“Agnes Bakery represented, for me, hope.” It’s the end of an era for Anyday Group, but also the start of a new one, with a successor to open in the coming weeks.
Agnes Bakery closes for the last time on Sunday, lowering the curtain on a formative chapter for powerhouse Brisbane hospitality group Anyday.
The bakery was born in the very early days of Australia’s nationwide COVID lockdowns in March 2020, when owners Ben Williamson, Tyron Simon, Bianca Marchi and Frank Li – before they were Anyday – pivoted their Agnes restaurant (which was scheduled to open that same week) into a wood-fired pop-up.
It was a sensation, with people often queueing (socially distanced, of course) right around the block back onto Agnes Street for wood-fired breads, cannoli, tarts, kouign-amann and Basque cheesecakes.
Later, it became a James Street must-do, when it opened a permanent shop with a larger oven in a refurbished weatherboard shop on the intersection with Harcourt Street.
While it finalises the process of wrapping up Agnes Bakery, Anyday is prepping the launch of its new bakery and cafe, Idle, on Merthyr Road.
But Agnes Bakery has come to mean so many things to so many people – not least of all the Anyday owners themselves. You wonder, why close it at all?
“The reason we didn’t continue trading is purely the construction works,” Simon says, referring to James Places, which is under development next door. “We knew with the construction that our lease was always going to be short term. But, effectively, what we’ve been able to do is put this lease on ice and then we can figure out post-construction if want to open back up or put it back into the leasing pit.”
Simon admits that, given the impact Agnes Bakery has had with Brisbane locals and within the group, the decision to close has been bittersweet.
“I think about all the feelings we had before we opened [the pop-up]. We were lost.”
Agnes Bakery co-owner Tyron Simon
Within a year of the initial pop-up, what would become Anyday had gone from an aborted launch of its star restaurant to announcing fast-paced Italian eatery Bianca on Ada Lane opposite The Calile Hotel. The opening of Agnes Bakery proper on James Street would follow in late 2021.
“I think about all the feelings we had before we opened [the pop-up]. We were lost,” Simon says. “I found myself aimlessly walking through the city, because that’s where we lived, trying to work through how we were going to survive.
“Agnes Bakery represented, for me, hope. It helped get our thoughts out of ‘Woe is me’ and into, ‘There’s still a future post this’, and to focus on our guests and our team. It really signified the beginning of Anyday.”
Idle will be a larger bakery than Agnes and, on top of wood-fired baked goods, will feature a full-service cafe that serves cooked-to-order seasonal dishes, fresh salads and take-home pantry items.
“I like that we’re evolving,” Simon says. “We’ve listened to our guests and they said, ‘We’d be here more often if we could dine in and [take our time] to enjoy these pastries’. So I’m really happy to offer this evolution.”
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
