Grain Artisan Bakery + Craft Coffee has become an icon of the Pacific Northwest food scene and a beloved community-centered cafe in the heart of Snohomish. Grain offers a generous assortment of inclusive, gluten-free baked goods - including one of the region’s best-loved sourdough loaves - and beautifully flavored cakes and layered pastries perfect for any event or occasion.
Lauren Anderson-Porter is the Owner, Founder, and CEO of Grain and a self-taught pastry chef who began her craft in 2015 by making a gluten-free smash cake for her toddler with food sensitivities. Inspired by the positive response from friends and family who sampled her wholesome bakes, she started taking custom orders and experimenting with an assortment of desserts, pastries, and breads. In 2020, when the rest of the world was scaling back on big business decisions, Lauren boldly sought the support of the community through a Kickstarter campaign. She quickly exceeded her financial goals and soon after opened the doors of the cafe located on First Street in historic downtown Snohomish. What started as a home-kitchen endeavor serving pop-ups and farmers markets grew into the popular brick-and-mortar storefront we know and love today.
The intentionality of the menu extends beyond the pastry case. The coffee program at Grain is the quiet, aromatic hero of the cafe. They partner with small-batch specialty roasters and serve only single-origin coffee, which makes pulling consistently perfect espresso shots all the more important. Baristas are specially trained to pull exceptional espresso and take pride in serving an exceptional cup every time. The quality of their coffee beans is unmatched, and they rotate their offerings bi-weekly, always offering one “tame” roast, one “wild” roast with more depth and complexity of flavor, and three pour-over coffee offerings. Guests of Grain went absolutely wild for the recently featured Watermelon Nitro, a fruit-forward, balanced roast designed to expand our palates and delight our senses.
Lauren partners with Velton’s Coffee Roasters in Everett for Grain’s single-origin tame espresso offering. The wild espresso and pour-over options are selected during a monthly Team Cupping where the Grain team gathers to sample different roasts and unique coffee styles in an effort to deliver a well-rounded coffee menu. The organic syrups used in coffee and tea drinks are made in-house from scratch with flavors including lavender, vanilla bean, chocolate ganache, dark muscovado, salted caramel, and vegan coconut caramel as well as featured seasonal options.Whether you’re an espresso aficionado or a no nonsense black coffee drinker, there’s a top-notch cup of coffee waiting for you here.
In addition to an exceptional coffee program, Grain also sources their dairy products from Grace Harbor Farms and Twin Brooks Creamery, both local to the region and of the highest quality available.Their pasture raised eggs come from a cherished local family farm, Sky Valley Family Farm, and their single origin, organic bean-to-bar chocolate comes from internationally acclaimed Seattle chocolate roaster, Spinnaker. “Everything is local, sustainable, organic, regeneratively farmed, fair trade. As high of quality we can find, that’s what we source because intention behind sourcing shouldn’t be an afterthought - it should be something we are looking at first,” Lauren says. Beyond the exceptional coffee and tea selection, these artisan touches go the extra mile in creating an unmatched cup of inclusive comfort.
Cafe shelves and refrigerators are stocked with intentionally sourced gluten-free snacks, local goods, and gifts from local, sustainable, and/or organic makers. Where a local product isn’t available, Lauren holds true to her commitment to source from sustainable brands with shared Grain values. Offering an additional product assortment helps Lauren and her team further serve their customers by bringing a gluten-free market into their cafe experience.
On the challenging days, the Grain team and loyal customers keep Lauren going. “There are customers who haven’t enjoyed a croissant since childhood, coming in and ordering a classic pastry with tears in their eyes.” While the pastries are intentionally formulated to be delicious and enjoyable for anyone, these are the people Lauren aims to serve and what continues to make her work meaningful more than ten years later. She and her team are steadfast in their commitment to food safety and allergen protocols to ensure customers with food sensitivities and allergies can enjoy any item from the Grain pastry case or retail shelves with confidence and comfort.
In line with keeping her work meaningful and operations running smoothly, Lauren prioritizes the hiring process, centering training and onboarding around hospitality practices and intentional systems. “The team is the heart and soul of Grain,” Lauren says. The Grain team approaches food and community with inclusivity at the forefront. Everyone is welcome and every person is considered and valued.
Later this year, Lauren and the Grain team plan to venture into wholesale distribution to make their products more accessible to the community. To make this happen, Lauren plans to take on a larger space here in Snohomish to enable scaled production without compromising product quality. A move like this will allow the Grain team to meet the needs of the existing storefront location, supply local restaurants and cafes with top-notch gluten-free bread and pastry options, and accommodate the growing demand for custom orders for private events.
The Grain team cares deeply about what they do, the way they do it, and the community they serve. Last fall, they began partnering with the Snohomish Food Bank to provide freshly baked, gluten-free, dairy-free biscuits each week in an effort to make allergen-friendly, thoughtfully crafted food more accessible. “A lot of people aren’t able to access high-quality- or sometimes any- allergen-friendly baked goods,” Lauren says.
With every loaf baked, espresso poured, and guest served, Lauren and her team continue to shape a more intentional food community throughout Snohomish and the greater Seattle area.
As Grain continues to grow, new opportunities are emerging for existing staff and community members looking to join the team. Keep an eye out for new role openings coming soon at www.grainartisanbakery.com/team or reach out to careers@grainartisanbakery.com to apply for a position. For wholesale opportunities, email wholesale@grainartisanbakery.com. For catering, custom orders, or weddings, email them at hello@grainartisanbakery.com.