Hours:
9 AM - 4 PM Every Day
Kitchen:
9 AM - 3 PM Every Day
At LaHave Bakery, we go the extra mile by making all our food from scratch using quality, locally-sourced ingredients.
Join us for a hot breakfast or lunch any day of the week until 3 pm. Shop in our grocery, open all day until 4 pm. For food delivery, please contact us by email or phone.
Served 9 am – 3 pm. Tax included in all prices.
Every lunch order includes either potato wedges with sundried tomato aioli or carrot sticks with hummus.
with mayo and arugula on potato bread. – $15
with juniper ham, honey ginger mustard, mayo and swiss emmental. – $15
with Welsh cheddar, curried apple chutney and mayo. – $15
with roast chicken, mango chutney, spinach, mayo and mustard. – $15
served with a fresh roll. – $6.75
assorted flavours, including vegetarian options. – $9
assorted flavours, including vegetarian options. – $9
Served 9 am – 1 pm.
with bacon, spinach, aioli, cheddar, egg, salsa. Vegetarian option also. – $15
with house made pork sausage, egg, cheese, hot peppers and aioli on a cheddar and herb bun. – $15
with cream cheese. – $5.25
Each item $6, including tax.
Served 9 am – 3 pm. Tax included in all prices.
Every lunch order includes either potato wedges with sundried tomato aioli or carrot sticks with hummus.
with mayo and arugula on potato bread. – $15
with juniper ham, honey ginger mustard, mayo and swiss emmental. – $15
with Welsh cheddar, curried apple chutney and mayo. – $15
with roast chicken, mango chutney, spinach, mayo and mustard. – $15
served with a fresh roll. – $6.75
Served 9 am – 1 pm.
with bacon, spinach, aioli, cheddar, egg, salsa. Vegetarian option also. – $15
with house made pork sausage, egg, cheese, hot peppers and aioli on a cheddar and herb bun. – $15
with cream cheese. – $5.25
Each item $6, including tax.
Our honey is also non-pasteurized (meaning it is not heated since honey is naturally anti-bacterial and anti-fungal) and coarse filtered. This means that the local pollen (which is SO GOOD for us) is included in the honey itself. LaHave Bakery ordered 1500 lbs of honey for the 2024 year. Hopefully it lasts!
Shop at the Fair Banks Grocery store, open every day, year-round 9 am – 4 pm. We sell a variety of foods made here in our kitchen, as well as quality products sourced from local suppliers.
We decided to name the grocery store “Fair Banks Grocery” after the Fairbanks Morse engine, which had been installed in 1935 to freeze the fish instead of salt-curing the fish; also because being fair is what the bakery strives to do, and the building sits on the banks of the mighty LaHave River.
Note that not everything we have in our grocery is reflected below. We are always tweaking our recipes, creating new ones, and sourcing more local goodness. If you have a question about what we have on stock, please give us a call at 902-688-2908!
We bake for local stores on Sunday and Wednesday and for Halifax on Monday and Thursday. All of the other days (Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday), we bake just for our own shop. These days are the best days to order specialty loaves. To order, please give us a call 4 days in advance. You must order at least 3 loaves.
Before a good meal, pop the whole loaf into a hot oven for about 10 minutes. The result is a crunchy crust, steamy interior, and a fragrance that will cause you to close you eyes and remember how wonderful food can be. Our customers recognize the quality and have rewarded us with staying the course with us for 40 years!
It really matters to us how farm animals are treated. Gael has spent lots of time looking into where our animal products come from.
When it comes to dairy animals, organic practices mean that the animals are pastured in unsprayed fields, and fed chemical-free forages and grains. They also have access to the outdoors to graze in the spring, summer and fall, and to socialize with other animals. As a result, dairy cows raised in this way live to be 9-10 years old, as opposed to 3-5 years on conventional farms.
We also feel very strongly about humane handling of animals at the abattoirs. The places we get our meat from (for sale and in our recipes) all follow best management practices. Humane handling only for LaHave Bakery!
Our main provider of beef, pork, lamb and poultry is Oulton’s Meats, located in Martock Glen, Windsor, Nova Scotia. This is their mission statement:
We also supply:
◆ Poultry – Eden Valley Poultry
◆ Eggs – Rocky Top Farm
◆ Organic Full-Fat, Grass-Fed Milk – Knoydart Farm
◆ Organic Yogurt, 4% Milk Fat – Made in LaHave with Knoydart Milk
◆ Seafood – Afishionado
Our bread is probably the one thing we are most famous for. The smell permeates the streets of LaHave in the early morning hours. We bake fresh EVERY DAY!
