When I Rise Baking Co. moves sourdough pickups to Bears Bagels

When I Rise Baking Co. moved its Bread Box pickup from Coffee Connections to Bears Bagels in Hilliard after the Main Street coffee shop closed its 4004 Main Street location because of building damage. The home bakery, which runs a contactless preorder model and does not have its own storefront, said weekly pickups would continue at the new host, including Friday evenings.

That kind of fast pivot matters in the sourdough world because When I Rise has built its business on small-batch loaves, pop-ups, markets and local events rather than a brick-and-mortar retail counter. Its pickup setup had been outside Coffee Connections, where the Bread Box served as the handoff point for orders placed in advance, typically one to two times a week.

Coffee Connections had been part of Hilliard food life for years before the disruption. Destination Hilliard says the business began as a catering company with a mobile coffee cart in 2014 and opened the Main Street shop on September 10, 2016. The same business also operates in Center Street Market, and its Main Street closure was tied to building damage in a 1900s-era structure. City officials deemed the floor unsafe, and the landlord was given 14 days to hire a structural engineer to assess the damage. The owners, Sharon and Nate Grenier, said they were looking for a new home rather than treating the closure as the end of the business.

For When I Rise, the move was less about chasing a trend than protecting a preorder system that depended on a reliable pickup window. Bears Bagels, at 4142 Main Street, gave the bakery another established Hilliard storefront with Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning hours that fit the rhythm of weekly sourdough collection. Charis and Lo Yost started Bears Bagels in 2022, and the shop leans into a traditional bagel process, resting dough for 24 hours before boiling and baking it. That existing production discipline made it a practical fit for a small bakery that needs a steady, predictable handoff point.

The relationship among the businesses also shows how tightly knit Hilliard’s food scene has become. Coffee Connections had already highlighted When I Rise products on social media, including chocolate espresso sourdough bread, and it had long served as more than a coffee stop. By shifting The Bread Box to Bears Bagels instead of shutting it down, When I Rise kept its customer base intact and showed the kind of flexibility that small sourdough makers need when a partner location disappears without warning.