Our story
Twenty years of cooking from scratch
We opened in Sandy Springs in 2005 with a short menu, a stack of family recipes, and one stubborn conviction: a sandwich shop should bake its own bread.
It all started during Thanksgiving of 2005, when Geoff and Katie Melkonian needed to use up the extra eggs from their holiday cooking. The result was a batch of delicious pumpkin bread baked using Katie’s grandmother’s recipe. Along with Geoff’s sister, Wendy, the Melkonians tested more recipes, and soon, a family of breads was born, each more creative and delicious than the next. The word spread quickly: Breadwinner Breads were the best tasting breads in town. Fulfilling orders was a race against time. The media was abuzz! After being featured on the Food Network, Today Show, and as one of Oprah’s “Favorite Things,” the Melkonians knew they had something great. It was only fitting to open their first shop right in the heart of Sandy Springs.
A Café is Born
The baked goods were selling like hotcakes (well, more like breadcakes)! But still, customers wanted more. That ‘more’ became Sandy Springs’ own Breadwinner Café and Bakery which opened its doors in October of 2010. The cafe quickly became the “it spot” for lunch, offering a bountiful selection of homemade soups, salads, sandwiches, sides, and, of course, their signature breads. Today, more than a decade later, Breadwinner Cafe and Bakery is still the “it spot” for lunch and the Melkonian Fine Food Group has expanded its brand with new concepts, adding Farm to Ladle in 2016 in midtown and Alpharetta, in addition to growing its robust catering and gourmet to-go business.
As Breadwinner continues to expand, one thing will never change: the people behind the brand. From the homemade breads that put them on the map, to the soups, salads, and sandwiches made fresh, in-house daily, Breadwinner will always remain a family kitchen at heart.
Take the bustle of a New York deli lunch counter, place it in leafy green Sandy Springs, add a friendly ambiance, great customers and high quality ingredients and you get Breadwinner Cafe. Serving up great sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts, this lunchtime hotspot has lines out the door seemingly every day. And everything they make there is made from scratch.
-Atlanta Eats
We’ve been featured, reviewed, and voted “best sandwich” more than once. We’re grateful for all of it. But the measure we actually care about is the line at 11:40 on a Tuesday — office folks, families, and the regular who orders the same turkey-on-sourdough he’s ordered for fifteen years.
That’s where great food meets great people. It’s been the whole point since 2005.
Come taste twenty years of practice
Lunch is ready at both counters, 10:30am to 6pm.