An environmentally friendly bakery is opening in Oak Park on Halloween, complete with a bicycle delivery service and packaging made with soy ink.
Along with being green, Bleeding Heart Bakery will offer unusual cakes, in the shapes of zombie heads and liquor bottles.
The bakery is owned by Ukrainian Village residents Michelle and Vinnie Garcia, who opened the first Bleeding Heart location four years ago in their neighborhood. In 2006, they moved to Bleeding Heart’s current location in the North Side Chicago neighborhood of Roscoe Village.
Manager Julia Richardson says the Oak Park location will be a “best of” Bleeding Heart Bakery, offering cupcakes, tarts, tea cakes, scones, croissants, cake balls, parfaits, cookies and brownies, along with coffee and tea. Bleeding Heart is moving into the 500-square-foot space at 1010 North Blvd., which used to be Hayes Coffee.
All pastries will be made at the Roscoe Village location and transported here.
“I believe in having complete control over the quality in both taste and look of my product, and I want to be the one to OK it all, not just hope and pray someone got it right,” owner and executive pastry chef Michelle Garcia said. “I know that one bad cupcake will make someone never want to come back, and I try very hard to not let that happen.”
They’ll offer a rotating lineup of cupcakes each month, with flavors such as spiced apple, gingerbread and chocolate peanut butter bacon. A popular Thanksgiving cupcake contains sweet potato cake, filled with cranberry jelly and topped with toasted meringue and candied pecans.
Michelle Garcia, 31, a baker since she was 13, graduated from the French Pastry School in Chicago in 2000. Bleeding Heart has been part of six Food Network challenges and won best bakery in Chicago from Chicago Magazine in 2004 and best bakery in 2008 and 2009 from the Small Business Association of Chicago. Garcia was named Pastry Chef of the Year in 2007 by the American Culinary Federation.
The Garcias also own a bakery in Lakeview called Smash Cake. Garcia says she plans to open another Bleeding Heart on Block 37 in Chicago next year and has also considered spots in Milwaukee and New York.
Bleeding Heart has a certification from the Green Restaurant Association.
The company builds only with green materials, recycles all its disposables and uses boxes that were made in water-powered facilities. They’ll deliver products using hybrid vehicles or bicycles.
Bleeding Heart has a Web site at www.thebleedingheartbakery.com.
CONTACT: mstempniak@wjinc.com