Black Box Bakery, the Edgewater shop known for its over-the-top laminated pastries, is expanding into a full sit-down café in Denver's Berkeley neighborhood this fall. The new spot, Black Box Café, will take over the former Suzette space, which closed in April 2026 after a three-year run. Founder Arielle Israel is leading the expansion, marking the bakery's leap from a food-hall counter into full-service café territory.
According to Westword, the new café will keep counter service while adding both indoor seating and a small patio. The space will carry over Black Box's signature cosmic motif, along with original murals from Denver artist Joe Palec. Alongside croissants, laminated pastries and breads, the café plans to sell house-made ice cream by the pint.
A Full Sit-Down Menu Beyond the Cube Croissant
The café will also introduce a build-your-own sandwich program built around house-baked challah, baguettes and focaccia, plus a dedicated coffee program — offerings well beyond the food hall counter format the brand built its name on. Israel said the café will showcase what the team is capable of, adding that Black Box offers more than the pastries customers already love.
Black Box will keep its original stall inside Edgewater Public Market running alongside the new café, rather than replacing it. The bakery has also built a wholesale operation supplying restaurants around the metro area, a business line that predates its retail storefronts by years.
Two Founders, One CIA Classroom, and a Late-Night Hustle
Israel and co-founder Megan Read met while training at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and later worked together as pastry chefs at LoHi restaurant The Bindery before launching Black Box Bakery in late 2019, according to WhatNow. The pair built their early wholesale accounts working late nights inside the commercial kitchen of Ironton Distillery, the same profile notes. Black Box's Edgewater Public Market stall opened in 2022, per Westword's reporting, though WhatNow's original coverage placed the storefront's official grand opening on March 19, 2023, when more than 300 customers showed up, and the bakery sold out by 1 p.m.
Read moved on from Black Box in 2024, according to Westword, leaving Israel to lead the bakery's next chapter solo. Westword's report places the new café in Denver's Berkeley neighborhood inside the former Suzette space, though Edgewater Echo's original coverage of Suzette's April 2023 opening placed that address at 5901 W. 25th Avenue in Edgewater. Suzette had operated there under owner Rod Wagner, serving espresso and baked goods in a building that previously housed Pizzeria Forte and the Edgewater Police Department, before closing this spring.
Denver's Toughest Bakery Corridor
Black Box's expansion lands in one of Denver's most competitive baking corridors. Along Tennyson Street in Berkeley, the neighborhood has become a destination for artisan baking anchored by established names like Bakery Four, according to 303 Magazine. Local coffee shops in North Denver have already built familiarity with the brand — MOB Coffee on Tennyson Street has served Black Box pastries as part of its daily lineup, per Lemon8.
Cube Croissants and a Cult Following
The bakery's fame rests largely on its viral cube croissants, a rotating lineup of cream-filled flavors that has included matcha, oat honey, carrot cake and chocolate hazelnut, according to Tasting Table. Traditional laminated dough can take three days of folding, resting and proofing before it ever hits the oven, per Westword. Israel has also detailed the bakery's use of house-caramelized brown butter in its glazes, including on its brown sugar croissant monkey bread, in a separate Tasting Table feature. A rainbow-swirled croissant nicknamed the queerssont has developed a cult following at farmers markets, Westword reports.
Growing Wholesale Footprint Across Denver
Black Box's reach extends well beyond its own storefronts. The Carriage House Café's new food menu near Cheesman Park announced this July that it will stock Black Box's baked goods wholesale. Back at Edgewater Public Market, the bakery's home stall has weathered frequent vendor turnover, with new stalls like Poboys Creole Cafe and Japanese sandwich concept Sandomi joining the food hall's lineup this year, as per Hoodline.
What We Still Don't Know
The original Edgewater stall will keep its current hours as the Berkeley café comes together: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, per Westword. Black Box has not yet announced the Berkeley café's exact opening date or operating hours, saying only that details will come in the coming weeks. It's also unclear how production duties will be split between the Edgewater Public Market kitchen and the new Berkeley facility once both are running full-time.
