Not a Half-Baked Idea

Happy hour closes out the day at Blackbird Baking Company.

When I think of happy hour, I think of discounted appetizers and adult-drink prices reduced by a buck or two in the early evening. I have no quarrel with those options, but there’s a different kind of happy hour I recently discovered.

This happy hour is at Blackbird Baking Company. in Lakewood. The last hour of business each day is the independent bakery and coffee shop’s happy hour, when all its baked goods are half price. The breads and sweets are baked fresh here every day, so you won’t get day-old anything.

Blackbird offers a variety of breads, most in large and small sizes. It also sells cookies, brownies, scones, croissants, tarts, muffins, biscuits and macaroons. Even its cookies for dogs are half price during happy hour.

The bakery at Detroit and Sloane avenues doesn’t publicize its happy hour, but somehow people know about it. Five days a week, a line forms on the steps leading to the front counter at 5 p.m., when happy hour begins. On Saturdays and Sundays, the line forms at 4 p.m. because Blackbird closes at 5 on weekends. Sometimes the line extends out the front door, but it moves fairly quickly.

You can get some good bargains. On a recent happy hour visit, I bought two (big) cookies, a scone and a small loaf of rye bread for a total of $5.22. Of course if you wait until happy hour, you might find that something you planned to buy has sold out.


Blackbird opens at 6 a.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. on weekends. Friday is the only day it sells challah bread and Saturday is the only day it sells chocolate cherry bread. Plan to arrive well before happy hour if you want either of those items.

Blackbird Baking Co. also is a nice place to enjoy a coffee — it serves local brew Rising Star — or tea while you work on your laptop or tablet or maybe visit with friends. There are several tables and lots of outlets. There’s also a small play area for kids that keeps the little ones within their parents’ or caregivers’ sights but out of their hair.