Savannah, GABakeries

Connect Savannah arrived at 8:15 in the morning to a parking lot crammed with cars and a small room bursting with eager patrons, many of whom had set alarms early to beat the rush. The paper watched customers order one of everything from the bake case before it could sell out. Opening day was June 18, and the shop had already found favor across Savannah. Come early and take whatever pastry is still in the case. A second counter operates in Sandfly.

Connect Savannah's Tim Rutherford built a roundup of ten local things worth eating around the chocolate chip cookie, and wrote that he scored his own stash at Baker's Pride Bakery on DeRenne Avenue, the address the family bakery still works from. The case runs well past cookies, covering specialty cakes, pastries and breads baked on site each day. Go for the cookies Rutherford was after, and look over the bread shelf while you wait your turn.

Connect Savannah traced this shop back to a ladies night cookie exchange whose cookies were an instant success, which led the two friends behind them to become owners and executive pastry chefs. The paper describes scratch-made French macarons, an almond flour and meringue cookie with toothsome fillings, and follows the pair from a shared Skidaway Road kitchen into shops of their own. Order a mixed box; the almond flour and everything with it is made from scratch.

Connect Savannah recorded FARM Hospitality Group opening this bakery in the longtime home of Back in the Day, closing on the property in March and serving customers eleven weeks later under executive chef Annie Coleman. Eat It and Like It called the Starland corner a third space the neighborhood had needed and reported an instant success on its first Saturday open. Come for the pastry counter by day, and book the supper club for the kitchen's full range.