Today we’d like to introduce you to Alon Balshan.
Alon’s dream of owning his own bakery became a reality with the help of his father Maurice, when he opened the first 1300 square foot location of Alon’s in the Virginia Highland area of Atlanta in 1992, on a shoestring budget. Passionate about rich flavors and superior quality, Balshan only chooses the freshest ingredients, from the seasonal produce to the unrivaled chocolate. Alon’s expanded the original location in 2000 for the first time, and in 2004 Alon’s sweet success prompted the bakery to expand their repertoire with a market offering a gourmet selection of freshly prepared deli items including soups, sandwiches, salads, breads, artisan cheeses and wines. Then in February 2008, Alon opened his second location in the Dunwoody area of Atlanta, which encompasses over 11,000 square feet. Alon’s in Dunwoody offers the same great offerings on a larger scale to include an exciting dining experience with a beer and wine bar, a wood-burning oven for artisan style pizza and a fabulous expansion of the catering offerings. Alon’s Bakery and Market has now become a one-stop shop for everyday gourmet foods and the best place to shop for holiday favorites.
Today, Alon’s Bakery & Market is proud to partner with local businesses to provide wholesale offerings and catering for company events, residential gatherings and clients’ celebrations. You can find Alon in his Dunwoody location on most days, continuing to create unique delicacies for his customers. As Owner and Executive Chef of Alon’s Bakery & Market, Chef Balshan brings his vision to life everyday by providing high-quality ingredients and handmade products to his customers at both locations. Chef Balshan oversees managerial duties as well as works closely with his staff to create new menu items and perfect current offerings on a daily basis. He constantly looks at new ways to surpass customer’s expectations with his countless offerings available at both of the restaurant’s locations.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth?? It never is!
It is a journey, a roller coaster, fun but taxing, lots of work in the first years up to 24 hours straight for one shift, in the beginning very small staff i had to do most everything, and had to work many hours to get the job done, staffing was always the hardest part, finding individuals that care and have the passion to get the job done correctly, with that being said, i had a lot of great people that helped this company grow and I couldn’t have done it without them.
Opening Dunwoody was the hardest thing I have done, it was a very large investment for us, with a large staff and we opened in February of 2008! needless to say that economy was not on our side, we lost so much money the first year that i thought we are going out of business, we worked very hard to stay in business and after a couple years we start seeing the positive results for it, we are now doing great, our catering company is doing great, growing, we are now offering events with an upscale service and setup
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Alon’s bakery and market – what should we know?
We started as a bakery with some sandwiches, along the way we added things like, prepared foods, cheeses, wine, and specialty retail, chocolate. we are proud of the quality of our product, we go to extreme in quality to make sure we are using the best products, our Salmon is one of the best in the city, it comes from the bay of Fundy which is a bay that has a 15 feet of tide, which makes a very high circulation of fresh ocean water, we receive 2 deliveries a week of salmon that was caught the day before we get it, The salmon is butchered in-house and you can taste the difference, it is sushi quality.
Our chocolate is a valrhona chocolate, one of the best made! We use other brands such as Cocoa barry another excellent brand of chocolate.
We specialize in desserts and take lots of pride in it. Like all the other products in house every single part in our production is made from scratch, from the marmalade we use to make our pastries to the chicken stock we make daily to make our soups.
All of our breads are made in house, including the pita bread we make in out pizza oven for our famous falafel, we use a variety of starters from natural starters that are 25 years old to different yeasted starters, we are very proud of our ciabatta.
Our selection of sandwiches has been very popular over the years, the lamb sandwich has been a favorite for many years as well as the chicken pesto, on our own bread of course.
We offer catering services from corporate lunches to upscale events with full service.
Our brunch is a popular destination on weekends.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Being focused on our objective and not taking NO for an answer, stick to the target and let no one stop you.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1394 n highland ave. atlanta ga 30306
4505 ahsford dunwoody rd Dunwoody ga. 30346 - Website: www.alons.com
- Phone: 6783971781
- Email: alons@alons.com
- Instagram: alonsbakery
- Facebook: alonsbakery
