Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Even twelve years ago, chef Erika Burke knew she would make her bakery dreams a reality some day. Back then, she was a student at Atlantic Cape Community College, Academy of Culinary Arts learning to make pastries. <\/p>\n
\u201cI knew \u2014 I said, \u2018I want to own my own bakery\/cafe one day,\u2019\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n
Today, Burke\u2019s dream is a reality, manifested in a 1700 square-foot brick-and-mortar on East Passyunk<\/a> Avenue. Erby\u2019s Bakery soft opened on Feb. 20 with a pop-up menu and currently offers a limited menu of Burke\u2019s colorful pastries Friday to Sunday.<\/p>\n Blackberry pop tarts, cinnamon buns, plant-based spelt chocolate chunk cookies, cheddar scallion twists, and more sit in the display counter painted a light moss green inside the bakery. A handful of wooden chairs and an outdoor patio with chairs and tables offer seating for customers looking to linger and enjoy baked goods and C\u00e0ph\u00ea Roasters coffee. <\/p>\n The menu will change seasonally as \u201conce we find our groove,\u201d Burke said. She plans to add breakfast sandwiches, salads, and small grazing plates \u2014 think \u201cgirl breakfast.\u201d And folks can always expect vegan and gluten-free options, including a vegan Nashville hot sandwich with oyster mushrooms. <\/p>\n \u201cMy pastries are very fun and colorful \u2014 that\u2019s how I like everything,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted fun foods [on the menu]. I know it sounds so cliche, but I wanted [pastries] that are going to make you say, \u2018OH\u2019 and question what makes them so good.\u201d<\/p>\n Burke,36, has worked in Jersey Shore<\/a> and Philly kitchens since graduating culinary school and college in 2016. <\/p>\n Her first job in Philly was pizza cook at Pizzeria Vetri<\/a>, where she fell in love with stretching dough. It led her to become a pastry chef at Porta<\/a> in 2018, creating dessert and pasta offerings for their seasonal menus. A year later, she moved to the now-shuttered Essen Bakery<\/a> as head baker. It was there that Burke\u2019s baking took off, developing into a pop-up business.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very fortunate to have [owner] Tova Du Plessis as a boss,\u201d she said. \u201cI learned a ton from her, and she let me do pop-ups out of her kitchen.\u201d <\/p>\n Burke began her pop-up Flakey AF at Rally Coffee in 2020, baking her pop tarts inside Essen\u2019s kitchens. She soon decided to leave Essen and pursue the business full time for a year. <\/p>\n But staying afloat and being self-employed was hard. In 2022, Burke stepped away from the kitchen and into the world of gambling. She became an online blackjack dealer for Evolution Gaming. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very taxing emotionally, and I was struggling with mental health,\u201d she said. \u201cI just wanted to step away and do something that I wasn\u2019t so passionate about, something with structure where I didn\u2019t need to make decisions \u2014 you just tell me and I\u2019ll do it.” <\/p>\n Then in 2024, Burke decided to return to the industry and landed a job as a production manager for Weckerly\u2019s Ice Cream. Two years later, she was laid off. <\/p>\n Feeling discouraged by the industry, she decided \u201cI\u2019m not working in a kitchen again \u2014 so it\u2019s either find a random job or look into getting my own place.” Choosing the latter, she signed a lease for the building on 1840 Passyunk Avenue a month later and opened Erby\u2019s three months after. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was really the push that I needed; getting laid off, honestly, was the best thing that could have happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Because Erby\u2019s Bakery is Burke at its core, named after her childhood nickname and represents her creativity without a boss to answer to. <\/p>\n \u201cThe whole project is about me being able to do my own thing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about giving me autonomy to bake what I want when I want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Even twelve years ago, chef Erika Burke knew she would make her bakery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[68829,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-151048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-erbys-bakery-passyunk-avenue-philly","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}