When it comes to the holidays, sweets go with Southern celebrations like biscuits go with gravy. And this December, there’s a new spot to satisfy your sweet tooth. In the former Rocket Surgery space on Main Street in Travelers Rest, husband-and-wife team Andy O’Mara and Loren Frant recently opened Sidewall Pastry Kitchen.
“We’ve made our own ice cream at Sidewall Pizza since we opened in 2015,” says Loren. “Over the years we’ve built on that program, and as we opened other brands, we continued to develop our in-house pastry program to support our restaurants. We were able to build a really strong team around our internal pastry and dessert needs, and we wanted to be able to highlight the talent of that team and bring something fun to downtown TR.”
Made-that-morning brioche doughnuts, biscuit cinnamon rolls—a clever combination of flaky, buttery, Southern biscuits and traditional cinnamon rolls—and homemade soft-serve ice cream are the shop’s flagship products. The luscious array of muffins, cookies, cakes, pies, and gluten-free treats—macarons, anyone?—change each weekend (the menu is announced on social media), depending on the season and experiments with flavor combinations by executive pastry chef Kirsten Martin and her team. “One of our most exciting challenges is being able to keep our production pace up with all the creative ideas that the pastry team has,” Loren admits.
For the holidays, the shop will offer a special-order menu, to be released early this month. Expect gift boxes with a variety of regular and gluten-free items, plus festive cakes and pies to top off your holiday meal.
“We want to be the place that people think of when they need a dessert for a party, or they want to get a gift,” says Loren. “We would love to be part of people’s sweet traditions.”
Photo by Paul Mehaffey. Sidewall Pastry Kitchen, 164-D S Main St, Travelers Rest. (864) 660-9392, sidewallpastrykitchen.com; open Sat & Sun, 8am–3pm.
