BY ANN CIPPERLY
FOR THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — After offering their scrumptious homemade breads at drop off sites and providing breads to upscale restaurants for several years, Anna Claire and Matthew Stinson recently opened Stinson Breads in downtown Opelika. Having their own bakery is a dream come true for the Opelika couple, who will serve authentic European style sourdough breads along with cookies and assorted pastries.
The Stinsons will have their grand opening on Saturday, April 27, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Anyone wishing to attend can RSVP on their website at stinsonbreads.com.
The aroma of freshly baked bread drifts throughout the quaint bakery. Along with their signature house sourdough, they offer other rotating sourdough breads, including challah and rye.
“People who have moved here from the west coast say our bread takes them home,” said Matthew. “But there are others who have never had sourdough bread like this before. It takes 72 hours from start to finish for one loaf of bread.”
The bakery also offers chocolate chip cookies, gluten free cookies made with almond flour, pastries, scones and various desserts. They have a wide variety on Saturdays for customers to get baked items hot from the oven.
“We wanted to start small and grow from there,” said Anna Claire. “We want every item we sell to be the best of that kind of pastry. We are interested in knowing what people would like for the bakery to offer.”
The Stinsons began experimenting with breadmaking after their wedding trip to Germany and France in 2018. It was the first time they had tried an authentic baguette and dense sourdough bread. Anna Claire, who has dreamed of having a bakery almost her entire life, said she wanted to learn more about baking and techniques.
“I have been baking since I was holding a spoon,” she said. “My mom, grandmother and siblings taught me everything they knew about baking.”
To expand her baking skills, Anna Claire enrolled in online classes, which included making bread and a sourdough starter.
Matthew was interested in helping with the baking and starter.
“My master’s degree is in plant pathology, which is like a medical degree for plants,” he said. “I worked with yeast, so making the sourdough starter was not too far away from what I was doing in graduate school. We made a sourdough starter together for our first loaf of bread and began making bread every week as a hobby.”
They used their sourdough starter until 2019 when Nelson Marsh, who had a wine shop, gave them wine that had yeast at the bottom of the bottle.
“He said the yeast was indigenous to Piedmont, Italy, and the way they make this wine with natural yeast on the grapes is the same way they make their sourdough starters,” Matthew said.
“We tried it and did a side-by-side comparison. It made our bread even better,” he said. “If people are looking for a European bread, we are making it from the same starter they are making bread. We think it makes delicious bread.”
The Stinsons were living in Auburn at the time and began selling bread under the state cottage law. As their business grew, they began popping up at local businesses and markets for bread sales on the weekends.
“We were a young married couple and started spending time in Opelika and fell in love with it,” Matthew added. “We knew when we moved into our house in Opelika that we wanted to have the bakery here.”
The couple started baking their bread in a commissary kitchen at Whistle Stop Bottle and Brew.
“The owners are wonderful, and said they had space in the back that is not being utilized that we could use,” said Anna Claire. “We wanted to get out from under the cottage law and start selling directly to restaurants. That was a big turning point for us.”
When the Stinsons learned they were going to have a baby, they hired someone to help them with the bread making. Then they hired more staff, and now have a team of seven bakers and delivery drivers.
“It has grown, and we want this to be a good job for them,” Matthew said. “We are still working full time jobs, but we are passionate about this business and would love to see it expand further.
“It is a big dream for us to be able to own a bakery,” he added. “We have seized all the opportunities that have come along that are good for our employees, our wholesale partners and the community as a whole.”
While they don’t currently have indoor seating space at the bakery, they plan to add café tables outside. They are a retail shop for the community to pick up, and they sell wholesale to restaurants and food shops. Currently, restaurants that serve their breads include Acre, The Hound, Lucy’s, Vintage 2298 and Vintage 2298 Butcher Shop and occasionally The Depot and 1856.
The Stinsons have conducted classes, some being online. Now that they have space, they are offering bread making classes to groups. They feel it is a fun way to engage with the community.
The Stinsons are both from small towns in Baldwin County. They met in high school, and both graduated from Auburn University. They were married after Anna Claire graduated with her master’s degree. She works at AU, while Matthew works at a software company.
“We are excited to have a brick and mortar bakery for both the community and businesses,” Matthew said. “If we can help someone do something better, that is great, whether it is providing bread for dinner at home or a business using our breads. I think it would be cool to be part of their stories.”
Stinson Breads is located at the former site of Farmers Insurance and the popular High Cotton gift shop.
“Learning about High Cotton being a beloved shop was exciting,” said Matthew. “We want a nice atmosphere of retail interaction when people come in. We want people to feel they are being taken care of and can get their bread and pastries.”
“We fell in love with Opelika,” he said. “It is really an exciting adventure, not just to be in downtown with so much history, but in a building with history. It is also a way to show care and hospitality to everyone through baking.”
“Our business was built on popping up at different places, so we are excited to truly lay down roots in Opelika,” said Anna Claire. “We want to expand our reach and interact with the community even more and provide them with delicious bread.”
Stinson Breads is located at 714 N. Railroad Ave. in downtown Opelika. They are open Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. until they are sold out. Follow them on social media to receive updates and announcements.