Bakery Opens in Mill District
by February 2, 2004 12:00 am 88 views
Vince Pianalto and David Lewis opened La Maison des Tartes on Dec. 17 next door to the renovated Mill District building in south Fayetteville.
The shop sells European-style baked goods, locally roasted coffees and teas, and cocoa from around the world. It’s open for breakfast and lunch.
La Maison des Tartes even has an 8,500-pound German bread oven, which the owners say is the only one of its kind in the region.
The 3,200-SF building was used as a storage facility for the mill decades ago, Lewis said.
La Maison des Tartes has an 80-seat, 2,000-SF dining room that is open from 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The business itself is open from 6:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. on those same days.
Pianalto and Lewis tested the market by selling their baked goods at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market since July 2002.
Lewis is a former landscape architecture instructor at the University of Arkansas. Pianalto operated two Italian restaurants in the area — Vicenza’s for five years, first in Tontitown and then in Fayetteville, and Pianalto’s, which he opened in Tontitown in 1999 and closed last May.