Two weeks before the opening of The Factory, recipe developer, food scientist, stylist, chef, and writer Yewande Komolafe moves to Florence to help set up and open The Factory Café. What was to be a six-week collaboration of pie and coffee, turns into a year-long adventure and lifelong friendship. Yewande’s beloved recipes remain the cornerstone of the café cuisine: Quiche, Pimento Cheese with Apples, Biscuits, House Made Granola, Lane Cake, Lemon Dressing, and a list too long to elaborate.
The Factory Café goes on to serve daily lunches and Saturday brunch until 2020. Events like the Friends of the Café Dinner Series, Supper Club, The Gathering, No Bullshit Breakfast, Holiday Market, and other gatherings bring together a long list of chefs, writers, thinkers, wine makers, and lovers of good company.
Learn more about Yewande Komolafe and follow her adventures @yewande_komolafe.
Deepest gratitude to Yewande Komolafe, Zach Chanin, Ms. Shirley Webster, Ray Nichols, and Melissa Rebholz for all of the delicious meals.
Slide 1: The Factory Café recipes, 2013, Yewande Komolafe’s Puff Pastry and Gram Perkins’ Egg Salad Sandwich, a recipe from Natalie’s grandmother, 2021, photographs by Robert Rausch
Slide 2: Yewande Komolafe preparing for lunch service in The Factory Café kitchen, 2013, photograph by Abraham Rowe
Slide 3: “High Tea” at The Factory Café with scones, muffins, Plain Cake, Mini Moon Pies, and pimento cheese and accoutrements, prepared by Yewande Komolafe and served on Heath Ceramics dinnerware with Organic Cotton Jersey Napkins from Alabama Chanin’s Life + Living collection, 2014, photograph by Alabama Chanin Team
Slide 4: Yewande Komolafe’s Mini Moon Pies (her elevated twist on the classic sweet treat was beloved by our guests and team alike), 2014, photographs by Alabama Chanin Team
Slide 5: Yewande Komolafe preparing for lunch service in The Factory Café kitchen, 2013, photograph by Abraham Rowe; The Factory Café’s signature Chocolate Chip Sea Salt Cookies receiving their final dusting of salt, 2013 (baked to order, these cookies arrived to café guests still warm from the oven during daily lunch services)