Baker & Spice: the Hillsdale country loaf, on Saturday

Hillsdale bread fans have been building Saturday mornings around one westside counter on Capitol Highway, and after enough “we will get there later” excuses we FINALLY made Baker & Spice the actual plan instead of the errand we squeeze in after Fred Meyer! Baker Matt Kappler’s hearth breads — a Hillsdale country loaf with a crust that still holds on Monday, flour-dusted baguettes, a Harvest boule, a Currant Harvest that wants weekend toast, and grain-and-seed loaves — sit in the same small shopping-center room as a pastry case doing a completely different job, and out of all those trays the loaf we came to clock is the country loaf, because that is the one the hill actually runs out of.

Walk in at 6330 Southwest Capitol Highway and the first thing we clock is a WIDE-OPEN kitchen on purpose. The old Hillsdale pastry shop was rebuilt with recycled wood from Kappler’s own woodworking shop, so the room has that warm, honeyed timber look instead of a white-box cafe, plus about eight little tables and a long community table under big daylight windows where the whole hill seems to side-eye whatever is on the next plate. Local art rotates on the walls. The pastry case is the shiny object in the middle of all that wood: butter croissants, chocolate croissants, morning buns, Katie buns that read like a cinnamon roll that went to pastry school, and a coffee ricotta cheesecake sitting pretty in a pale cream that looks almost too calm next to the dark loaves. We can also see the bread rack behind the counter, scored and flour-dusted, which is the part of the room we came for even when the case is screaming for attention!

The country loaf is the one we time the drive around. It is a westside hearth loaf — blistered crust, a crumb that still makes toast after the weekend — and it does NOT wait around for a noon stroll. If the basket is already thinning, we ask what is still coming off instead of trusting last Saturday’s photo. The baguette is a real hearth baguette, not a prop in a basket, and then there is Friday, which is a completely different religion in this room. Challah day starts after about 11 a.m. with fresh eggs, local blackberry honey, canola oil, and a six-hour starter, and the braids come out golden, slightly shiny, and either plain or SHOWERED with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. Regulars call ahead because those loaves sell through, and we do the same when we actually need one on the table!

If we are already in line we look at the savory side the way Hillsdale looks at it. The tuna salad on an everything croissant with house pickles has the kind of neighborhood following that explains why the small room fills, and there are galettes and ham-and-Gruyère croissants when those trays are still alive. Sit if you have time. Take the loaf if you do not. We have done both in the same week, and we still leave talking about the crust.

This is a westside run, not a Division stroll, and Baker & Spice is not a seven-day shop, so those early-week closures will wreck a spontaneous drive if you do not check first. Bread is baked the day it is sold. If you want it warm, ask about the bake schedule instead of guessing from Instagram. Parking is the rare bakery miracle — an actual lot in the village stretch of Capitol Highway — which means you can fold this into a grocery run and still feel like you pulled off something fancy. Weekend mornings feel like the whole hill showed up, and that is the point of a neighborhood counter that never tried to become the city’s new thing.

We keep coming back because the room still behaves like a bakery on the hill: honest when the rack is empty, excited when the challah is coming off, and specific about the loaf you actually came for. Take the country loaf. If it is Friday, take the challah TOO. Then get back to the car before the pastry case talks you into a second bakery trip inside the first one. The bread is why we crossed town. Everything else is what Hillsdale does while it is already here!

Want the short version? It is on the Baker & Spice page.