Talking tarts and more with the founder, owner, and baker of the popular Atlanta bakery.

By Jamie Hausman

I’ve lived in Atlanta for 14 months. The two things that continue to strike me about this city are the welcoming nature of its people and the exponential expansion of its food scene, from the hidden ethnic food haven that is Buford Highway to the city’s emperor and empress of farm-to-table cuisine, Ford Fry and Anne Quatrano. In a conversation with Sarah O’Brien, the founder, owner and chief baker of Little Tart Bakery who is known for her perfectly flaky croissants and locally sourced ingredients, we found common ground when discussing the hospitality of our adopted city, especially when it comes to business owners willing to collaborate or give advice.

O’Brien grew up on a farm in Ohio. Her grandmother, a legend in their town for her sticky buns and apple pie, taught her how to bake. On O’Brien’s 10th birthday, her grandmother gifted her the family’s coveted apple pie recipe, and she’s wielded a whisk and a rolling pin ever since. Those tools are quite literally tattooed on her arm and make up the components of Little Tart Bakery’s logo. During a visit to France for World Youth Day, fourteen-year-old O’Brien fell in love with French pastries and devoured every croissant she could. She returned to France in college to study abroad, perfect her French and complete her comparative literature degree at Brown.

After college, O’Brien earned her MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and did everything she could to get back to Paris. She succeeded by earning a teaching fellowship there after earning her masters. After hours of teaching English to French students, O’Brien wandered the streets of Paris devouring croissants and knocking on bakery doors to ask for an internship.

Finally, a bakery accepted her offer and she swept floors for weeks, just soaking up the flour-dusted atmosphere of the shop until she was entrusted with more pastry-related tasks. After a year in Paris, it was time for O’Brien to return to the states, and her parents landed her a job as the head cook at a camp in Canada. For four months, O’Brien cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for families rotating through the camp, building confidence and honing her skills. With the money she made, O’Brien traveled to India, which is where she got an email from her best friend about a job opening in Atlanta. She packed her bags, returned to the states and moved south for a temporary job at the Center for Disease Control. After her regular nine-to-five job, O’Brien worked in shared kitchens to perfect her recipes and scoped out spaces for her French-style bakery. She sold her now-famous croissants and baked goods at farmers markets around town to build a client base and opened Little Tart Bakery’s brick-and-mortar shop just more than one year after her first market visit.

Jamie Hausman: How did your internship at the bakery in Paris shape your journey to opening Little Tart?

Sarah O’Brien: It was a really interesting experience because at the bakery where I worked, the baker’s shift was from 2 a.m. until noon. He made 400 croissants, so his day was spent with his back to an oven, making croissants and he was a really nice young man with a daughter. He said, “Why would you want to do this? You’re crazy. I never see my kid. I’m on a completely different schedule.” That was actually really important for me. I wanted to make sure I ran the most humane bakery I possibly could where there was no 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. It was really different because it focused me. I think a lot of people think when you open a bakery, you’re going to ice cupcakes and it’s going to be cute with little birds singing around your head. It’s such hard work, and it’s super exciting when you get to be creative, but I also need to bust out these 200 croissants.

JH: While you were in Paris, did you have in mind that you were going to open your own place?

SO: Yes. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I got very lucky in lots of ways. I just knew that I had a vision for exactly what I wanted to make in terms of a business and the food. I also knew that I wanted to work for myself. I think I had this idea that nobody was going to hire me because I didn’t have enough experience and I didn’t want to go to culinary school. I had already been in school for a long time, and I had this hair-brained idea that nobody would hire me, so I just opened my own place. I didn’t actually want to work 80 hours a week in a kitchen. I had this idea of what I wanted my life to look like and I felt like I could do it in Atlanta.

JH: How long have you lived in Atlanta? What was your timeline to open Little Tart when you moved here?

SO: I’ve lived here five years this November, and I feel like I’m almost truly an Atlantan. My very best friends from college moved here 10 years ago after we graduated, and I just kept visiting them every year. At first, we didn’t know where anything was, so it just seemed like a big traffic jam to me. Then they moved to Cabbagetown, which is where I live now. You can see the skyline from their house, but they have a garden and a dog and a cute little house. They told me over and over again that Atlanta needed a bakery, and I still feel like we don’t have enough bakeries per capita. H&F Bread Co. wasn’t open yet, and all we really had was Alon’s. So, I got a temporary job with the CDC and moved to Atlanta in November. I began baking in a shared kitchen while I was working; it was amazing to have that income and begin starting Little Tart. While I was still working for the CDC, I was looking at the space that Little Tart is in now, and we have been open for three years in October.

