Lancaster Avenue Foot Traffic Is Why Bryn Mawr Now Gets Fresh Gluten-Free Croissants

"I don't know another place, maybe outside of New York, that has gluten-free croissants that you can even have fresh," Lila Colello told The Philadelphia Inquirer in February, the week her bakery Flakely soft-opened at 1007 W. Lancaster Ave. in Bryn Mawr. For years she had made those croissants in Manayunk. What kept them from being sold fresh there was the location, not the recipe.

Four months later, The Buttery opened an 82-seat café a few blocks east at 836 W. Lancaster Ave. These are two very different bakeries, but they arrived in the same year on the same stretch of road for the same reason. Bryn Mawr's sidewalk traffic is what lets them work. The hours each one keeps show how differently they use that traffic.

What a Manayunk kitchen couldn't do

Colello started Flakely in 2017 as a wholesale business and moved into a commercial kitchen in Manayunk in 2021, the Inquirer reported. The bakery built a following there. USA Today named it one of the country's best gluten-free bakeries in 2024, and Inquirer critic Craig LaBan said Colello had "found the secret" to laminated pastry.

The Manayunk space also held it back. Few people walked past, so baking fresh meant risking large amounts of unsold pastry at the end of each day. That's why most of what Flakely sold went out frozen, as take-and-bake. Customers from the Main Line drove across the river to buy it. Colello told the Inquirer that demand for gluten-free baking in Lower Merion is high.

Moving to Lancaster Avenue put the bakery where its buyers already were. The new storefront, in the former Grand Middle East hookah lounge and now done up in pastel pink, gave Colello room to hire more staff and stock a real pastry case. Philly Grub described that case after the May grand opening: sweet and savory croissants, cookies, baguettes, cupcakes, bagels and rotating seasonal items. The frozen line is still sold for baking at home. Colello grew up in Ardmore, so the outlet called the move something of a homecoming.

Hours that follow the morning rush

Flakely keeps a baker's hours. Its website lists Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the shop is closed Sunday and Monday. In February, Colello had planned to open at 10 a.m. on weekdays. The current schedule opens two hours earlier, which catches the coffee-and-commute crowd on Lancaster Avenue.

The early close follows from the reason Flakely moved. Fresh croissants have to sell the day they're baked, so the shop runs its hours around the busiest part of the morning. Before it opened, the Inquirer described it as takeout-only. If you're planning a slow Sunday brunch, this isn't the place. If you need a dozen gluten-free croissants for a Saturday gathering, it is, as long as you get there before 2.

Flakely's site is also now advertising holiday pre-orders through its Square shop. Thanksgiving falls on November 26 this year, so anyone hosting a gluten-free guest has about a month to place an order.

A café built to keep you there

The Buttery bet on the same sidewalk and made the opposite choice about time. John and Silenia Rhoads opened their first Buttery in Malvern in 2015 and added a stand at the Ardmore Farmers Market last October, the Inquirer reported. They closed a smaller outpost at the Malvern train station in December. For Bryn Mawr, they went big. The café took over the former Kindred Collective space, Lower Merion Times reported. It seats 82 at long communal tables, corner booths, and scattered two- and four-tops, set up so a neighbor grabbing coffee and a family settling in for lunch can both find a spot.

The owners told the Inquirer why they chose the town.

Bryn Mawr felt like "a good center point on the Main Line," John Rhoads said. "We're so excited to be in this town. There's such a hustle and bustle," Silenia Rhoads said.

The hours have already grown. The café opened in June running 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the kitchen serving until 3. The Buttery's Bryn Mawr page now lists 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, for dine-in and takeout. Flakely's schedule is built around selling out fresh product. The Buttery's two extra evening hours follow a business model that sells time at a table.

What's on the table also leans local. The kitchen mills flour from local grain and buys eggs from Highspire Hills Farm in Glenmoore. It roasts its own meat for the roast beef sandwiches and pours Passenger coffee. Staff point first-timers to the sablé cookie and to the breakfast sandwich with harissa aioli on an everything brioche bun. The fall menu adds pumpkin-pie yogurt and a harvest grain bowl to the breakfast and lunch lineup. One practical note for dog walkers: only working service dogs are allowed inside.

Dinner is the open question. In June the Rhoadses said they hoped to add dinner service, as they have in Malvern, sometime in the fall or winter. The café's current pages still list a breakfast and lunch menu, with no dinner start date. For now, the 7 p.m. close is the latest you can get a table.

Where the evening picks up

Once the bakeries wind down, the same strip keeps going. Dim Sum Factory at 865 Lancaster Ave. is open 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, according to its site. The group also runs Dim Sum Factory locations in Horsham, Krewstown and Flourtown, along with Tom's Dim Sum in Chinatown and Media.

Saturday and Sunday, October 24 and 25, give the stretch an easy evening plan. The Bryn Mawr Film Institute is showing the silent classic Faust on October 24 and 25, with a live score by School of Rock Main Line. Dumplings before the film, a pastry run the next morning, and the whole outing fits on one walkable stretch of Lancaster Avenue.

The week on Lancaster Avenue, day by day

Here are the three schedules by day.

• Monday: Flakely is closed. The Buttery is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Dim Sum Factory 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
• Tuesday through Thursday: Flakely opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 3 p.m. The Buttery runs 7 to 7, and Dim Sum Factory 11 to 9:30.
• Friday: Same morning lineup. Dim Sum Factory stays open until 10:30 p.m.
• Saturday: Flakely's shortest day, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Buttery runs 7 to 7, and Dim Sum Factory until 10:30.
• Sunday: Flakely is closed. The Buttery opens at 7 a.m., and Dim Sum Factory runs 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Gluten-free pastry fresh from the case is a Tuesday-through-Saturday, before-mid-afternoon errand. A seat, a sandwich and an unhurried coffee are on offer every day until 7. Both exist in Bryn Mawr because enough people walk this part of Lancaster Avenue to make fresh baking and an 82-seat dining room pay off.

New businesses like these change how a block feels day to day, and that's part of what we follow at Wagner Real Estate Group. If you own a home within walking distance of this stretch of Lancaster Avenue and want to know what nearby amenities like these add to its value, get your free home valuation and we'll go through it with you.