A small bakery in an old shoe repair shop.
Kettle & Crumb opened in 2019 with one deck oven, a secondhand mixer and a sourdough starter older than the business. We’re still mostly that, just with more coffee.
Nell Harmon spent ten years baking in Chicago restaurant kitchens before moving home to Porter County. She kept a jar of starter going the whole time, and when the old shoe repair shop on Lincolnway came up for lease, she figured it was time to give it a proper home.
Her brother Theo runs the front: coffee, the register, and the chalkboard everyone photographs. Between them and four part-time bakers, we make everything on site, starting long before the lights come on in the front.
“Bread should taste like it took a while. Ours does, because it did.”
How we bake
Our bread is naturally leavened and fermented for up to two days. It takes longer, but it’s easier to digest, keeps better and simply tastes like more. Flour comes from regional mills, eggs and dairy from farms within an hour’s drive, and fruit from whoever has the best of it at the Valparaiso farmers market that week.
A day at the bakery
Roughly how a Saturday goes. Weekdays are the same, only with fewer cinnamon emergencies.
- Ovens on
Yesterday’s dough comes out of the cooler to wake up.
- Shape & score
Every loaf is shaped by hand and scored with a razor.
- First bake
Sourdough first, then pastry while the oven’s still roaring.
- Doors open
Coffee’s on. Regulars usually beat us to the bench.
- Tomorrow’s dough
Mixing, folding and feeding the starter for the next day.
- Doors close
Leftover bread goes to the food pantry on Monroe.
The short version
Slow on purpose
Long fermentation, real butter, no mixes. If something takes two days to do right, it takes two days.
Close to home
Ingredients from people we can visit, and a team that lives within a few miles of the shop.
Nothing wasted
Day-old loaves become croutons, bread pudding, or a donation. Very little ends up in the bin.
Who you’ll meet
Owner & head baker
Front of house & coffee
Pastry, and the kolache recipe
Come by early.
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 6:30am. Street parking out front, and the bench is first come, first served.