Mr. Holmes Bakehouse Moving Forward with New Pastry Chef and New Fall Menu

Mr. Holmes Bakehouse burst onto the trendy San Francisco dining scene last November with its famous crazy cruffins, laughably long lines and extremely Instagrammable shop. Owner Aaron Caddel and pastry chef Ry Stephen were hitting every marker of success a new place could hope for: selling out of its cruffins every single day, scoring tons of social and mainstream media praise and making it onto The Chron's 2015 rising star chef list. Until the drama hit. First, Stephen's recipe book was stolen in a bizarre break-in that left everything else intact. Then, just at the peak of the bakery's prosperity, Stephen mysteriously left Mr. Holmes with absolutely no explanation, a decision neither he nor Caddel spoke out about, until now.

"It was a mutual decision to part ways," Caddel told Eater. "It's no secret that Ry was central to our operation in the kitchen." Caddel called Stephen a "brother" to him, a sentiment that Stephen agreed with to Eater. "I hope to support him [Stephen] as much as he has been a support to me over the past years," Caddel continued. "He's in New York City tackling his next adventure (of course) and probably experimenting in a kitchen with some other great minds right now as we speak." For now Stephen is staying mum on what that next move is. The two insisted they remain friends, though Caddel declined to go into further specifics on Stephen's departure for legal reasons.

Moving forward, Mr. Holmes Bakehouse is focused on staying the course of "more weed references, a couple puns and a lot more pastries," Caddel joked, as well as opening a Los Angeles location. Helming the bakery now is Brittany Delval, a former private pastry chef and recipe developer for King's Hawaiian Bread. Caddel envisions Delval's role as "curator, mentor, organizer and someone who empowers the kitchen staff to create" instead of encouraging the typical "yes, Chef" mentality.

You'll be able to see exactly what Delval and the Mr. Holmes team have created with the upcoming release of the bakery's new fall menu, with expected inventive offerings like a reuben danish with house-fermented sauerkraut that Caddel said "puts East Coast delis in check." To debut the new offerings, Intelligentsia Coffee is hosting a fall menu party at its Potrero Hill roasting headquarters on Thursday, September 24 and 7 p.m. with tons of pastries, coffee, drinks and music.