If happiness is the smell of freshly baked bread, then downtown’s Great Harvest Bakery Cafe has to be a little slice of heaven. With warmth from a cavernous oven and a counter piled high with sweets and slices of fresh bread, the local bakery is bustling with friendly patrons who would agree with the famous chef James Beard when he said, “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods.”
Nestled near other little shops on A Street in Idaho Falls’ historic downtown, Great Harvest has become not just a mainstay but a little haven of homemade goodness for the past three decades. Owners John and Tiffani VanOrman look forward to celebrating the business opening’s 30th anniversary this fall, and have found an enormous amount of joy running the bakery in this community.
Prepare to Meet Your Bakers
In the mid 1990s, John and Tiffani had both graduated from the University of Utah and worked at stable corporate jobs in the crush of Salt Lake City. Whenever they needed a break from the insurance and investment offices where they worked, the couple would stop by their friend’s bakery for a cup of coffee and a slice of fresh bread.
“We had friends who owned a Great Harvest Bakery and it looked like so much fun. We’d go there a few times a week. It was inspiring to see them run their own business,” Tiffani said.
This got the couple thinking about opening their own bakery, shifting completely away from corporate and city life. They dreamed of moving to a small town, being their own bosses, and creating their ideal work/life balance at a slower pace. Since they had no ties to stay in Utah, they decided to try this new endeavor in a new state.
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They began with a road trip to choose a new hometown. “We drove through the entire Northwest looking for a spot—through Colorado, Wyoming, Washington. In every place we visited the historic downtowns until we absolutely fell in love with Idaho Falls,” Tiffani recalled.
It helped that eastern Idaho is an outdoor-lover’s paradise: the VanOrmans both love to hike and cross-country ski; John is an avid fly fisherman. With so many recreational activities nearby and the downtown they’d been dreaming of, John and Tiffani poured their life savings into the building at 360 A Street and moved into a little apartment at the back while they got the business up and running.
For years, Great Harvest in Idaho Falls was a simple bakery. The mixer, kneading tables, and oven were all in view from the front so customers could see the time-tested process of bread baking. “In the beginning all we did was bread, and it was so fun to let people watch us make it,” John said.
Multiplying the Menu
Like all good business owners, John and Tiffani followed the trends of their customer’s cravings. In the beginning they made a few muffins and sweets along with 8 kinds of bread. Eventually they added a coffee and espresso bar, and a full line of sweets such as salted caramel cookies and berry oatmeal bars. In 2005, they added sandwiches, soups, and salads and the little bakery became a full-fledged café.
These days, Great Harvest Bakery Cafe churns out 17 different kinds of artisan and sweet breads from honey whole wheat and sourdough to jalapeno cheese and cinnamon swirl. They also create gift baskets and cookie trays, warm and hearty soups, and handcrafted sandwiches. They cater events and are especially popular for business breakfasts of coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and cinnamon rolls or lunches of BLTs, garden salad, and warm cookies.
Not surprisingly, both John and Tiffani’s favorite breads are popular with most customers, too: the Asiago sourdough and the Dakota seed bread, which is their whole grain bread with six different kinds of seeds. “I also love pumpkin bread without chocolate chips, though we make both kinds,” Tiffani said. The bakery also offers gluten free and vegetarian sandwiches, salads, soups, and some sweets.
The Recipe for Success
Using only fresh, natural ingredients, everything produced at Great Harvest is handcrafted from scratch, with no GMOS or preservatives. With daily-milled flour and pure local honey, the breads and sweets are both tasty and nutritious. Great Harvest’s website affirms, “Real bread is rich, moist, hearty and life-enhancing. We take pride in our hand-crafted breads and know you will notice the difference.”
While Great Harvest is a franchise that begins with corporate recipes, each location is free to create their own unique bakery and specialties. According to the corporate website, “It’s less of a chain and more of a link to the old-fashioned way of doing things. Good ingredients matter, local flavors matter, and bread matters. In a world of fake food, the value of real is rising.”
The Idaho Falls location wasted no time in making the bakery their own. “When we began, the recipes were part of the franchise, but now we’ve recreated all of our own recipes and have made up new ones. Our employees often bake new things to add to the menu. That’s what makes it so fun…it’s truly our own place,” Tiffani said.
Two Is Busier Than One
Shortly after opening the downtown location in 1995, John and Tiffani bought a building on 17th Street and ran a successful second bakery there for nearly 28 years. Although both locations did well and each had a community of regulars, the VanOrmans felt the stress of trying to be in two places at once. For a better work/life balance, they decided to close the 17th Street bakery in 2023 to be able to focus all of their energy and love into the downtown shop. “We’re so happy to just be running one store now. We enjoy it so much more. It’s such a great location,” Tiffani said.
Loving the Downtown Life
Although it was quiet three decades ago, downtown Idaho Falls is an urban center today. On summer mornings, Great Harvest Bakery Café is busy with customers who just stopped by the farmer’s market along the river, walking past century-old brick buildings and beautiful planters overflowing with flowers. On winter evenings there are string lights stretching across Park Avenue, the buildings are done up for the holidays, and the restaurants and shops are bustling.
“Downtown is thriving,” John said. “And our heart has always been here where we started.” John and Tiffani have completely remodeled their 1900s building, both inside and out. They recently updated all of their equipment with state of the art 80-quart capacity mixers and a commercial oven that can bake more than 200 loaves of bread at a time. They also redid the exterior and put in new awnings, colorful planters, and outdoor seating.
Traffic Patterns
For customers who aren’t on foot, downtown parking can be tough especially during the popular lunch hour. Great Harvest offers curbside pickup, call ahead, and online ordering to make stopping in easier than ever. Their bread also freezes incredibly well for up to three months, so when you happen to snag that golden parking space, you can stock up with several loaves at once.
Keeping everything fresh in a business of solely perishable food is their biggest challenge, but John and Tiffani are committed to offering the highest quality bakes. They have become adept at anticipating daily and seasonal trends and almost always bake just the right amount of bread each day, which can be as many as 400 loaves. Just how many customers stop in depends on the season, the day of the week, and surprisingly, the weather. Bitter cold days might be slow, while the restaurant will fill enthusiastically when the temperature bumps up 10 degrees. When there are leftovers, they happily donate extra bread to the local soup kitchen or sell day-old loaves at half price.
People Are Paramount
One of the biggest keys to a great business is the people who work there, and Great Harvest is filled with excellent employees. Nearly all of the two dozen employees work full time, and some have been there for years. One employee has worked with the VanOrmans for 27 years, and the current manager has been there for 12 years. Tiffani said, “We work with great people. There’s great energy and a good vibe, so it’s fun to come to work every day. Our employees are like our family and we love them as if they were our own children.”
But their favorite thing of all is still the customers. People who bake brownies and lemon bars for a living are undoubtedly in the business of caring about people and enjoy making them happy. John said, “Our favorite thing is the customers. We have the most amazing people who come in; some have been regulars for years. Many tourists come through to see Yellowstone or Grand Teton and they stop in every year. We love keeping in touch with people all this time.”
Although they began the business as bakers being the ones to mix and knead the bread, their favorite place now is to be up front with the customers. So if you need a friendly greeting and a slice of heavenly-fresh bread, be sure to pop in.
Great Harvest Bakery Café
360 A Street
208-522-7444
www.greatharvestidahofalls.com