JH: How did starting a business in Atlanta lead to your success?

SO: I started selling at farmers markets before I quit the CDC. They were pivotal for me because I had a really good response, so I had the confidence to go to a landlord with a clientele from those markets. The thing I love about Atlanta, and the thing I always tell people, is people are so welcoming. I showed up here with two friends and had never worked in a kitchen here. Nobody knew me and people could have brushed me off, but they didn’t. I really credit the people who run Community Farmers Markets and market managers. They get a ton of applications for bakeries every year. I was met with such a lack of skepticism and I think it’s because people realize I am a baker, but I’m also so passionate about sourcing locally and finding local cheese, local jam, local honey. Everything we can get locally, we use. The fact that they included me in that community was amazing. I still feel like my success in Atlanta is because people went, “Yeah! Sure! Let’s see what you’re doing.” I don’t know that you find that in New York or San Francisco or in bigger food cities where you have to prove yourself first. That was amazing and I’m so indebted to Atlanta for that.

JH: Knowing that 12 percent of James Beard Foundation winners for outstanding chef are women and 16 percent of Food & Wine’s best new chefs are women, how does that translate to bakeries? Did you notice that male dominance in Paris or Atlanta?

SO: Definitely in Paris. When I lived there, the bakeries that were run by women were so few and not getting a lot of attention. I went back a couple months ago and there were more bakeries that were run by women, so that’s changing. I think France has a history of businesses run by men, but you’re seeing less and less of that. Again, I kind of just decided to do this by myself, though I had a lot of help. I never had to think about it. The best bakery in Savannah, Back In The Day Bakery, is run by Cheryl Day and her husband. I know that those statistics are out there and they suck, but I think about the fact that at Krog Street Market, I’m opening a shop, Asha Gomez is opening a shop and Jeni’s (Britton Bauer) is going in there. There’s five or six women-owned business going into Krog from the pet store to us to Pannus, the other bakery. I wonder what the statistics are in Atlanta, but it feels very welcoming. A lot of the farmers I communicate with and admire are women who are farming alone or with their partner on completely equal footing. I wonder if Atlanta is a little better than national statistics.

JH: I read about your time with the Atlanta Roller Girls. What was that community like and how did they support you when you opened Little Tart? 

SO: That was another community that I credit when I think about getting this place open. I got drafted to be a roller girl and signed a lease in the same month. I remember thinking, “Life is so awesome right now.” I was selling at roller derby bouts before I had a store. That was another community that just went, “Sure! Come on in!” Then I opened this place and they were all here. They’re still so supportive. I skated with Atlanta Roller Derby for three years under the name Tart Breaker, and it was such a cool organization. It’s another organization run by badass women who also have day jobs and kids and relationships. They were super welcoming…If you show up in good faith and want to try, they’re going to take you in. I had a really good time doing it. I miss it. My team last year won the championship, so the trophy is here behind the counter. I had to stop because I can’t break my arm.

JH: In terms of expanding Little Tart Bakery, you have the markets, you have your brick-and-mortar shop and you are opening in Krog Street Market. Are there any other locations or collaborations in the near future for the bakery or for you?

SO: I think that’s going to be good for me. I want to control every aspect of the quality here, and I don’t think you can do that when you expand too much. We don’t even really wholesale, but we get calls for wholesaling and franchising. The thing I love so much about the Krog Street location is that it’s going to be two miles from here. Our farthest farmers market is five miles from here. So I can be everywhere, I can see what’s going on and I can check everything. I like to have my hands in everything that’s happening. That to me is essential. I don’t see it as this thing that I will open all over the place, but Krog was too good to pass up. I think that will be good for a minute; I’m not thinking about where Little Tart three is going because there are always things like another farmers market or catering. I would love to get more into doing people’s weddings, but we haven’t expanded into that yet. There is so much other shit to do that I’m good right now.

Jamie Hausman is a Chicago native, Mizzou graduate and a resident of Atlanta, Ga. She adores her adopted home and spends her time writing, editing and pitching stories to local and national online publications, as well as exploring new neighborhoods and restaurants. Check her out on Twitter @jamiehausman.

Photos of croissants, Little Tart building, and bakery case by Whitney Ott. Photo of O’Brien taken from her Instagram.