Brookline's Clear Flour Bread Gets A Pop Up Parklet

BROOKLINE, MA — Clear Flour Bread, the Brookline bakery known for its perfect loaves of pain de mie or rustic Italian bread ( and notorious long lines on the weekend) is sacrificing two unofficial parking spaces out front of the business for a “parklet.”

The outdoor seating area with tables and greenery popped up this week at the corner of Thorndike and Lawton taking up about two parking spaces worth of asphalt in front of the bakery. It offers those who wait in line a space to stop and smell the bread, take a load off and enjoy their expertly hand shaped baguette or pint of ice cream.

In an effort to fund the purchase of chairs, tables and planters, Clear Flour's new owners set up a Go Fund Me account with ArtsBrookline and Friends of Clear Flour to raise money to raise $8,000. As of Wednesday they'd raised $1,171 of $8,000 goal. And they're still collecting.

"Help create, and be a part of, Brookline’s first piazza!" reads the fundraising page.

The parklet will be up until October, according to the owners and the plan is to do it again next year.

There's been a movement in the works to officially transform that intersection. The town’s transportation department studied the intersection in 2016 with the idea of making it less confusing and more inviting to pedestrians, tossing around ideas like raised crosswalks, a round about or ... parklets.

It's not the first time Brookline has seen outdoor space converted with the touch of some tables and chairs. The Coolidge Corner merchant's association down the street got a grant a few years back to break out tables and chairs and place them in front of businesses there to up the experience there. And over the years during various celebrations parking spaces have been transformed into parklets for a short period of time around town.

Read more about Clear Flour:

• Brookline's Clear Flour Bread Bakery Wins Another Award
• Clear Flour Bread: End of An Era In Brookline
• Breadboard Bakery Brings Kolaches To Brookline

And more: What Will Brookline Do About The Traffic On Babcock Street?

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Photo up top by Jenna Fisher/Patch