The paint at 127 East Todd Street was peeling, the walls bowed, and the gutters dangled when Andy and Tara Bissell moved to Frankfort in 2020.
The building’s former dereliction is hard to imagine—especially now, on a quiet Monday, when the bake shop is swept and gleaming in preparation for a midweek rush of hungry customers.
Wednesday, when the bakery opens for the week, will come soon enough. For now, a preparatory mood prevails. Andy pulls espresso shots before a morning of business paperwork. Tara has dropped by the bakery to do a few chores before going to work at the Light Clinic, where she practices acupuncture one day each week. Emma Mason, an assistant baker, mixes croissant dough on the maple baker’s bench.
The bakery is only a few months old, and the Bissells say caring for it is like bringing a newborn into the world. It requires late nights, early mornings and constant attention. But when customers pack the tiny storefront on Wednesday, chatting up their neighbors and coworkers, jockeying for an almond croissant or a steaming espresso, it will all be worth it.
Serving European-style pastries, whole-grain sourdough loaves, desserts and a full menu of coffee drinks and teas, Andy’s Artisan Bread is a tale of new beginnings. It’s a rebirth for the little building perched on the corner of Todd and Logan streets, which has served the South Frankfort community since the early 1900s. It’s a new expression of the village bakery concept, which has nourished communities through the centuries. And for Andy, the daily work of baking is a kind of renewal, too.
“Getting better at croissants is a lifelong journey,” he said, turning reflective during a rare pause from work. “That mirrors a lot of things in my personal and spiritual life. It’s like the blacksmith making the sword—it’s like baking is sort of chiseling me into a better person, a more spiritual person. I have to rest on my discipline. I have to rest on my faith.”
Before the building was restored, looking beyond the peeling paint and leaning walls of 127 East Todd Street might have required an act of faith, too.
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The building appears on historic Sanborn fire insurance maps in 1907, and it served the community, usually as a grocery store, through the 1980s. By the time Natalie and Layne Wilkerson bought it in 2018, it had been vacant for several years and had been condemned by the city. For Natalie, who grew up in Frankfort, it was important not just to preserve a piece of local history but also to fit it out for commercial use. She and Layne, who was elected mayor of Frankfort in 2020, made significant structural repairs while carefully preserving the building’s historical character.
“We wanted to do the right thing for the long term, because not only am I emotionally attached to that building, but it’s just the anchor for the neighborhood, and Andy has proven that by putting a great business in there,” Natalie said. “You see people walking to that building from all directions on Saturday mornings.”
It’s not just the building that has been reborn. Along with it came business activity that locals haven’t seen in decades.
South Frankfort resident Joanna Hay, a regular customer at Andy’s, said there’s a line every time she visits. Even before the bakery lobby was open, customers stood “30 deep” in freezing weather to score a croissant or baguette from the bakery’s walk-up window on Logan Street.
“It’s a neighborhood gem, and we have not had shops in South Frankfort for quite a while,” she said. “We’ve got four people behind the counter working and making lattes. It’s a hive of activity, and it’s employing more people. It’s making more people happy and joyful with each day they’re open.”
Steve Pace, another regular, said he sees so many of his neighbors on Saturdays that the bakery should become the new meeting location for the South Frankfort Neighborhood Association. He isn’t sure what the magic ingredient is, but he wonders if it’s in the yeast.
In mid-February, before the bakery lobby was open, Gov. Andy Beshear and First Lady Britainy Beshear joined a crowd to wait in line at the walk-up window, which is just blocks from the Governor’s Mansion. Gov. Beshear said he’s tried four of the Bissells’ products, but his favorite so far is the ham-and-cheese croissant.
“The service and care that Andy’s puts into its baked goods is the type of care you see from small businesses,” Gov. Beshear said. “These are people who live in the communities they serve, and they want to do their very best. They are also committed to the people around them, and even in tough times, they work very hard to keep their folks employed.”
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When the Bissells moved to Frankfort in 2020 with their son, Gideon (now 7 years old), Tara planned to work in acupuncture full time, but COVID-19 limited her work opportunities. Meanwhile, Andy had just graduated from the University of Kentucky Gatton School of Business and was looking for a job. “That vacuum created opportunity,” Tara said.
Andy had been exploring food business ideas for several years and had already bought website domains for various concepts such as a wood-fired pizza trailer. When the Bissells learned the Franklin County Farmers Market had an opening for a baker on Tuesdays, they quickly applied and were accepted.
