With Ivy Bookshop Partnership, Bird in Hand Takes Flight in Baltimore

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.

The team behind Baltimore’s renowned Woodberry Kitchen family of restaurants, including Artifact Coffee, earlier this month lifted the veil off Bird in Hand, a new café and bookshop co-retail concept in partnership with The Ivy Bookshop.

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.

Located at 11 E. 33rd Street in Charles Village just off the Johns Hopkins University campus, Bird in Hand’s interior walls make room for approximately 2,500 titles curated by the Ivy team, plus cookbooks selected by Woodberry Kitchen founder and chef Spike Gjerde. Gjerde’s Woodberry partners Amy Gjerde and Cory Polyoka are also primary partners for Bird in Hand.

Like its sister café Artifact, Bird in Hand is serving coffees from Counter Culture Coffee, incorporating into its menu a daily single-origin drip offering, as well as rotating offerings on its pourover bar. A Bird in Hand representative told Daily Coffee News that the shop will also have the opportunity to offer “off-menu” small-lot coffees from Counter Culture that are exclusive to the Gjerde’s restaurants.

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.

The espresso program is supported by a La Marzocco Linea PB 2 group machine with Compak F10 grinders, which Bird in Hand reps had a chance to test out at the most recent SCAA Expo, where they particularly liked the grinders’ consistency in dose output as well as their knob-based grind size regulator with a digital read.

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.

Polyoka led the design of the café along with construction collaborator Luke Steckel, finding hand-painted Hungarian tiles that inspired the shop’s entire feel, which is a bit of a departure from Woodberry Kitchen’s rustic farmhouse aesthetic while remaining true to the restaurant’s “new from old” philosophy.

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.

The walls consist of salvaged gray poplar, and a communal table was built by the same Baltimore woodworker who built the space-defining table at Artifact. American-made light fixtures highlight the 24-carat gold leaf and marble countertops salvaged from a neoclassical church in D.C.; tabletops were made by the Surface Project in the Station North Tool Library; and Naval Academy chairs have been stripped to their original maple finish.

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.

A small café menu will include some favorite items from Artifact and Grand Cru, featuring sandwiches, sweet and savory whole-grain pastries made from locally grown and milled grains, puffed cereals, and house-baked French bread pizzas that are exclusive to Bird in Hand.

Bird in Hand in Baltimore. Photo by Shannon Partrick.