Levain Bakery opened its 18th location in Seaport Nov. 22. The bakery hosted a grand opening for the store, advertising its new location on the street outside. It offered free merchandise, music and holiday-themed chocolate peppermint cookies to welcome new customers.
Levain originally opened on West 74th Street in New York City as a bread shop run by Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald, who attended the Nov. 22 opening. The two met training for an Ironman Triathlon. They discovered that they both hoped to open their own business one day. The pair opened Levain, but they struggled to gain customers.
“People in New York get into a routine, and it’s really hard to get people to deviate from their routine when they have a certain place to go for their coffee,” Weekes said. “So it was very slow at the beginning.”
McDonald had a cookie recipe she and Weekes created during their triathlon training, and she decided to make a batch for the bakery. The first batch sold out completely and people came back asking for more. The store eventually started to expand, and McDonald and Weekes are now celebrating their 30th anniversary next year.
Seaport, their newest location, is their second bakery in Boston. The other location, on Newbury Street in Back Bay, opened in 2022. McDonald said she knew the Boston area better than Weekes, having gone to school in Back Bay.
“[The] first time we came to Boston [together] we came down here and we loved this area,” she said. “They’ve done a great job planning this community.”
The two chose Cole Hensen and Mike Thuruer to manage the new store. Hensen started at Levain as a summer job during college, working his way up to a general manager position in the Wainescott location and now in Seaport.
“My degree is in sports management, [so] I thought I’d be working in professional sports … then I liked it so much here I ended up staying,” Hensen said.
Thuruer joined the new location from outside of the company, having worked multiple food service jobs before partnering with Hensen.
“I was really attracted to Levain because of their ability to create a community,” Thuruer said.
The opening attracted customers from all over the Boston area as well as from down the street, like Sydney Sykes, a Seaport local.
“We live in the neighborhood and we spend a lot of time walking in Seaport, so we were super excited seeing the signs come up,” she said.
Other customers traveled from different states to visit the shop.
“One just opened in Philly, but we’re going to Snowport so we’re kind of just walking around and we’re looking for breakfast,” said Ally Rea, a Philadelphia native visiting Boston for the holidays. Despite one opening in her hometown, this was her first time at a Levain shop, and Rea said she was excited to try it before visiting Seaport’s Snowport winter market.
The music inside was loud, the excitement was high and the team was all smiles. Levain prioritizes finding the right team of people to make its stores welcoming, Hensen said.
“Each bakery has its own personality,” he said. “I’ve never met someone from Levain that I didn’t think was a really good person.”
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