Sammy Rees, a Crown Heights baker who dreamed up her business during the first summer of the pandemic, is opening a bakery called Saison on a Bed Stuy corner, first reported by Brownstoner. The shop is at 434 Hancock Street, on the corner of Marcus Garvey Boulevard, in a mixed-use brick building that once housed a Waffle House and sits across the street from Natty Garden.
The menu leans sweet. Rees described “all-day sort of sweet offerings to indulge, whether you’re here for a coffee in the morning or want to pick up a dessert for somewhere you’re going that evening.” That means seasonal, rustic bakes like stone-fruit frangipane cake, blueberry cornmeal muffins, rose banana bread and cakes by the slice, plus fleur de sel chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cherry brownies. Savory sandwiches and prepared foods are coming later, once she settles in after opening.
Saison is a corner shop with a big open kitchen at the rear, where Rees will bake and keep doing the event and wedding work that got her here. Up front, customers can buy baked goods, grab a coffee, and browse a small curated shop stocked with pantry items and vintage tableware. Because it’s a corner unit, there’s sidewalk seating on both sides.
Rees said she raised $15,875 for the renovation and equipment costs and was aiming to open in early July. For the summer she planned to open Thursday through Sunday, then expand hours in the fall.
Rees grew up in Boerum Hill picturing a Brooklyn brick and mortar of her own. Covid-19 lockdown turned that into a bakery. She had worked in freelance food styling and event work and was the Home Market Editor at Vogue, and she had long hosted big dinners for friends. When lockdown ended the dinner parties, she pivoted to handing out weekly food boxes of homegrown vegetables, herbs, flowers and home-baked goods from her Crown Heights backyard.
It started with a few boxes. After a month or so of word of mouth, and posting the goods on Instagram, requests started coming in from her wider community and from people she didn’t know. Those turned into bigger jobs, with people and companies wanting her baking for events and brands looking to partner with her.
“I didn’t really have a five-year plan or like this big business model in mind. It was really just because I loved doing it,” Rees said. “I always knew I wanted to run my own business, open my own shop in Brooklyn someday, and I started to see it all come together in a really natural way that just felt so right.”
Around 2024, with catering and wedding cake orders rolling in, she started hunting for a brick and mortar space. She wanted it walkable from her apartment and in an area with a tight-knit community feel. “I’ve lived in Crown Heights for the past nearly 10 years. I’ve lived in the same apartment on my block, so I’m a creature of comfort and really value community and the neighborhood I live in,” she said. Foot traffic and a busy commercial street weren’t the priority. She wanted somewhere that felt like home.
She looked at a number of places over two years before landing on the Hancock Street storefront. “I absolutely love the space that I’m in, and on a corner, so we have sidewalk seating on both sides, and I think it can be a really wonderful gathering spot for the neighborhood, for the corner, and it’s the perfect space for me to grow into,” she said.
Rees is working with friends who run the interior design firm Studio N & TL on the renovation, drawing on the French and English countryside for warm colors, textures and timeless materials. “We have these beautiful limestone marble floors that once you step in, I want you to feel like from the ground up that you’re somewhere else, like a little escape from busy Brooklyn life,” she said. She wants the shop to feel “somewhere warm and inviting, a little nostalgic,” she said, like “a beautiful, rustic kitchen with the windows open and a field of flowers outside.”
Featured image: Chandravathanaa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
