The Flour Girl Bakery and Cafe in Connecticut
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Today, I went to an influencer event that was hosted by the Flour Girl Bakery in Hebron, Connecticut. This spot has been on my radar for quite some time, but I still hadn’t made it over there. I was super excited to finally visit this spot. The Flour Girl has an entire campus in the heart of historic Hebron that features a bakery, a cafe, a general store, and an event space!
The History of the Flour Girl
This business has a really interesting history. During the influencer event, I was able to hear the story of The Flour Girl from the owner herself, Michelle Nicolson. In 2019, she decided that she wanted to learn to make sourdough bread. She said she wasn’t very good at it at first, but who is when they’re just starting?
Once she started to get the hang of it, she created a small Facebook group of about 7-8 friends where she would post about excess items that she had. She would leave them on her porch for them to get. Soon, they were asking if she would start selling them because they loved her baked goods. Nicolson decided to get a cottage bakery license, and she started selling goods out of her house, still using a Facebook group to post about what she had available.
When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, her home cottage bakery really took off since she already had a contactless system set-up. Soon, she was selling out each week and she outgrew her home. So, she decided to rent the kitchen at a local church since it wasn’t being used during the pandemic. However, this was only a temporary solution. She was actively looking for a space to call her own while working out of the church’s kitchen.
She was approached by the person who bought the property where the campus currently sits. She was asked if she wanted to open a bakery in the building, and she jumped on the opportunity. The building was historic, but in rough shape. It was falling apart, but the owner planned to fix it up. As someone who really appreciates all of the historic buildings around Connecticut, I’m glad it was saved and turned into a space the community can use.
Not long after, the owner of a cafe in a building right next door approached Nicolson and asked if she wanted to buy it. She liked the idea of having another building by the bakery she was working on building, so she crowdfunded $20k in 48 hours and then bought the building. She operated the cafe out of that space for years, but now that the new cafe building is done, it has been converted into a country store.
So, what started as a home bakery has now become an entire campus with four buildings. This spot really is meant to be a community space for people to gather and hangout. The Flour Girl hosts a free book club and even story time.
The Flour Girl has also won a lot of awards, including:
- People’s Choice World Bread Award 2022
- Hartford Business Journal 40 under 40 2024
- CT River Valley Chamber Business Person of the Year 2024
- Best Coffee Shop in CT 2024
- CT Small Business Person of the Year 2025
I think my favorite part about this business is how much it gives back to the community. They don’t do paid marketing. Instead, they prefer to give back to the community with sponsorships. Nicolson appreciates the community that helped her grow the business to what it is today, and she does everything in her power to give back to the town and her community.
The Campus
As I mentioned above, the campus consists of four different buildings. There’s the newly finished Cafe, the Bakery, the Dooryard event space, and the newly opened Country Store. This campus truly has it all. I’ll get into the details of each building below.
The Cafe
I started my visit at the Cafe. This building is the furthest left, when you’re looking at the campus from the front (the side that faces Connecticut Route 66). The building is dark and accented with pink doors.
At the Cafe, they had a handful of bites available for us to try as well as a small selection of some of their specialty drinks that they offer. I’ll be honest, I do not drink caffeinated drinks. However, my boyfriend did try them and he enjoyed them. He was able to order a full drink from the selection they had and he ended up getting a hot carrot cake latte.
While I don’t typically drink caffeinated drinks, I wanted to try something. I took a small sip of the Spring In Your Step refresher. This was lemonade and seltzer with Purple Lotus Elderberry syrup, which was naturally caffeinated. It was really good and I’m glad I was able to just have a small sample size.
For food, I went for the grilled cheese and tomato soup. The sourdough bread for the sandwiches are made fresh every morning at the bakery on the campus. It was absolutely delicious. I am a huge fan of sourdough bread, and the bread here did not disappoint.
My boyfriend went for the avocado toast, which he said was really good. We both loved the food so much that we both agreed that we would definitely come back. I’m already planning a visit in the near future to go back for breakfast.
The space itself in the cafe was super cute. It was recently finished and it was beautifully done. I love all of the wood details around the inside of the cafe. My favorite space was the loft upstairs, which featured a cute little bar with outlets thoughtfully placed for those looking to work. I could definitely see myself coming here and setting up camp to get a bit of work done for the blog while enjoying a breakfast sandwich and a hot drink.
The Bakery
After we finished up at the Cafe, we headed over to the bakery. The bakery is where a lot of the magic happens. It’s housed in the Gale House, which was built in 1824.
Here, we were greeted by the amazing smells of baked goods. I picked out some goodies and brought them back over to the cafe to enjoy. I split a sourdough chocolate chip cookie with my boyfriend and had a cinnamon roll cruffin (aka cinnamon rolls that are buttery croissants that are shaped like muffins). That cinnamon roll cruffin was delicious.
The Country Store
The Country Store is the newest addition to The Flour Girl campus. However, the building itself is not new to the business. Before the Cafe building was built, this is where the cafe lived. But, it was not ideal to be working a cafe out of here due to limited space.
This building (built in 1840) was once the general store in town. The owner wanted to bring that part of the building’s history back, and that’s why it was converted into a general store once the cafe moved into its new space.
The general store carries a variety of items from local vendors, which I absolutely love. I love to shop local and support people in the community when I can. They have a little bit of everything in the shop including food items, cleaning items, decor, and toys.
The vibe definitely matched that of an old general store. They did a great job with the space and giving a nod to the building’s past!
The Dooryard
The Dooryard is a small event space and also a building that offers extra cafe seating. It’s so cozy inside this space and I love all of the different details. The curtains in here are made from old flour bags, which I absolutely love.
Another feature I loved in here was the use of the original floorboards of one of the buildings used as shelving along the wall of the space. Nicolson said she tries to keep as many of the historic things from the property as possible. She hopes to make a map and some graphics to show how these things have been incorporated around the campus.
It was in this space that we got to hear the history and the full story of The Flour Girl. This was definitely my favorite stop of the night.
During our visit, we could also see what their catering for an event would look like. It was cool to see what an event might look like in the space.
Final Thoughts
The thing about this place is it’s more than just a bakery. Yes, it has delicious sourdough baked goods and great food available at the cafe. But, it’s really more of an experience than just a simple cafe and bakery. It’s a community space to hangout. You come for the delicious food, but you stay for the vibes. The owner has put her all into this business, and it really shows.
