Ric’s Bread

The salted basque bread from Ric’s bread is hands down, the best bread ever. I’m not really sure how it’s so good, but once you eat a slice, you can’t stop until the loaf is gone. The crust is insane.
However, the downside to buying bread at Ric’s is the customer service at their Central Market location. The women who work there are mildly unfriendly and will tend to ignore customers in favor of chatting up friends and acquaintances. Considering how great their bakery products are, it’s really a small price to pay, though!

20 minute wait for soup and bread. Eesh. And the woman behind the counter looked like she needed a nap or a good smack!

I’ve taken a long hiatus from Unilocal,but this place was good enough to bring me back.
I’m working across the street from this place and it didn’t look like much from the outside, so it took me a couple of weeks to finally walk in and see what they had going on. And now I haven’t had breakfast or lunch anywhere else for the past week and a half. Their soups are so delicious! I had a beef barley last week that had, and I’m not kidding here, what tasted and looked like little chunks of fillet among the hearty grains and large sliced veggies. The slices of whole grain bread they put in the bag were outstanding. There’s clearly a little bit o sugar in the dough, but i have a sweet tooth and it was the first time i didn’t need butter with my bread in a long, long time.
They have a menu (limited) and you never know what they’re going to put out for baked items. Like today, they had macaroons, ok, I’ll take some of those too. And this raspberry croissant that’s staring me in the face for dessert looks pretty awesome. I know the plain version met the grade.
Maybe I’m just starved for a decent bakery, since there aren’t any in the town where I live, but I am totally impressed.
Oh, and this place is CHEAP.

I stopped shopping at the central market stand years ago due to the women working there. In all the times I ever bought bread there I was treated as if i was a burden to these women. Yet anytime someone who, in my estimation, «looked» like the type of customer they wanted: they were served right away, even if I had been there long before they showed up. The bread i at one point bought here was great. Two of the older women who work the stand are horrible and have lost a lot of business due to their horrible horrible treatment of customers. Go get bread from Thom’s bread. Everyone there has been nothing but helpful.

Looove their croissants!!! Too bad they fly off the stand and sometimes we have to leave without them. Cornbread was good. All of the bread samples we’ve had are delicious. We try to get something different every time we go (aside from the croissants of course!).

I love this place. I work downtown and it is a great little spot for lunch. Gets busy because the food is good and reasonably priced.

As I am writing this, I am enjoying a light, buttery, simply delicious blueberry/​kiwi scone… you read it right! I bought it partially due to the unusual combo of flavor. It totally works and I am so licking up every crumb.

I bought a loaf of the Salted Basque bread at the Central Market last month and it was the BEST loaf of bread I have purchased in ages. I have been keeping it in the freezer and rationing out slices! It is made from pretzle dough and sprinkled with salt. It is so delicious on its own or made into croutons for Caesar salad or for a ham and swiss panini. These guys are amazing and I am going to have to go by there my next trip to Lancaster.

I work downtown, and this is my favorite place for lunch. They usually have a homemade daily soup, at a very reasonable price (includes a piece of their homemade bread). Also have a really good Greek salad, which is another lunch favorite. Love their muffins and whole wheat english muffins and pizza crust.
All their baked goods are available at Lancaster Central Market on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
I will say that if you want to get lunch here, go early before the lunch crowd, or else you will end up waiting a good while. They are a bit slow at the peak rush.

Carb lover’s heaven! They make the BEST Croissants, I mean Italy, PA. THe BEST from anywhere I’ve been. Great short bread and fantastic gluten free breads as well. I always stop buy their stand when I am at Central Market.

Great breads, I love the whole wheat 12 grain

This morning’s breakfast was brought to me by Ric’s Bread. And Art, who purchased a package of whole grain English muffins from their stand at Headhouse Farmer’s Market on Sunday.
I pulled the muffin out of the bag and expected the fork-​split break apart I’m used to from Thomas’. I’m so used to mass-​produced bread products that I forgot real knives are used to cut real bread! The cut resulted in less nooks and crannies, but the delicious factor was very much intact, as I discovered when I bit down into the crunchy, dense and slightly sweet toasted muffin, topped with just a dab of butter.
Seeing Felicia’s review on the right as I type this, I realize I also have to get my paws on some of that cinnamon-​swirl bread. Which I will of course toast only in the oven. Safety first!

