Do you consider yourself a sandwich aficionado? Then you’re in luck! I, for one, am not the biggest fan of sandwiches but I will eat them on occasion. However, Beyond Bread, located in Tucson, Arizona, has changed my whole mentality on the subject. As a locally owned bakery, it emphasizes quality over quantity, producing an array of breads, desserts, and you guessed it, sandwiches!
The menu has a variety of sandwiches to choose from, or if you are a free spirit, they can always make your own creation to order! There are daily specials available, providing the perfect opportunity to broaden one’s horizons and eat something that he or she would not ordinarily eat. They provide very generous portions, never cheating you out of meat or bread. As a meat lover, I usually gravitate towards the Reuben or anything with roast beef. From my experience, the Reuben is delicious due to the pretzel bread it is served on, as well as the copious amount of corned beef. That is my go-to sandwich.
Onto the display of desserts! There is no doubt in my mind that Beyond Bread knows that dessert presentation is the first step in alluring customers to indulge in sweets. They have cookies, bars, cakes, brownies, tarts, cheesecakes, and breakfast pastries! The best part? Those are just the categories of desserts…. So you can imagine how many sweets the bakery actually makes! For instance, one modern twist on a well-known dessert was the strawberry crème brulee. I came to realize that this bakery knows how to please customers with popular desserts by altering them in minor ways. This is one of the best ways for them to gain new customers: delicious desserts with altered tastes.
The atmosphere of this bakery is relaxing and low-key. It is a modern bakery ,in a sense, due to the restaurant setting it encompasses. Customers go up to the dessert show case, order their food, and pay for their meal before they eat it. After paying, customers are given a ‘fun fact’ placeholder which determines where the employees should deliver the food. It is the equivalent of taking a number and waiting for your order to be called at any other eatery. You also fill up your own drink at the soda bar, which I personally liked, so that a server does not have to constantly check on you. You may be wondering why people would want to wait for their food. The answer? Bread samples! It is here that customers can choose between two types of bread to sample, with or without butter, and enjoy a little something before the main meal arrives.
If you are planning on eating at the restaurant, it is customary to pick a table and wait with the placeholder until your food is ready; otherwise, you can always wait and simply take your food to go. Regardless of whether your order is ‘to say’ or ‘to go’, a worker brings out the food to your table, and removes the placeholder since it is no longer needed. If eating there, you are free to stay and enjoy your meal for as long as you want without being interrupted with the bill or anything of the like. If taking your order to go, you just wait at the table until your food comes out and leave. To make the experience even better, you can bag up your own sandwich to go if you do not finish it (which happens frequently). They have tin foil and brown bags at the soda bar ready for customers to pack up their food. I think this aspect of the restaurant is very convenient since it is more of a self-serve style, rather than customers waiting on their server to deliver their food, drinks, and check.
Beyond Bread is an ideal bakery in today’s society. They emphasize quality ingredients while making customers feel comfortable in a restaurant setting. In fact, they even serve breakfast, being a triple threat in regards to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Better yet? They know the importance of desserts, winning over anyone with a sweet tooth.