Johnson County women-owned bakery The Pantry is closing Sunday, March 16, after seven years.
But The Pantry’s co-owner, baker and chef, Deepal Patel, said it is only temporary.
She is shutting down retail and wholesale operations to focus on finding a bigger Johnson County spot, hopefully close to her current location, and then oversee the build-out for the new bakery.
“We are just ready to get more space and we would really like to own the real estate. It’s time to level up,” she said.
Patel grew up in Wales and earned a degree in genetics at Purdue University in 2010.
Baking was just a hobby. But then she started taking cake decorating class with girlfriends at a local community college in the United Kingdom.
“It just kind of got out of control. I just spent more and more time doing it and had less and less interest in the research I was doing,” she said.
Patel earned a degree from the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont in 2015, and worked at famed The Little Nell luxury 5-Star hotel in Aspen, Colorado. Then she was recruited to be the executive pastry chef at Crown Center hotels and restaurants.
She later partnered with a fellow hotel employee to open The Pantry (7760 Quivira Rd, Lenexa, KS) in 2018. Her partner is still involved but now lives in Colorado.
Two years ago, The Pantry expanded by taking over the back half of a neighboring business. But there is still not enough space for the growing business.
The retail bakery offers such items as breakfast burritos, frittatas, crossandwiches (bacon, cheddar and a fried egg on a toasted all-butter croissant), scones, cinnamon rolls, muffins, cruffins, cookies, cheesecake and more including custom designed cakes (Kansas City magazine wrote about Patel’s scones and clotted cream for our Breakfast feature in 2022).
It is only open to the public from 8 am to 3 pm, Saturdays and Sundays, offering fan favorites and new creations.
“The goal is always to introduce Kansas City to British classics,” Patel said. “We sell more scones than anything else – very tender, never glazed or frosted, definitely not cakey and served with clotted cream prepared in-house.”
The Pantry focuses on wholesale accounts during the week.
On the Pantry’s website, Patel said: “We’re grateful for the support you’ve shown us during our time at our current location: 7 amazing years! Your loyalty means the world to us, and we can’t wait to share our new chapter with you!”
