Just west of Santa Maria, between the airport and golf course, a living tribute to one family’s history does a brisk trade in aromatic edibles. Aptly named and ideally located to serve both walk-ins and area office workers, Good Neighbor Bakery offers delectable dainties, as well as hearty fare for picnics and everyday lunches.
Four days a week, the friendly bakery turns out fresh muffins, gourmet cookies, liqueur cakes, ricotta pies, and a curious scone-muffin hybrid called a “scuffin.” The staff of four bakes from scratch, using strictly natural ingredients and never adding preservatives.
Opened in November 2007, Good Neighbor Bakery bears local distinction as the “Home of the Original Irish Meat Pie,” an easy-to-eat meal encased in a tender crust. Featuring innovative combinations of both traditional and exotic ingredients, these handheld delights offer a whole new take on an old-fashioned dish.
According to legend, meat pies were created to feed Britain’s miners, who were forced to take their meals underground. Coated with dirt and lethal arsenic, the men could hold the meat pie by the folded edge of the crust, eat the rest, and simply discard the soiled pastry.
The meat pies proffered by Good Neighbor Bakery include the classic steak and potato, as well as Irish stew, reminiscent of a traditional shepherd’s pie. On the more daring side are sausage-vindaloo, a blend of Italian sausage and potato seasoned with spices from Northern India, and chicken and black bean, made with chiles, cheese, potato, olive, onion, and chicken cooked in a proprietary, wood-fired convection smoker.
“A lot of things we have are a little unusual,” admitted Pete Taylor, owner of Good Neighbor Bakery. “Irish meat pies would be one of them, and our pizzas, too. They are different and quite good.
“The bread is like challah,” he explained, “a real light egg dough, slightly sweet, and instead of a red sauce, we have herb-infused olive oil. Another pizza we make is with a vindaloo sauce, a combination of spices that we infuse into butter, and then top with cheese, sausage, and whatnot.”
Also on the menu is shepherd’s pie, a creamy combination of beef, pork, peas, carrots, rutabaga, cheese, potato, olive, and onion bathed in a light Guinness sauce. For dessert, those with a hearty appetite can dig into one of the bakery’s signature brulee cheesecakes.
“We make up the menu as we go,” Taylor laughed. “My Grandpa Taylor was a baker, and I’m the caretaker of his recipe book. We do have one thing we make during the holidays, but the rest of his recipes are predominately lard-based, and we don’t go that way, so most everything we make has been something we’ve come up with.”
A mechanical engineer by trade, Taylor, whose wife, Beverly, serves as deputy chief for the Santa Barbara County Probation Department, once worked as an assistant pastor. In that capacity, he was director of programs designed to help parolees, probationers, and at-risk youth with, among other things, job training. He founded the bakery as a way to fund those programs.
“Teaching parolees and finding them a job wasn’t that hard,” Taylor said, “but keeping a job, that was the real trick. I wanted to open a for-profit business to support a nonprofit that would do job training and work on social skills on a daily basis.
“The bakery was the venue we chose,” he continued, “because of Grandpa Taylor, and because there’s also something satisfying, at a ground level, about baking.”
Inside the spacious bakery, patrons find bistro-style tables and a 2,000-square foot space that can accommodate about 70 people. A showplace for local artists, dazzling displays of paintings and sculpture—changed out every month or so—greet the eye and spark the imagination.
Good Neighbor Bakery offers delivery to area offices, providing breakfast, lunch, or generous snack spreads for conference-goers. Their catering service features an express lunch that includes one meat pie, with chips and bottled water, or a hearty lunch, complete with smoked chicken and artichoke salad, maple corn muffins, coffee, and bottled water. An alternate lunch of smoked chicken or steak hoagie, with black beans, chips, coffee, and bottled water is also available.
Taylor didn’t come to baking by chance, for the craft has run in his family for a very long time. During the mid 1700s, Taylor’s ancestor, Theophelus Taylor, emigrated from England to Virginia, and for his service in the American Revolutionary War, the elder Taylor was given a land grant in Taccoa, Ga.
In 1918, Theophelus’s descendant, T. H. Taylor, built a bakery on the property and launched a family tradition.
“It’s kind of an interesting story,” Taylor said with a smile. “That area in Georgia, where the family bakery was located, has been controlled by my family since the country began!”
Pete Taylor may have come to baking a little later in life, but true to the family trade, he and his staff turn out aromatic edibles guaranteed to sustain and delight Santa Maria-area residents, workers, and carefree picnickers alike.
K. Reka Badger wants to be your neighbor. E-mail comments or ideas to rekabadger@hotmail.com.
This article appears in Jun 18-25, 2009.
