The new café will be located at Hillsboro’s Main Street Commons.
Grand Central Bakery has announced plans to open a location in Hillsboro next week.
The bakery’s eighth Oregon location will be situated in the Main Street Commons, a multilevel food and drink hub on the southeast corner of East Main Street and 2nd Avenue. It will offer delicious rustic bread, all-butter artisan pastries baked on site, and other locally sourced, made-to-order menu items.
Claire Randall, Grand Central’s CEO, says the company is expanding to Hillsboro because of the continued growth that’s happening there, and it aligns with the company’s overall strategy for expansion.
“We were excited about the opportunity to take part in the revitalization of downtown Hillsboro and the community-building opportunities it provided,” Randall says. “Hillsboro is one of the most rapidly growing areas in our region. Plus, from a business standpoint, our Cedar Mill café is our most successful bakery and we’re assuming that enthusiasm for our brand would continue west down the Willamette Valley corridor. Our strategy has always been to grow slowly and thoughtfully while taking advantage of opportunities that support our mission. Our plan is to open a new café every two to three years in line with our resources and customer demand.”
Grand Central was established in Seattle in 1989. Last year, the company announced plans to transition from private ownership to a perpetual purpose trust, but has since paused the transition. Randall says the company plans to resume the project when conditions are more favorable both internally and within the broader economy. She adds that while sales continue to recover after the pandemic, staffing shortages and rising ingredient costs have impacted the company’s financials.
“We are reluctant to take on investors and additional debt obligations before these conditions improve,” Randall says. “The rise in interest rates over the past year means that we will likely have to provide higher base dividends to investors than we originally modeled. We’re currently in discussion and planning about how to structure financing the trust transition in a way that won’t be unduly burdensome to the company. Our hope is to re-ignite the project later this year.”
An official ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Hillsboro bakery is scheduled for July 8.
