Pain d’Avignon Opens in the Essex Street Market Monday

At long last, fresh-baked bread is coming to the Essex Street Market. We’re told Pain d’Avignon – the Long Island City wholesale bakery – will be opening its first retail location in the market on Monday. They’ve been spending the last several months renovating the space once occupied by chocolate maven Roni-Sue Kave (she moved to a larger spot in the Essex Market last year). This afternoon workers were putting the finishing touches on the tiny shop near Essex Farm Groceries. As the Village Voice’s Rebecca Marx put it last December, the bakery will “fill an artisinal bread void in the Lower East Side, which, aside from Falai Panetteria, lacks a bakery selling something besides bialys, challah, knishes, or cupcakes.”