For months, Andy and Tara sold bread during Tuesday morning markets. Andy baked dozens of loaves each week in their studio apartment’s electric oven, burning through several heating elements. By the fall, they were able to sell during the Saturday market, too. Slowly, Andy upgraded his equipment—a work table, a mixer, a deck oven—and a full-fledged business began to form.
“Andy has been bold lots of times when I have not been,” Tara said, reflecting on his acquisitions. “It was: ‘I’m putting this worktable in the studio apartment; I’m getting this giant mixer; I’m getting this thing that will take it to the next level.’ ”
Tara took her knowledge to the next level, too, beginning an online pastry school program during the summer of 2020. She learned tools she now uses daily, from baker’s math to pastry techniques to principles for building a menu. Tara prefers to be behind the scenes, but her imprint on the bakery is unmistakable.
“My inspiration is to take things that I’ve loved from everywhere I’ve lived,” she said. “What have I loved in all these places? What are little foods and drinks and special memories that I’ve collected and all these recipes? And then I have a chance to put them here in front of people.”
By 2021, it was clear that the growing bakery business needed a physical home. The Bissells had outgrown two residential spaces. Long lines at the farmers market, as well as customer feedback, confirmed that the community would support them. As they planned and dreamed, Andy and Tara envisioned a gathering place.
“We really clicked on this concept of the village bakery that we stumbled upon in one of my cookbooks,” Tara said. “This bakery out in California had said, ‘We want to bring back the idea of a traditional village bakery, this gathering point that would nourish people on a daily basis.’ We immediately felt like that clicked for this small, village type of community, where you really feel like you get to know people.”
For Andy, the customers are a crucial reminder of why his work matters. “They make all the difference,” he said.
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Andy is a fourth-generation food-service business owner. He grew up working at the Skyway Restaurant in Custer, South Dakota, which his great-grandfather started. Andy’s mom took over the business from his grandfather, and from the age of 11, Andy advanced through the ranks—busboy, dishwasher, prep cook. By his senior year of high school, he managed the kitchen.
After high school, Andy continued working in restaurants and coffee shops in South Dakota and Colorado. In 2013, he moved to Asheville, North Carolina, to enjoy the music and dance scene. He and Tara met at the Old Farmer’s Ball, a weekly folk dance, and they connected over a shared love of music, dance and homemade food. They married in 2014, and after Gideon was born, Andy decided to go back to school.
“I’m not afraid to work hard to do whatever it takes to succeed. I knew those things,” he said. “But at the end of the day … I now had a family and hadn’t really gathered any good credentials or skills that I could get a career with. So, I figured I better go back to school.”
When Tara’s work took them to Lexington, Andy enrolled at the University of Kentucky. He made the dean’s list each semester and graduated with a double major in marketing and management.
“The discipline of business school taught me a lot just about reinforcing my work ethic—reinforcing that money has to be earned,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s just working harder than the other guy … Offer something that’s rare, hard to imitate, that makes people better off, and they’ll give you money for it.”
Baking is more than a job, though. Andy sees it as a calling. His first inkling of this came when he worked in the kitchen at Shoshoni Yoga Retreat, a spiritual retreat center near Nederland, Colorado, in return for lodging and meditation classes. The guru at the retreat center also was a baker, and one of Andy’s tasks in the kitchen was baking bread.
“One day, one of the other students came by, and he said, ‘I think you’re a baker,’ ” Andy remembered. “I was kneading the bread, and I was really in tune with the bread, and I could feel it in my hands.”
Andy stayed at the retreat center for just three months, but the practice of meditation, along with his Christian faith, continue to deeply influence his approach to work.
“There’s a lot that keeps me going,” he said. “Community, the craft itself, pushes me along, and then my faith that this is my call. This is my true calling, to do this here.”
At 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday, the windows of South Frankfort will be dark. Only 127 East Todd Street will glow like a candle—a village bakery reborn.
Bread and pastry lovers also can purchase Andy’s Artisan Bread items at the Franklin County Farmers Market in the Market Pavilion at River View Park in Frankfort, franklincountyfarmersmarket.org.
Andy’s Artisan Bread
127 East Todd Street, Frankfort, 859.202.0076
Wednesday-Friday 8AM – 2PM
Saturday 8AM – 1PM