The seductive smell of freshly baked sourdough hangs deliciously in the air well before your full body steps through the door. As you walk into this bustling Evanston bakery, a sizable, snaking line on a Saturday morning reaffirms that you have walked into a special place. At Hewn Bakery in Evanston, the commitment to hand-forged artisan bread is taken to a next-level stratosphere, with a serious but approachable menu of made-from-scratch breads, pastries, sandwiches and coffee.

The word hewn—which means to give form or shape with heavy cutting blows by hand—is a way to connect the past with the future. “We’re not just making bread,” said Ellen King, Co-owner, Co-founder and mastermind of the baking operations at this independent, woman-owned bakery. “We’re crafting experiences, one loaf at a time.”

That philosophy permeates every aspect of Hewn from its diverse selection of breads and pastries to its commitment to using locally sourced ingredients.

Julie Matthei is Co-owner, Co-Founder at Hewn and heads up business operations at the bakery which has been recognized by Food & Wine magazine as one of the Best Bakeries in America and featured it in its list of Best Bread in Every State. Hewn has also been listed among the Best Bread Bakeries by the Food Network, and as one of the Best Bakeries in Chicago by Thrillist.

“Hewn is more than a bakery. It’s a celebration of craftsmanship, a tribute to local farmers, and a gathering place for our community,” said Julie.

From underground bread club to artisan bakery

The story of Hewn Bakery is as organic and homegrown as its rustic breads.

“I would say it came together in a small condo in Evanston, making bread out of my closet, literally,” said Ellen. “My son and I delivered the bread to customers that signed up, and we were called the Underground Bread Club.”

That blossoming business wasn’t launched on merely a whim. It was born out of necessity and passion.

“I moved here from Seattle, and I just couldn’t find a good loaf of bread,” explained Ellen. “I had worked in a bunch of different restaurants in Seattle, and I had a young son, and I didn’t want to work in restaurants (in Chicago), and I literally became obsessed with making bread.”

The Underground Bread Club quickly took on the sunshine of success and customer demand pushed for something more permanent. Enter Julie Matthei, Ellen’s life and business partner, who saw the potential of creating something special on the North Shore.

“I said, ‘What are you gonna do with this? You’re making 120 loaves in your little oven, and at some point, you’re gonna need to either expand this or stop doing it,'” recounted Julie.

Ellen and Julie say their made-in-Chicago partnership was cemented in at a place that is as synonymous with the Windy City as any other hometown haunt: Wrigley Field.

“When Ellen and I first started talking about opening a business, we were at a Cubs game,” Julie recalled. “That was when the Cubs were really, really bad, and so there wasn’t a lot to watch on the field, so we just sat and talked about, ‘Hey, is this something you wanna do?’”

In 2013, Hewn Bakery officially opened its doors. First, at a far smaller location in Evanston than their current flagship. In 2019, they purchased the home of Hewn today, a far larger location in downtown Evanston.

“When we purchased the building in 2019, we were just going along thinking this was gonna be a pretty relatively simplified thing to do,” said Ellen. “You don’t expect a pandemic, and on March 17 of 2020, as most people here know in Illinois, is when the shutdown occurred.”

Despite the obstacles, Hewn Bakery survived and flourished. They opened their 7-thousand sq. ft. store in April 2020, adapting to a new reality of plexiglass barriers and social distancing. The resilience and fortitude of Julie and Ellen are testament to the spirit that has driven Hewn Bakery from humble beginnings to its current standing as a must-visit bakery in Chicagoland.

“It kind of fulfilled this idea of the creativity and the uniqueness of a neighborhood that comes from the small business,” explained Ellen. “It’s not from the new chain that moves in. It’s from the people that open up their ideas, and their passion. Because you see that passion out on your street every day.”

The business: Artistry in every loaf

At the heart of the success of Hewn Bakery is a commitment to quality that begins with the very soil in which its ingredients are grown.

“We work with Illinois farmers who are stone milling and growing sustainably grown wheat, and that’s an oddity in the country,” explained Ellen. “There are a lot of bakeries that make bread, but they don’t source their grains locally from within the Midwest, and specifically within the state.”

“Our flour is different than what you see conventionally, because it’s grown sustainably,” explained Ellen. “They (farmers) are not adding synthetic inputs, fertilizers, chemicals, potential cancer-causing agents, or cancer-causing chemicals that go into the soil.”

For Hewn, the results translate into baked goodness which are both nutritious and delicious.

“When you eat our bread, you’ll see that it’s a little darker,” said Ellen. “You’ll never see like a white loaf, and it’s because of the bran and the germ, but that’s where all the vitamins and fiber and nutrients come from. So, as a whole, our bread is more nutritious for you. One of the things that I love about bread is people talk about the science, but I actually think it’s more of an art, especially artisan bread,” explained Ellen “Our bread, in particular, comes down to the baker’s hands, literally shaping the bread, but also feeling if the dough hydrated enough.”

