Bad Butter’s chocolate sourdough banana bread marks bakery’s Bucktown expansion

Chocolate sourdough banana bread gives Bad Butter a very specific calling card: a discard loaf that tastes like dessert, reads like a bakery case showpiece and points straight toward the brand’s next phase in Bucktown. Daniel Koester’s Chicago bakery is set to move into a permanent home at 1655 W Cortland St., while its current pickup operation continues out of The Cafe at the Emily Hotel, 311 N Morgan St., Chicago, with pre-order-only hours from Friday through Sunday, 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Koester’s path into baking helps explain why the loaf lands where it does. He came to bread after working in acting and waiting tables, and Bad Butter says sourdough “blew” his mind. That curiosity shows up in the way he talks about the craft, with the process of turning a “shapeless mass” into a loaf serving as the kind of transformation that can hook a baker for good. Bad Butter has already built an audience online and at farmers markets, so the storefront is less a debut than a formal arrival.

The recipe itself makes the sourdough case clearly. Ripe bananas and brown sugar bring the sweetness, while sourdough discard adds tang and depth that keeps the loaf from tipping into cloying territory. Buttermilk, neutral oil and eggs work with the bananas to keep the crumb tender and moist, and the flour-baking soda-salt base gives the quick bread its structure without making it heavy. Chocolate, or nuts, push the loaf into richer territory, and the streusel on top, built from butter, sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and an egg yolk, turns it into something that looks ready for a bakery window. Baked at 350 degrees and mixed carefully so it is not overworked, the bread uses sourdough as flavor and texture, not just fermentation theater.

That is why the loaf feels bigger than a novelty item. It fits a broader shift in Chicago baking, where sourdough has moved far beyond the boule and into pastries, bagels and other dessert-leaning forms. Illinois’ Home-to-Market Act, which took effect January 1, 2022, also widened cottage-food rules so some home-based foods could be sold directly to consumers beyond farmers markets, giving businesses like Bad Butter more room to grow from drop-based sales into neighborhood storefronts.

Koester’s following was already visible before the lease signed, with nearly 19,000 Instagram followers tied to the bakery’s bread-and-pastry drops. That built-in audience makes the chocolate sourdough banana bread more than a recipe teaser. It is a preview of a bakery that has learned how to turn discard, sweetness and spectacle into a business model that now has a permanent address.