A Bakery Where Vegan Isn’t a Compromise

Inside the small, sunlit coffee shop and bakery tucked into Atlanta’s West Midtown neighborhood, flaky croissants glisten behind the pastry case. Golden cheddar chive biscuits sit beside cinnamon rolls and strawberry doughnuts. There are no signs announcing “vegan alternatives” or a lonely corner dedicated to plant-based options. That’s because everything at Flour + Time is vegan.

And surprisingly, everything tastes exactly as it should.

For years, vegan pastries carried a reputation for being dry, dense, or overly dependent on dates, nuts, and health-food-store ingredients. At Flour + Time, founder and head baker Leah Bajalia is helping rewrite that narrative, proving that modern plant-based baking can deliver the same indulgence, nostalgia, and craftsmanship as traditional pastry.

Reinventing Classic Pastries

The bakery’s most impressive achievement may be its classic French croissant. Layer after layer of delicate pastry shatters with each bite, revealing an airy interior and rich buttery flavor. Yet there isn’t a trace of dairy.

Bajalia tells me she uses a plant-based vegan butter made primarily from vegetable oils and that it requires careful temperature management throughout the lamination process. Dough is repeatedly rolled, folded, chilled, and rolled again to create the signature flaky layers associated with traditional French pastry.

What struck me most was Bajalia’s approach to recipe development. Rather than starting with vegan recipes, she starts with classic ones.

For Bajalia, that process is deeply personal. Her lunchbox bar recipe traces back to her childhood in Macon, where her mother baked an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie bar using a recipe clipped from the back of a Kroger chocolate chip bag. Years later, after adopting a vegan lifestyle, Bajalia recreated the original recipe, substituting plant-based ingredients so it tasted exactly as she remembered. The result is a nostalgic treat that connects her bakery to her family’s kitchen while demonstrating how classic recipes can be successfully adapted for modern plant-based baking.

Familiar Flavors, Animal-Free

There is a broader shift happening in the baking industry. Today’s plant-based ingredients are dramatically better than they were even a decade ago. Modern vegan butters and cheeses, dairy-free chocolates, and egg substitutes allow bakers to recreate familiar textures and flavors with remarkable accuracy. Bajalia makes perfectly chewy oatmeal cream pie cookies using flaxseed “eggs” and vegan sugar, while the egg-and-cheese croissant, made with plant-based cheddar and soy alternatives, is deeply satisfying.

Homegrown in Georgia

Bajalia and her husband, Michael Bajalia, a certified sommelier who grew up in Valdosta, developed the idea for Flour + Time while living in California. When the pandemic drove them back to Atlanta, they put their vision into action, launching as a home-based cottage bakery and slowly expanding into a brick-and-mortar cafe in Fall 2023.

Today, they supply pastries to around 30 coffee shops across Metro Atlanta while continuing to bake everything in-house. Yet the goal remains unchanged.

Beyond pastries, Flour + Time has become a community hub. The cute cafe with comfortable couches and an outdoor patio serves specialty coffee drinks alongside its baked goods, offers custom vegan wedding cakes, and hosts intimate sourdough baking classes. Students leave with an active starter and the skills to bake at home.

Whether you stop in for a latte, a croissant or a celebration cake, the bakery’s mission remains the same: making exceptional vegan food accessible, approachable and enjoyable for everyone.

“We want people to have a normal experience,” Bajalia says. “Vegans, non-vegans – everyone can enjoy it.”

After tasting my way through the pastry case, I understood exactly what she meant.

Flour + Time isn’t trying to convince customers to eat vegan. It’s simply making excellent pastries.

The fact that they’re vegan is almost beside the point.

Flour + Time

1133 Huff Rd. NW Suite F

Atlanta, GA 30318

(470)368-6588

Monday – Tuesday: Closed

Wednesday – Thursday: 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Friday – Sunday: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM