Though not open for customers yet — the front-of-house section is still being renovated — they have installed two wood-fired ovens, and they’ve been doing test bakes in exchange for donations at the Byrd House Market on some Tuesdays.

The test bakes include Sub Rosa’s “new classic” bread, made with between 50 percent and 100 percent stone-ground flour freshly milled on site. They’re also making croissants, both plain and chocolate; spiced apple tarts; “heirloom whole wheat” bread; and polenta bread, which is made with blue corn, says Dogu, who will run the bakery with his sister, Evin.

“Our family is from Turkey, so there’s Turkish influence,” Dogu says. For example, “now’s the time to do unripe fig jam in a tart.”

... but the bakery building needs a little more
work before it's ready for customers.

The Sub Rosa building at 620 N. 25th St., right across the street from The Roosevelt, is part of an influx of food-related businesses in Church Hill, where a transformation seems to be taking place. In the stretch between East Broad Street and Sub Rosa, you can still see boarded-up houses among attractively renovated buildings.

But just down the street, Neil Smith and Nikki Price of Proper Pie Co. are getting ready to open their shop. (Their Kickstarter campaign to raise $15,000 is still ongoing, and as of this afternoon, they still needed about $1,500 to reach their goal.)

And over at the intersection of North 27th and East Marshall streets, Kendra Feather and David Rohrer are preparing the WPA Bakery for an early November retail opening (it’s already taking wholesale orders). Feather is the owner of Ipanema Café and Garnett’s Café and co-owner of The Roosevelt, and Rohrer has been the baker for those restaurants. Diagonally across from WPA, the new restaurant Dutch and Co. is taking shape. Partners Michelle Peake of Acacia Mid-town and Caleb Shriver and Phillip Perrow of Aziza’s on Main are also planning to open this fall.