Flour, Water, Salt and a Locker Code: How a Lebanon Road Microbakery Won Over Mt. Juliet
Most bakeries win you over with the smell as you walk in. Émeraude Bakery does it with a menu that drops online, a pickup window and a locker door that opens on a loaf still warm from the morning bake.
The little bakery at 9904 Lebanon Road in Mt. Juliet has become one of those Wilson County places people plan around. Regulars watch for the week's menu and order early, because the best items go fast.
One baker, one starter, a lot of patience
Émeraude is the work of Hunter Briley. It began the way a lot of good neighborhood food does: he baked test loaves, handed them to the people next door and let word of mouth take over. The loaves turned into a following, the following turned into an online storefront, and the storefront turned into a real business on Lebanon Road. The building has a colorful history of its own. Before it held proofing baskets, it was a shooting range.
The name is personal. Émeraude is the Creole French word for emerald, and emerald was Briley's grandfather's signature color. The bakery's style follows the old-world French boulangerie tradition. That means everything is sourdough, leavened with wild yeast and given the long, slow fermentation that stretches a single loaf across a couple of days. The ingredient list for the core bread is about as short as it gets: flour, water and salt, plus time.
What to order
The house original sourdough is the anchor, and the rest of the lineup shows how much range one starter can have:
- Italian olive oil sourdough and a local honey-wheat sourdough
- A table bread made from ancient Khorasan grain
- A sourdough sandwich loaf for weekday lunches
- Sourdough cinnamon rolls, a customer favorite that disappears quickly
- White chocolate cherry “bombs”
- A sourdough-crumb chocolate bar made in collaboration with DURĆI Chocolate, the chocolate maker just up the road in Lebanon
The bread has also traveled. Émeraude's loaves are on the table at an East Nashville community kitchen and bar, a nice bit of proof that Mt. Juliet baking can hold its own anywhere in the metro.
How it works
This isn't a sit-down café. There's no long counter and no line. Customers order ahead online, and then they pick up from a set of self-serve lockers on site. The bakery focuses on preorders but usually bakes a little extra for anyone who shows up hoping. It keeps morning hours, Tuesday through Saturday, and is closed Sunday and Monday. The menu rotates, so check what's baking that week before you plan a pickup.
For a city that keeps adding national chains along its main roads, a small-batch sourdough operation with a waiting list is a welcome kind of local flavor. The same stretch of Mt. Juliet has been gaining new places to eat all fall. Take a look at the new sushi spot that opened at Everette Downs this month, and browse more in Food & Drink on MtJuliet.com »
