Great Harvest Bread Company: Our Local(ish) Bakery

Great Harvest Bread Co. is one of our favorite local bakeries to visit. The fresh-baked bread is perfect for sandwiches and French toast and we can’t resist picking up a sweet treat while we’re there!

Why did you say it was local-ish?

While Great Harvest isn’t technically a mom-and-pop, each shop is independently owned. The company’s commitment to sourcing ingredients locally also scores big points with our family!

The Great Harvest Bread Co. that we visited was in Warrenton, Virginia. This bakery sources its eggs from Whiffletree Farm (Warrenton) and its butter from Main Street Farmstead, located about 100 miles away in Stuarts Draft.

Inside the Bakery

The bakery is staffed by friendly folks who are proudly wearing “Flour Power” tie-dye. The shelves are stocked with loaves, rolls, and sweets.

The shelves also included quick snacks, Frontier soup mixes, beverages, and specialty items. They had quite the selection of Monin syrups, which I found a bit surprising. I was pleased to find Route 11 Potato Chips in stock, too!

The café serves sandwiches, but we’d had lunch before we left home that day. We were there for the bread anyway!

The Goodies

Everything in this bakery looked good, but three things in particular caught our eye. We bought all three.

Cinnamon Burst Bread

At first glance, you may think this bread contains raisins. Those are actually cinnamon chips! They’re sort of hard to explain, but they’re basically little nuggets of cinnamon goodness that are sprinkled throughout this bread (even on the inside).

This bread is just about perfect. We had it plain and toasted with butter and both were deliciuos. Everyone in my family enjoyed it!

My only complaint was that I mangled it a bit while cutting it. Next time, I’ll ask if they’re able to cut it at the time of purchase.

Peach Cobbler Loaf

As you can tell from the heavy packaging, this is a much denser loaf than the Cinnamon Burst Bread. It has swirls of cinnamon and peaches inside and the pieces are huge!

This bread was a bit too dense to enjoy alone. It would make a fantastic bread pudding. We ended up using it to make a French toast that was incredible! We served it with chilled peach slices.

Chocolate Chip Cookie

The trickiest part about recreating a classic is that everyone knows how it’s supposed to taste (or they think they do) and you either hit it or miss it. Great Harvest nailed it!

This chocolate chip cookie does have a few unique touches. It contains oatmeal, which helps it stay chewy. I happen to love oatmeal, so I appreciated this tweak!

I thought I tasted the subtle sweetness of honey in the cookie, too.

This cookie is so good that I’d make a stop in Warrenton just to grab one!

Plan Your Visit

Great Harvest Bread Co.
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