Edible Food Finds: Bonny Bread + Beantrust Coffeebar

Photos by Linda Campos

Along the Route 127 byway in Beverly, folks line up outside a shingled storefront adorned with a signature red awning. Inside the tiny space, daughter-and-father duo Stephanie and Erik Modahl are “dancing around each other,” as Stephanie jokes, as they prepare artisan breads, pastries and coffee.

The Modahls took a risk and opened Bonny Bread + Beantrust Coffeebar during the pandemic in October 2020. “We weren’t sure how it was going to go,” said Stephanie Modahl, the mastermind behind Bonny Bread and a former A+J King baker and residential kitchen baker. Fortunately, the Beverly Cove neighborhood (and beyond) was very receptive.

Stephanie’s interest in bread baking blossomed after she learned about the fresh-milled flour movement in the U.S. “Flour is taken for granted as an ingredient,” she says. “The first time I smelled freshly milled wheat, it smelled like open air with beautiful nutty and floral notes.” She soon learned that flour could add flavor and dimension from the very beginning and started experimenting with different grain combinations.

At Bonny Bread, the emphasis is placed on the importance of each ingredient in every hearty, freshly baked loaf. Flour is sourced from Ground Up in Hadley, to create the deeply flavorful, well-fermented bread. At the beginning, the menu featured Amber Sourdough— light in texture, rich in flavor—and Whole Wheat Levain, deeper in texture and flavor, incorporating rye. Soon, Stephanie added baguettes, focaccia and sandwich bread. In addition to these daily loaves, Bonny Bread has an assortment of daily specials including challah, Cherry Muesli Loaf and Olive Loaf, to list a few.

Bonny Bread is venturing more and more into pastry land. Depending on the day, the menu features an array of cookies, muffins, buttermilk scones and brioche-based treats like sticky buns and cardamom buns. In similar fashion to the thoughtful approach to bread, the pastries are carefully perfected before being added to the menu. Customers can order ahead online, or pop into the store to retrieve the freshly baked goods that day.

The second half of Bonny Bread + Beantrust Coffeebar is Stephanie’s dad, Erik Modahl. Erik started Beantrust remotely five years ago, after an extensive career in coffee distribution. He was part of the first company to bring cold-brew coffee to Boston, and the first to distribute West Coast–based Peet’s Coffee. In Beantrust, Erik is “really focused on the customer with an emphasis on honest interactions,” and “cultivating the local community” over coffee.

Beantrust sources its freshly roasted beans from local roasters like Little Wolf Coffee Roasters out of Ipswich and further afield, like Propeller Coffee Co. in Toronto. Each blend celebrates the coffee bean, harvested from sustainable farms in various ecosystems in Latin America, Africa and other key coffee-growing regions of the world. The coffee at Beantrust is sold in the form of whole beans, ground or drip, in an array of light, medium, dark or decaf blends. The light roast is an Ethiopian single-origin with floral and fruity notes of blueberry and strawberry. The medium roast is the signature blend from Papua New Guinea and Guatemala. The dark roast is a rich, complex blend of various regions with notes of chocolate.

Erik explains, “I like some twists and turns in the coffee,” serving some creative options like a lavender latte, or mocha with homemade ganache. As summer is in full swing, cold brews are king.

If you are driving along the coastal roads of the North Shore, Bonny Bread + Beantrust Coffeebar is a must stop for a coffee break.

bonnybreads.com
beantrustcoffee.com

This story appeared in the Summer 2021 issue.