Bakery Coming to Five Points in Athens, Ga.

If not for that bad hair day months ago, Tom Leonard might not be dashing around all day, talking to contractors and builders, electricians and inspectors, planning supplies and equipment, vetting employees.

He might not be preparing to open a bakery in Five Points. A bakery offering really great bread and bread-like products, like cookies, croissants and brioche, not the cakes and fancy pastries you find in other establishments that proport to do everything under the sun.

Because if not for that bad hair day, Leonard wouldn't have burst in on Mike Joyce at the Strand hair salon to have his butchered hair salvaged. And they wouldn't have started talking about real estate in Athens, particularly in Five Points.

And as the months passed, Mike wouldn't have learned that Tom was interested in setting up and operating a bakery in Athens, as he had in Lawrence, Kansas. Tom had moved from Kansas in 2011 with his wife, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, a professor in the UGA School of Law.

In fact, Tom Leonard was interested in establishing a bakery in Mike's Strand building, which he wanted to lease, but which Mike eventually decided he wanted to sell. Which he did. Recently. To Tom.

When it opens in mid-May, the bakery will be a place where people can stop in the morning for a dozen croissants to take to work and in the evening for a bagette to take home. The flour will be organic, the bread will be hot and delicious, and the place will smell like heaven.