisers here in Church Hill, no? “The East End Flamboyance” sounds like an event I would spend tens—nay, dozens—of dollars to attend for a worthy cause like, say, funding improvements at Triangle Park. Hmm.

As ever, if you’ve got tips—about other de-beakings, or anything else—submit them to The Lookout. Here’s how.

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• We all scream: Honey Baked Bee is offering free toppings on standard and kiddie-sized ice cream cups tonight and tomorrow night (5/30-31). And scooping through 7pm! Details here.

• Vintage tent sale: Dear Neighbor is hosting Le Stuff Vintage and Mother Daughter Co. for a pop-up shop-up from 11am-4pm on Saturday (5/31) on Jefferson Ave. Here’s the flyer.

• Shuck yeah: Pizza Bones is teaming up with the oyster slingers at Dead Shell for a shindig Sunday (6/1) from 5-8pm. Get the details.

• Feeling potlucky?: The Jefferson Ave. Community Garden is hosting a group dinner next Thursday (6/5) from 5:30-7:30pm. Sign up to bring something.

• Job listing: Blue Atlas is hiring a barback to cover shifts Wednesday through Sunday. Peep the listing.

• Mamma mia!: Giorno Market, the new Italian specialty shop in Tiny Space’s old location, is officially open for business. Go sip some espresso and check out the newly redesigned (tiny) space! Hours and info here.

• Park prize: Richmond’s park system was recently named the 16th-best in the nation by the Trust for Public Land, up from 22nd last year. Just imagine how high we’d rank if the city mowed Libby Hill more consistently! Review the rankings.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.

1  Thanks to the Lookout that tipped me off about this!

2  In fairness to Alley, I only reached out to him around 11:20am Friday morning, as I only grasped his role in this situation after my last-minute phoner with Historic Richmond. The perils of time-sensitive news about arcane, still-unfolding code-enforcement deliberations.

3  In a stroke of luck—and the twice-torched bakery certainly deserves some— completed the purchase shortly before the Trump administration blew up international commerce with its dumb, apparently corrupt trade war, so their oven should (hopefully) be insulated from the price hikes to which American consumers and businesses have since been exposed.

4  His report, and all public materials 2228 Cedar’s new owner submitted to CAR, can be found in The Lookout’s share drive.