The secret to the croissant at Comet Bakery (640 West Woodbine, Kirkwood; cometcoffeestl.com) is butter. Not a normal croissant level of butter, but a truly astonishing quantity.
“It has a tremendous amount of butter,” says Kyle Shelby, Comet’s lead baker. “It’s a very American-style croissant.”
“It has more butter in it than any other croissant I've ever had,” agrees Natalie Suntrup. “I’ve worked in Europe and … the Bay area. I’ve tried a lot of different croissants and made them, and I couldn’t believe how much butter they were folding into their croissants.”
Plus, she adds, the Comet croissant goes through a gradual proofing at room temperature, which adds flavor and complexity. Those two things result in a product with deep caramelization and lots of different levels of flavors while all that butter makes it both shatteringly crisp and flaky yet so tender.
It’s why customers at the bakery’s Tower Grove Farmers Market stand have been telling the duo that it’s the best croissant in St. Louis. And it’s why St. Louisans should be incredibly psyched that the stand has led to Shelby and Suntrup opening their brick-and-mortar bakery in Kirkwood last month.
One of two Comet locations — the other is the coffee shop on Oakland Avenue at the edge of Dogtown — the bakery has a slightly different model than most places where you can pick up a croissant in town. For one, it’s hyper-focused on the pastry in a way that Shelby compares to a doughnut shop. That means you can stop in for one of the pair’s croissant varieties — the classic, pistachio, ham and cheese, pain au chocolat, almond or a morning bun — or a cookie — ginger molasses or chocolate chip — and a cup of good drip coffee. But that’s it. And that’s the point.
“It's like a jam session, a bunch of people making one thing really well, and nerding out about it,” Shelby says.
Just like a doughnut shop, Comet Bakery is mostly a takeaway business, but it does have three seats for in-house customers. It’s a model and setup that speaks to the operation’s backstory.
Everything began when Shelby and Suntrup met working at Union Loafers. Shelby, who hails from a town in southeast Kansas called, amusingly, Iowa, had started in December 2021 and had previously been a barista at the Comet Coffee cafe. Suntrup, who is from Wildwood but has lived and worked all over from the Bay Area to Copenhagen, joined Union Loafers last January. They got to talking about croissants.
“Him and I were like, ‘Hey, I think it could be cool to learn the type of croissants they're making at Comet,’” Suntrup says. “And so we started talking with the folks that were there and, yeah, landed ourselves a job.”
The two bakers’ first goal after starting at Comet Coffee was to make more croissants by improving production and to consistently get good results. Soon they realized that they were making more than could be sold at the coffee shop.
“We just needed to do something else,” Shelby says.
“We wanted to get a little more creative with what we were doing, and we knew the farmers’ market would be a good outlet for that,” Suntrup says, adding that it helped them build up production and get some cash flow.
Around that time, Comet Coffee founders Mark Attwood and Stephanie Fischer were thinking about selling the business, which was ultimately purchased by Tim and Matt Garvey of Pretzel Boy. The new owners approached the bakers and asked if they’d like to reopen the business’ second location in Kirkwood, which had been used for production only since COVID-19, for walk-in business. The answer, of course, was a resounding yes.
Suntrup and Shelby got to work building a “supergroup” crew where everyone got trained on each part of the operation (no high schoolers will be manning the register here) and opened on January 3.
It’s a relatively fast turnaround from idea to opening, but it’s a positive thing for the duo.
“It feels good,” Shelby says.
“I have noticed how grateful people are that we’re back open,” Suntrup adds. “We hope to just get busier. We hope people find out about it and come in and order boxes of croissants.”
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