Surf, Rise, Repeat: Fresh croissants and bliss at Rockaway Beach
If you’ve ever had a truly great, flaky croissant at Rockaway Beach, you can thank (or blame) a terrible blizzard and rising real estate prices.
“I’d had enough of the restaurant business. I was really burnt out,” says Tracy Obolsky, reclining in an Adirondack chair in the concrete-floored backyard of her first business, Rockaway Beach Bakery. “Nothing that anybody offered me would have made me really excited. Not that I don’t hustle, but I just got over that whole [Manhattan restaurant] hustle.”
Two years as the executive pastry chef at Danny Meyer’s North End Grill in Tribeca (preceded by a stint at Lidia and Joe Bastianich’s Esca in Midtown), combined with her rising rent in gentrifying Fort Greene (an increase to $2,600 per month for the one-bedroom she shared with her husband was a tipping point), where she’d lived for almost a decade, made Obolsky long for a life beyond the “hectic and crazy” routine of Manhattan restaurants.
An avid surfer, Obolsky would often make trips out to Rockaway Beach to catch the waves. One morning while surfing with her co-worker Meredith Sutton, Obolsky noticed a new development in an area of the Rockaways closest to the city, the Beach 70s, and after a little research, decided to move in when her Brooklyn lease expired. The A train work commute to downtown Manhattan would still be under an hour, plus she could surf on her time off. Factor in a blizzard, during which Obolsky wore snowboard goggles to get to work in the city and was then stranded, unable to take any form of transportation back to Rockaway Beach—and Obolsky was done with Manhattan. And so, one of New York City’s best peninsulas became a baker’s oasis.
Obolsky left her full-time job at the end of 2015, and by 2016 she was selling handmade croissants out of a marina at Rockaway Beach. “I was trying to think about how I could not leave this beautiful peninsula I live on, and I thought, ‘Well, you can’t get fresh-baked, great pastries anywhere,’” she says of her original idea.
The croissants would be mixed in Obolsky’s home kitchen, proofed in her fridge and then laminated and baked each morning, starting at 3:30am, with Obolsky taking naps in 15-minute intervals until the stacks of flaky croissants were ready by 6:30am. Instagram helped customers find the croissants, and as demand grew Obolsky shared kitchen space with Whitney Aycock of the locally beloved pizza shop Whit’s End, using the space from 7am–noon to bake.
But eventually winter came, water in the marina was shut off and all the boats were lifted out. Thanks to the local demand for croissants—the “most labor-intensive pastry,” according to Obolsky—she knew Rockaway Beach Bakery needed a brick-and-mortar location. And luckily, a storefront just a block from the A train was open.
“I felt something when I walked into the space, and then they asked if we wanted to see the backyard,” Obolsky laughs, adjusting her trucker hat. Like any New Yorker, she was sold on that one word. “I didn’t have the money to do it, but I needed to do it,” she continues. She found a silent partner who invests in other New York City restaurants and believed in the project—Rockaway Beach Bakery officially opened in the spring of 2017.
“It’s still really hard, but it works out well,” Obolsky says. She makes everything herself, with her friend (and former restaurant colleague) Sutton helping with production. Sometimes another one of her old pastry cooks comes in to help and one of her front-of-house employees also pitches in with prep.
Each day at 8am, the pastry case is full of classic “plain Jane” croissants, ham and cheese stuffed square croissants sprinkled with “everything” seasoning, a croissant loaf (invented to make the most of dough odds and ends), sweet and savory danishes and homemade breads and focaccias. Glass cookie jars with creations like peanut butter pretzel and salted chocolate line the top of the pastry case, and sandwiches are made to order.
But still, one has to ask: Why serve pastries at the beach? “It’s mostly locals,” Obolsky says of her clientele. “Luckily, I have a lot of local support.” In the warmer months, DFDs—down-for-the-day guests—also visit for pre-beach breakfast sandwiches or after 3pm for happy hour, when the day’s remaining pastries are half off. The winters are toughest for Obolsky, especially January, when diets begin, wallets are empty and no one leaves their homes. But still, when she commutes via boardwalk to work each morning, she knows starting a business in Rockaway was the right decision.
“One day I saw the sun come up on my surfboard and the sun set on my surfboard, and I was, like, ‘Wow, this doesn’t suck,’” she smiles.
Tracy Obolsky | @tracyobolsky
Rockaway Beach Bakery | @rockawaybeachbakery
North End Gril | @northendgrill
Esca | @escarestaurant
Whitney Aycock
Whit’s End | @whitsendrockaway
