When Leslie Mackie opened Macrina Bakery in 1993, she hoped her love of artisan breads would lead to Macrina becoming a community gathering spot. To her delight, that didn’t take long. As the Macrina community grew, we added another café and started wholesaling bread and pastries. Leslie’s spirit of hard work, a positive outlook, and uncompromising quality guided the team that made all this happen.

When we sat down to put these values into words, we didn’t have to look beyond the diverse team of bakers, pastry chefs, savory cooks, baristas, café staff and delivery drivers that make up Macrina. Our employees live the values every day in their mission to enrich communities through the joy of artisan baking.

We’re proud of our 2019 core value winners and the example they set. We wouldn’t be where we are without their shining contributions.

Working Hard: Erica Olsen, Pastry General Manager

When Leslie first met Erica, she was cradled in her mother’s arms. At the time, Leslie was the head baker at Grand Central Bakery and worked with Erica’s mom. More than 25 years later, Erica had graduated from the Seattle Culinary Academy with honors. She joined Macrina in 2017, and was quickly promoted to Pastry General Manager. Erica and her team of pastry chefs produce all of Macrina’s pastries. Erica’s hard work, ambition, and dedication continue to make Macrina more efficient and consistent each year. Her skill is on display in each delicious and beautiful pastry.

Remaining Positive: Sergio Castaneda, Delivery General Manager

Sergio has been with Macrina since 2002 and oversees a large team of delivery drivers. When Sergio is asked how his day went, he always answers with a smile and an honest response, often detailing positive solutions he found to unexpected challenges Most days, he’s in at 4 A.M. working shoulder to shoulder with the packers and drivers to ensure our customers get their orders on time. Before most have us have even awakened, he’s dealt with mechanical issues, staffing, and drivers stuck in traffic. Tall in stature, his employees call him the gentle giant.

Never Settling: Thanh Huyen Dang, Bread General Manager

Thanh Huyen Dang, who goes by Huyen (pronounced “Wen”), has worked at Macrina since 2002 and as the Bread General Manager since 2012. She works tirelessly to find efficiencies in wholesale production, pushes through challenges, and jumps in to assist managers and employees whenever help is needed. She holds her team to high standards and effectively communicates the many details required to produce so many hand-formed loaves with an exacting consistency. Huyen takes on more responsibility each year and works with her team to ensure our food safety plan is rigidly followed

Embracing Diversity: Trevor Kitchin, Food Safety General Manager

Trevor manages an integral department—food safety—and does so with an international team. Together they speak five languages. To ensure everyone is clear on the many details they must master, Trevor has become an expert in communication. A gentle soul, he is patient and takes the time to huddle frequently with his team so that all policies and procedures are understood and executed. He makes a point to make everyone feel welcome and respected.

Integrity in All We Do: Amy Bui, Wholesale Sales Manager

Few know Macrina’s products like Amy Bui does. She’s grown up with them. Her father is Phuong Bui, our Head Baker, and longest-tenured employee. Amy first started coming to Macrina to visit her dad when she was three. Now, all grown up, Amy heads our wholesale sales team. She builds and maintains trusting relationships with our customers through integrity— of product, of communication, and of her word. Additionally, her savvy command of technology has elevated the efficiency of our sales team.

Located inside a Sodo club for car lovers, the restaurant Derby offers a great bar scene and excellent food. 

The food isn’t served on the hood of a Ferrari, but you’d be excused for remembering it that way. The Shop, a club for gearheads, houses the upscale comfort food restaurant Derby. The spacious, sleek dining area has broad windows opening onto rows and rows of exquisite vehicles gleaming in the clean, well-lit garage. While that’s unique, it’s hardly the best reason to visit Derby. Come for the food (and leave with Lamborghini dreams).

Executive Chef Nick Taseris serves the kind of food your mother might have made if she was a professionally-trained chef that sourced high-quality meats and produce from the Pacific Northwest. Take, for example, their Bad-Ass BLT. It’s served on lightly toasted Macrina sourdough, with thick slices of good tomato, just-ripe avocado, lettuce—and the namesake Bad-Ass Bacon. Not only is this probably not how your mother referred to her bacon, but it’s also nothing like the bacon most of us grew up eating. Derby gets the meat cut in quarter-pound strips from a ranch in Pendleton, Oregon. Nick and his crew coat it in a house-made cayenne-maple glaze, slow-roast it, drizzle it with maple syrup and sprinkle it with Maldon salt. It’s thick, rich, and bursting with salty-sweet flavor. And, yes, you can order a side of the bacon all day off the happy hour menu.

Raised in Texas, Nick brings some of that Lone Star smokehouse know-how to the cuisine. The beef brisket, pastrami, and corned beef are smoked in-house, low and slow, and the tender meat is served in generous portions. You won’t go wrong with the Pastrami Reuben on Macrina’s rye bread, or the Brisket Sandwich served with bbq sauce.

And as with any pub-style fare worth racing for, the burger better be good enough to land pole position. Derby’s is a winner. A Macrina Brioche Bun, topped with sesame seeds, is slathered in Derby sauce (horseradish-infused aioli) and holds a hefty patty topped with American cheese, red onion marmalade, house-made pickles and a thick slice of good tomato. The medium-cut fries are crisp with a light, fluffy interior. You won’t leave hungry.

For those inclined to lighter fare, the Cobb, Chicken Caeser, and Steak salads do not disappoint. The dinner menu builds on the lunch menu to offer a few hearty entrees, including a pasta, crab cakes, and a smoked meatloaf. For those with a Maserati metabolism, Derby’s poutine has a Texas inflection with their house-smoked brisket and red-eye gravy. Order one to share. Or if you’re in that YOLO state of mind—indulge. You can always retire to the heavy leather sofas and chairs in Derby’s lounge for an after-dinner bourbon and another lingering gaze at the two and four-wheeled beauties preening in the garage.

Lunch Mon–Fri 11 a.m.–3 p.m.

Dinner Wed–Sat 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Sun–Tues 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Brunch Sat, Sun 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Happy Hour Menu Daily 3 p.m.– 6 p.m.

The long-time local favorite now has spacious indoor seating and an expanded menu. 

In episode one of the original Twin Peaks, filmed in North Bend, FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper tastes a cup of the fictitious town’s brew—he liked it black as midnight on a moonless night—and declares it, “damn fine.” That was the same year that Huxdotter Coffee opened. Located less than two minutes from I-90, just past the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, the first drive-through in North Bend quickly became the busiest spot in the area to grab a coffee.

Photo Credit: Aaron Locke/BCRA

Now that drive-through with “damn fine” coffee has grown up. Huxdotter Coffee’s new home is a surprisingly modern building of wood, glass and steel that opened for business last August. Not only does the new building have an improved drive-through, but it also has a roomy interior with soaring ceilings. An array of tables and counter seats provide a welcome space for those wishing to leisurely enjoy espresso drinks and pastries, made-to-order lunch sandwiches and hot breakfast sandwiches. Others use the free wifi to get some work done while they sip their coffee.

The inspired new digs are the brainchild of Jeremy Westlake, whose local roots run back several generations. Jeremy bought Huxdotter in 2016 with the dream of adding indoor seating and expanding the menu. After two years of planning, construction started. Closing down the busiest drive through in the area for ten months was painful, but the results have proved worth it. The café is full of locals and travelers on their way to Snoqualmie Pass, Mt. Si, or Snoqualmie Falls. And the drive-through is faster than ever before, with more room for cars to line up, a better workspace, and even a barista with an iPad who speeds up the wait by walking the line and taking orders when it’s busy.

While contractors worked on the building, Jeremy worked to upgrade Huxdotter’s menu. He visited many bakeries throughout the area, favoring Macrina Bakery. Unfortunately, North Bend was then outside of Macrina’s delivery area. He offered up some estimates of the quantity of bread and pastries he thought he’d need, and an agreement was made to deliver to a restaurant in Issaquah, where Huxdotter could pick the order up. For the first month, Jeremy’s parents drove the 30 minutes to Issaquah and back at 4:30 in the morning so that Huxdotter’s customers would be able to get their Macrina fix when the café opened. It quickly became apparent that Jeremy’s estimates were solid—the café was indeed busy enough to justify expanding a route just for him. Nearly half a year later, the buzz has spread and Huxdotter continues to grow.

One thing about Huxdotter that especially stands out is its friendly, helpful baristas. Even after shutting down ten months for construction, nearly the entire staff returned. Watching the way they hustle to keep the drive-through line moving and the banter at the counter upbeat is invigorating.

When the sun shines on a warm day, the wide garage door that separates the large outdoor patio from the indoor seats opens to merge the two spaces. On a summer afternoon, tired hikers and those returning from work fill the chairs refreshing themselves with coffee, sweet treats or one of the PNW craft beers that rotate through the six taps on hand. Huxdotter also carries quite a variety of canned beers and a small selection of Washington wine.

One wall is decorated with large framed black and white photos of Jeremy’s ancestors who settled in the Snoqualmie Valley generations ago, and on another you’ll find an oversized topographical map of the area—perfect for planning your next hike or visit to the many nearby attractions.

Huxdotter Coffee is open weekdays from 5 A.M. to 7 P.M. and from 6 A.M. to 7 P.M. on weekends