A home-based cottage bakery situated on the border of Maryland and D.C in Cottage City, Md.,  just off Route 1, is hoping to expand its operations and open a brick and mortar bakery on the corridor in the coming year.

Founded three years ago by Rick and Tyes Cook, Manifest Bread Co. specializes in naturally fermented bread that includes stone milled whole grain. The bakery uses all organic flour and even mills their own flour using whole grains from Baltimore and Cumberland County.

We caught up with Rick, the headbaker, who explained how the bakery started out in their home with just a dozen loaves where they would sell them at Weygandt Wines in Cleaveland Park. Then once Covid hit business really picked up and Manifest began selling 40 loaves a week as well as offering a home delivery service.

At present, they are producing over 200 loaves a week as well as cookies and pastries straight out of their home bakery.

Rick and his wife Tyes are self-taught bakers who learned the trade from reading instructional books, talking with mentors and watching lots of Instagram and YouTube videos.

Currently, they supply a couple of desserts and some loaves to Residents Cafe & Bar in Dupont Circle, but are looking around the greater Hyattsville area for a more permanent and larger location so they can expand their operations. They hope to find a space where they could even open up a small cafe with coffee and house-made pastries as well as light snacks and wine.

Before starting Manifest Bread Co., Rick worked in the restaurant industry with acclaimed chef and restaurateur Eric Zeibold and Frank Ruta, former White House chef who won a James Beard award.  Now he currently works as a cook and bartender at 2Amys in Northwest D.C. while Tyes, meanwhile, manages the business full-time.

You can order bread from Manifest via their “a la carte” open bake every other week where all orders are placed in advance. Rick said that most open bakes sell out within an hour after posting the menu and while they offer a subscription, those are sold out for the foreseeable future.

All orders for home delivery or pickup are done through Instagram and direct messaging.

Rick said the name “Manifest” represents how the bakery grew from nothing into a fully operating bake shop.

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