What was intended as a wholesale pretzel bakery on Pike Street in Covington has turned into a Pretzel bakery and restaurant space with a “Brezelgarten” in Dayton. Tuba Baking Co. sets their pretzels apart by making them authentic Swabian German-style.
Owner Drew Rath said they started experimenting with Southwestern German cuisine because it wasn’t readily available in the area.
“We just kind of did that on Saturdays to see if anything would happen or bring any kind of traction and it ended up going surprisingly well,” Rath said. “To the point where we realized we needed to have a larger space that we could offer more than just one day.”
Rath said opening Tuba Bakery happened naturally. He was a chef for five years at University Club of Cincinnati. Then he began hanging out at Fireside Pizza where he started learning how to bake bread. He said he was then approached by people from Catch a Fire Pizza and MadTree Brewing who asked him to start baking pretzels.
“So went there to just kind of try to experiment with it and they ended up doing fairly well and then I had a few other breweries reach out to me once I was doing that,” Rath said. “So, I decided I kind of needed to start a company.”
In the meantime, Rath said he was doing genealogy research and found that his family was from a distinct part of Germany that specializes in Swabian-style pretzels. He said he experimented with hundreds of recipes to find something that was different than the Bavarian-style pretzel that we are accustomed to in this area.
“It was something very special and the further we got into the research, it’s funny, the first pretzel that was ever introduced to Cincinnati back in the 1840s was actually this style (Swabian) from somebody from that area it all just kind of happened organically,” Rath said. “We’ve definitely tried to go as authentic as possible but also doing it in our Cincinnati Midwest way.”
Come mid-May you can visit the Dayton Tuba Baking Co. location Thursday through Sunday. At the beginning of June, the “Brezelgarten” should be open in time for the summer season.
“We’re opening with a full liquor license, and we’ll do different types of German wines, liquors, beers, ciders, and then a lot of different non-alcoholic options,” Rath said. “We’re going to have a full menu with our German-style pizzas and other different types of sandwiches and stuff we’ve come up with over the years.”
Tuba Baking Co. will continue to sell their pretzels wholesale at 30 local businesses like Purrfect Day Café, West Side Brewing and Copper and Flame.
