The owners of Crust Bakeshop in Worcester were approved for a license transfer for BirchTree Bread Co., also in Worcester, and plan to purchase the coffee shop in May.
Crust owners Alexis Kelleher and Nathan Rossi stood before the Worcester License Commission Thursday morning to ask for a transfer of BirchTree Bread’s alcohol and entertainment licenses.
Kelleher added the pair is looking to buy BirchTree’s assets at some point in mid-May. She didn’t disclose a purchase price.
“We want to keep the name and a lot of what’s there the same because we really love and respect what Rob and Avra have built there,” Kelleher said while addressing the commission.
The married couple Avra Hoffman and Robert Fecteau opened BirchTree Bread Co. in 2014 as a coffee shop and bakery in the Crompton Place building on Green Street.
Kelleher said she plans to use BirchTree’s kitchen to produce Crust Bakeshop’s products, as she is running out of space at Crust’s current two locations on Worcester’s Main Street and in West Boylston.
She confirmed the two locations would remain open.
Hoffman didn’t immediately return a request for comment on Thursday, but when WBJ first wrote on April 14 about the possible sale, she and Fecteau said they were pleased to have Kelleher and Rossi take over.
“We feel that we’ve created a great business and an asset to the city of Worcester and are extremely happy to have found the right folks to carry it forward,” Hoffman and Fecteau wrote in a text message April 13.
