La Fromagerie, the cheese-centric cafe and retailer at 101 Montgomery St., will begin serving breakfast on Monday, and has plans to offer happy hour in the next month or two. With the new services, its hours will extend to 7am–7pm, Monday–Friday.
Owners Ruben Donze and Aymeric Joiner opened their second La Fromagerie location (the first is in Dogpatch) on October 14th, offering lunch and catering. Now that they've attracted a steady stream of regulars, they're ready to introduce something new, Donze said. "We've been really successful for lunch and also on the retail side, with Christmas and New Year's Eve."
La Fromagerie's new breakfast service is inspired by "the homey French tradition of the way people eat their breakfast." That means a hearty mug of coffee and a tartine, or a croissant stuffed with chocolate or meat and cheese and heated up in a convection oven. They'll serve Illy coffee, but patrons are also welcome to bring coffee from next-door Coffee Bar to the community table. "We'll create a synergy with Coffee Bar," Donze said.
Croissants will be imported from France (they're flash-frozen to retain the quality) and baked at the Dogpatch location; the store chose to import them instead of buying a local baker's because "they find the right balance of butter," Donze said. Tartines will be made with Oakland's Firebrand Artisan Breads, already used in La Fromagerie's lunchtime sandwiches.
New items are also being added to the lunch lineup, like grilled open-face sandwiches and soups. Currently, the shop offers three entree salads ($9.99–$10.99) and five cold sandwiches ranging from $8.99–$10.99: Le Toulouse, Le Parisien, L'Italien, Le Provençal and Le Californien. (You can get a kale side salad for an extra $3.)
"Once we are good with [breakfast], we'll start introducing late-afternoon activity," Donze said, including a happy hour with wine, cheese and charcuterie platters that should roll out in February or March.
And of course, there's plenty of cheese to sample: La Fromagerie sells 30–40 types in its case, and customers can special-order another 50 varieties.
