Steve Lewis, owner/founder of Gideon’s Bakehouse, famously started his company as a one-man band in his small College Park apartment.
In the time since, Gideon’s has grown from a bicycle-delivery operation to an East End Market stall to a Disney Springs emporium, where fans from around the world stand in line for sweets and coffee and limited-edition collectible merch that garners eBay bids into the hundreds.
Today, Lewis announces a brand-new chapter in the Gideon’s story.
Six Ravens, a fast-casual celebration of the savory, will open later this year at The Landing at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World, a sister to its sweet predecessor.
The small shop will open just a few doors down from Gideon’s Bakehouse, “we’re hoping mid-year,” Lewis said.
At Six Ravens, all-new offerings, including hand pie-like sandwiches called coffyns, housemade yeast rolls with fillings that focus on something Lewis holds dear: supporting local.
“At the end of the day, it was The Polite Pig [owners, James and Julie Petrakis] that were kind enough to put a Gideon’s cookie on as a secret menu item,” Lewis told the Orlando Sentinel. “It’s always been in the back of my head that I need to repay that favor.”
Lewis says the team has been experimenting with the coffyns for years, often with friends and peers from the Orlando-local food scene, including Bruno Zacchini of Pizza Bruno and Eliot Hillis of Red Panda Noodle.
A sneak peek at the Six Ravens’ logo. (Courtesy Six Ravens)
“My hope is that we can create little breadcrumbs for people that lead them into the Central Florida community,” Lewis said. “They might find a coffyn on the menu that takes them to a local restaurant they might not have explored.”
Six Ravens, says Lewis, is also a byproduct of the creativity within the Gideon’s team, now more than 200 strong.
“They all come from these incredible restaurants and backgrounds and have so much creativity and knowledge they don’t get to flex at Gideon’s,” he explained. “Six Ravens has allowed them to do what they’ve done best in the past. As the owner of a business, I feel like my greatest responsibility is to give creative and professional growth opportunities to my team … but Gideon’s is only 1,600 square feet between two stores. There’s only so far I can go.”
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With Six Ravens, he said, they’ve been enjoying savory fun and look forward to more.
The coffyns, an ideal name for a universe with a Gothic aesthetic, enjoy 12th-century English etymology, but Six Ravens’ pastries will enjoy internationally inspired fillings.
In the past, longtime friend Hillis has suggested collabs with Gideon’s, to which Lewis was receptive.
“So, I came up with a flavor and was like, ‘Are you ready to go?’ and he says, ‘Oh, we’d have to do two years of testing to release it.’”
Hillis laughs, wondrous at the scope of the Gideon’s machine.
“I was like, ‘I don’t even know if I’ll be alive in two years!’”
That said, it took closer to three to see Red Panda Noodle’s curried chicken salad pie coming close to fruition with Six Ravens. And Hillis is delighted to be here.
Fans adore the Gideon’s Bakehouse universe and its rich compendium of characters. Six Ravens will bring new ones into the mix. (Courtesy Six Ravens)
“We knew we wanted something that would stand out and that people could recognize as Red Panda,” he says, noting his admiration for Lewis’s ability to build worlds that connect with so many people, marveling that something of their might soon be on a menu at Disney.
“It’s wild,” he says. “It goes back and forth between a ‘hometown boy does good’ kinda vibe and thinking about how many millions of people would see our names … there’s an amount of awe that goes with that.”
Amid the creation of new characters, like the otherworldly figure known as the Six Ravens, who “sometimes appears as the ravens and other times as a mysterious woman,” Lewis says, his greatest delight in the new project has been the collaborative part.
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Along for the ride, art director Michael Reyes, whose imagery has helped craft the Gideon’s brand (he and Lewis have been collaborating since 2006), as well as Studio 407, which, in addition to its work designing themed attractions of all stripes, worked on the award-winning design of Gideon’s Bakehouse Disney Springs. Add to this compendium Lewis’s culinary team and local peers, and the simmering soup is nearly ready to serve.
“I’m excited to have an excuse to play with some of my favorite local creatives.”
As for his iconic, half-pound cookies, they’re staying right where they are, but Lewis promises other delights at Six Ravens, including some fan-favorite desserts that have been dropped at Gideon’s in the past.
Follow news about Six Ravens through the Gideon’s Bakehouse Instagram page (@gideonsbakehouse) or behind the scenes on IG at @six.ravens.
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.