Rising Up: New Bakery Opens in Falls Church

For Mirjana Varga, bread is an essential for life, like air or water. While cultures celebrate their differences in the dishes they serve, or beverages they brew, bread remains the staple present in diets throughout the world.

Three weeks ago Varga opened the doors to her bakery in the 1100 block of West Broad Street in the City of Falls Church. Called The Bread House, it is located in the small shopping center across from the West End Shopping Complex and boasts an array of homemade European breads baked fresh daily.

A native of Serbia, from a small city half an hour outside Belgrade, Varga hopes to bring to Falls Church the culture and ambiance of a local bakery that is largely missing in the U.S. anymore.

In fact, this is not the first bakery that Varga has owned. In Serbia, 12 years ago, Varga and her husband owned one, but with the onset of the war between Serbia and Croatia supplies were no longer available and they lost the resources they needed to keep its doors open. At that time her husband moved to the U.S. where he worked as a maintenance technician for commercial ovens. In a year Mirjana and her daughter Visnya followed.

For the next dozen years she worked in real estate. But the idea of opening another bakery was always on her mind. Finally, she and her husband were able to scrape together the resources for the shop.

With her husband's expertise in commercial ovens and the connections that he had in the field, they were able to find the necessary equipment and hire experienced staff needed to grow their dream.

Throughout Europe, bakeries are the places people go on a daily basis to pick up fresh bread, whether hearty artesian style loaves or crisp and flaky croissants and pastries.

But in the U.S. where large supermarkets have taken over and muscled out the small shops, most people buy their bread either packaged or from supermarket bakeries. While convenient, Varga said that most of these breads are made from frozen dough and with lower quality ingredients.

For Varga, good bread comes down to two things: quality ingredients and personal experience and attention. Especially in the case of cakes and pastries, Varga insists upon using top quality chocolate and butter. She said that the quality is evident in the final product.

But she admits that ingredients matter little if not used properly. Leo Zavala, the head baker at The Bread House, has 22 years of experience in baking. With a comprehensive knowledge of recipes and an expert with baking techniques he opens up an expanse of choices for the bakery.

With of a focus on preparing the bread fresh, Zavala goes to work at 11 p.m. every night. He starts by mixing the dough, then proofing it. After the bread has risen he uses one of two ovens to bake it.

For hard crusted bread he uses a tier of ovens set up one on top of another, allowing for a lot of baking to be done at once. For softer breads and pastries like croissants, he uses a special oven that has a rack for baking sheets. When turned on the machine rotates the racks to create an even and flaky crust.

By 5 a.m. in the morning all the bread is finished baking, ready for the store to open at 6:30 a.m.Along with breads and pastries the bakery also sells cakes made to order, and in a case in the front of the store is a selection of sandwiches. "The sandwiches really sell the bread," she said.

While she is excited about going back to work for herself, Varga admits that it means a lot more work. On April 15 she started preparing the bakery for opening. Over the next six months she worked tirelessly fixing up the store, painting, arranging the ovens, and preparing the financial infrastructure for the business.

Since starting work she has only taken two days off. One day was for July 4th. After becoming a U.S. citizen Varga has always celebrated the day as one of the most important of the year.

The other day she took off was when the health department gave final approval for the store. Since she opened her doors three weeks ago she has arrived by 4:15 a.m. every morning and hasn't left in the evening until sure everything is ready for Zavala to start baking.

Over the three weeks she said that she has gradually seen an increase in her customers, most drawn by word of mouth. "One man said that our cranberry muffin was the best muffin he'd ever had," said Varga. While small businesses often face a lot of difficulties upon opening-the Small Business Administration reports that over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year-Varga, an experienced business person, believes that the quality of what she offers will catch on. "We are hoping everything will be OK," she said.