I haven’t been to their bakery in Lancaster, but I have just had what MUST be the best bread in Pennsylvania… I bought a loaf of Sweet Potato Walnut bread from Ric’s at the Headhouse Farmer’s Market in Philadelphia. This bread is amazing– I will go to the market every week from now on just to get their bread. It is just a tad sweet, with a lot of flavor. Last night I made grilled cheese sandwiches with this bread with some raw milk cheese, tomato, and a little cilantro. Grilled cheese perfection. If you’re a meat eater, I imagine it would be a good bread for turkey and cranberry spread. YUM!

The 14 grain bread is absolutely wonderful, and their cinnamon swirl bread is one of my favorite treats!

Having only purchased Ric’s Breads from their stand at the Headhouse Farmer’s Market and Green Aisle Grocery, I dream of the day when I may enter their own hallowed halls in Lancaster.
I will approach the counter, holding a crumpled, slightly damp ten-​dollar bill in my trembling hands. Once I can see the whites of their eyes, I will fling myself to the floor, hailing the baker with loud «I’m Not Worthy of your Cinnamon-​Swirl Bread but I’d Like some Anyways.»
Perhaps they will toss the heavy loaf down upon me, its lightly butter-​greased bag leaving a lipid-​rich print on the back of my shirt. Cradling my raisin-​studded prize like a baby, I may cry a little, backing quietly out of the shop and out of their horrified line of vision.
I’m not promising I’ll do these uncomfortable things, but I might. The glazed look I get after toasting a few slices (in a sheet pan, NEVER in a toaster — you can start a major fire and ruin your toaster besides as the sugar filling drips out and blazes up) of this glutinous glory signifies my brain has turned off and the tongue-​and-​stomach are running the show now.

Since the store NEVER seems to be open (they dont even have a sign with hours), Ill just do a review of the stand in central market.
By the way, peering in the store it looks very small and it has a counter where you walk up to it, get your bread and get out.
My mom swears by the multi grain bread, so I thought Id pick one up and a bran muffin for me.
Honestly, I wasnt all that impressed with my muffin. Kind of bland actually.
The lady at the counter wasnt all that friendly, and my loaf and muffin ran me 6 $ altogether.
There are other stands at the market that sell bread. Next time I think Ill try one of those. Or better yet, Ill go over to A loaf of bread on McGovern.

Ric’s bread is not what it used to be, when Ric Tribble was still running it. It used to be a world-​class place of experimentation, highly variable and sometimes inconsistent, but excellent on average. It has since settled down to be a bit more regular and predictable, but the average level of quality is slightly lower.
How can one describe this place?
It’s still a bit quirky. Every big city has «artisan» bakeries making breads that are more or less the same in style, only somewhat variable in quality. You go in here though, and things taste different… some things are better, some things worse, but everything is somehow unique. The whole grain breads are not made with primarily whole-​grain flour, which I don’t like… but they’re certainly different.
The sweets here are… well…too sweet but I think this is not reflective of the bakers’ lack of skill but rather the fact that this business is forced to cater to the masses of Lancaster county, where people seem to crave sugar. Some of the sweets though, are outstanding; the cranberry-​almond bars are unlike anything I’ve had elsewhere; they taste like marzipan combined with the zing of sour fruit.
The best food here? It’s not for sale. The best pizza I ever had in my life was cooked in this bakery, although at their old location. It was made of leftover black-​bean-​and-​brown-​rice dough (the bread is certainly worth trying!), back when I used to work here. But… the bakery still does make certain pizza-​like products, such as tomato-​cheese-​mushroom-​olive foccacia, which can be quite excellent. I used to bake muffins here, but I am not a huge fan overall of the muffins – like I said they’re catering to a different crowd; although I used to make them myself, and in fact developed the recipe for their fat-​free muffins, and consider myself somewhat of a muffin connoisseur, I would not say that this place makes the best muffins in town. Cut down the sugar, though, and they’re pretty damn good, especially the 7-​grain muffins and the sour-​cherry oatmeal one (last time I checked that was the last one they still made totally from scratch).