“I think we’re doing a pretty good job,” Julie stressed. “I think you see that when our customers just keep coming in, repeat customers all the time, and I always love it when a customer says that now their child will not eat any other bread.”

The wooden shelves at Hewn Bakery offer up a mouth-watering variety of breads such as Parmesan and Garlic Country, Evanston Red, Cranberry Walnut and Challah. The scale of the operation is impressive to say the least.

“We go through over two tons of flour a week in this location that we use,” Ellen noted, referring to the Evanston store. There is also a Hewn in the far northern Lake County suburb of Libertyville, with a third location opened in Winnetka in late summer of 2024.

Business and family

The strong bond of partnership between Julie and Ellen is apparent as you look at every facet of Hewn Bakery and how its run.

“We’re business partners,” Julie said with a smile. “We’re also married to each other, so that adds a layer of complexity sometimes when it’s hard not to bring work home, right? I think Ellen and I are constantly trying to navigate through that with our both professional and our personal relationship. Fortunately, we have a lot of love and respect for each other, so I think that overall, that trumps everything.”

“I would say when you do a small business, you’re already working all the time, so in some regards, it’s kind of useful because we literally talk about the bakery all the time, and well, sometimes it’s hard to find that separation,” added Ellen with acknowledgment. “We trust each other with the business and with decisions we make at the bakery. We don’t always agree, some times things might get a little heated, but we always have the best intentions of the bakery, the people that work for us, and ourselves, and our family.”

Baking a better community

At the heart of the success for Hewn is its sense of community and its commitment to small business.

“I think that we’re vital to the community,” said Ellen. “We love the community. We love serving all of our customers. We love seeing the community build. I think it’s fun when you see small artisan shops, whatever it is, come into your community. Because it makes it vibrant. It makes it fun to live here and for your kids to see people that are the owners working at the store every day.”

“When you think about streets like this, like being on Central Street or up on Milwaukee Avenue in Libertyville, there’s so many independently owned businesses, which makes that community unique,” added Julie.

Julie and Ellen stress that amid all their success, there are strenuous challenges to consider for retailers in today’s business climate.

“You don’t want to see those businesses suffer by being over-regulated by government,” Julie explained. “These are the people, the businesses, where the owners are there. They’re working with their employees. They’re there at the counter to greet you when you walk in. And so there should be a level of trust between government and the independent businesses in this state.”

“What do I want the politicians of Illinois to know about retail?” Ellen rhetorically questioned. “I want them to know that we chose Illinois to open our business. We chose to live here. We chose to work here. And we chose to pretty much pour all of our tax money into the state. And so with that, though, the expectation is that they trust us as small business owners.

We’ve made our business successful because we believe in our community and our customers, but I feel some times that they’re over-regulating us or pushing too much upon us. And I sometimes feel like we’ve become the charitable arm of government, where every social ill, they’re looking at a small business to solve that.”

Words of advice

For anyone considering a career in retail, Julie and Ellen offered up a hearty helping of wise guidance.

”If you’re committed to making this work, you’re going to have to do that, get a really great accountant. That’s vitally important and maybe learn how to do some quick books on your own. That’s one thing that I know Ellen has found that she has great skill in, but she didn’t even know she had,” stated Julie.

“Learn how to be a repair person,” added Ellen with a hint of a smile. ”You need to learn how to fix everything. So, not only are you running your business, but you’re actually trying to fix a light switch or you’re fixing a motor or you’re fixing a register. You have to be your own IT. It’s everything. So, if you get into this because you want to be your own boss, be careful because you then never get a break. You never stop working and you have to figure out how to do everything there is. But that being said, the rewards are also great. They are!”

Why I love retail

When a customer walks into Hewn Bakery and meet Ellen or Julie they instantly know they are meeting two people with a strong passion for their craft.

“I love educating people about why our bread is different, why they can eat it, kind of connecting them to other farmers in our area,” Ellen said with a note of palpable enthusiasm in her voice. “It’s why we sell local products as well. I want people to know that they need to support the local community. Some people don’t even realize why our flour, in particular, is different than what you can get at the grocery store. I love seeing people learn, and then, it’s not like I’m selling them a loaf of bread. Once they try it, it sells itself.”

“Bread is a binder of community,” exclaimed Ellen with a warm smile. “It brings people together. It is why, in some languages, bread means the stamp of life.”

Serving up a slice of joy to customers is intrinsic to the identity of Hewn Bakery. In a world increasingly dominated by mass production, Julie and Ellen give credence to the underdogs in their industry and remind us of an anonymous, popular axiom that, “Baking is love made visible.”