Our bread is made from whole ingredients. If it says “eggs”, it means we are cracking whole eggs. If it says “onions” we are peeling and cutting up whole onions. We do not use powdered or imitation ingredients. This makes all the difference in flavour!
Whole grains and the bread made from them have been staple foods since ancient times. Their nutritional contribution is balanced and reliable. They contain starch and protein roughly in proportion to our energy and protein needs, and include the vitamins and minerals for metabolizing that starch and protein. Bread has an added advantage in the fermentation of the yeast, which makes some of the minerals more available to our digestive system.
We also do not in any way add anything to our bread that will increase it’s shelf life. Leaving out additives and preservatives is what makes our bread healthy for you, but is also what makes our bread stale quickly. As such, our bread should be treated like produce, and is best kept in the fridge.
Water, up until recently an unconsidered and unlisted ingredient, is nevertheless an important part of all food. Our bread contains pure, chlorine free water from a deep spring fed well.
We bake for local stores on Sunday and Wednesday, and for Halifax on Monday and Thursday. All of the other days, we bake just for our own shop. These days are the best days to order specialty loaves. It is such a wonderful process that sets our bakery apart. Our customers recognize the quality and have rewarded us with staying the course with us for 40 years!
Before a good meal, pop the whole loaf into a hot oven for about 10 minutes. The result is a crunchy crust, steamy interior, and a fragrance that will cause you to close you eyes and remember how wonderful food can be.
These are varieties that we can bake on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. They are specialty loaves best ordered on these days. Please order at least three of them for each order. These varieties generally have bolder flavours or take more time to shape, decorate or mix.
The richest white bread.
A beautiful braided eggy loaf. Looks beautiful on a table at a BIG family dinner.
FULL of fresh dill.
A classic rye bread. It’s the one to choose for a smoked meat sandwich.
A plain whole wheat excellent for sandwiches.
A herb and garlic whole wheat loaf made with FRESH herbs.
A very fancy sweet loaf with cherries on top. Lots of eggs and anise seeds.
A lovely mix of warm spices make this bread fill the bakery with it’s aroma.
A Christmas yeast bread with raisins and candied peel.
A cornmeal bread that sweetens up as you toast it. So good with cheese.
Essentially Cheese & Herb bread with no cheese. Not made very often.
A SPICY whole wheat loaf.
Full of kalamata olives and dried rosemary.
Made with fresh Italian parsley and fresh cracked black pepper.
A round eggy and honey flavoured loaf.
DARK rye bread flavoured with caraway. It makes a gourmet grilled cheese.
This bread is made with spelt meal flour. This is an ancient grain that is an early form of wheat. The flour is more expensive because the farmers need special machinery to seperate the grains. We always sell it frozen, but you can order a fresh batch. This bread is more easily digestible for those who have issues with wheat. It is NOT gluten-free.
A very interesting rye bread made with orange juice and anise seeds.
We use spray-free sweet potatoes from Annapolis Valley to make this tasty bread.
A crunchy and flavourful loaf that has toasted sunflower seeds throughout.
A fancy Christmas braided loaf covered in almond slices and a sugary glaze. Flavoured with fresh lemon juice and zest and tons of sultana raisins.
These are the loaves we bake on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. We send these varieties out to stores for wholesale. You can also purchase them at the bakery at various price points: freshly baked, day-old, and frozen.
A brown cornmeal bread. It is so delicious dipped in a bowl of chili.
An old fashioned Nova Scotian bread. Such a nice fluffy sandwich bread with whole wheat flour.
One of the most loved breads we make. Hands down, it makes the best garlic bread. The go-to for stuffing bread.
A classic whole wheat bread. Best for toast or sandwiches.
A white loaf just like Nanny makes. Dense and flavourful. Toasted and drenched in butter and jam.
Classic brown bread. For breakfast with poached eggs and baked beans.
So much texture and flavour. Pairs really well with a blended carrot or tomato soup.
The fluffiest white bread. BEST for lobster sandwiches or a seafood chowder.
A sweeter loaf made with brown sugar and molasses. So great as a breakfast treat.
FILLED with delicious seeds. The owner's absolute favourite loaf! Makes the BEST french toast.
The bread with the most grains. The most popular of all the whole wheat loaves. Makes great croutons.
The second value is this huge, wooden turn-of-the-century building that, in its heyday, housed a ships’ chandlery, fish plant, and from 1918–1922, the Canadian Bank of Commerce. Today it is the roof over LaHave Bakery, LaHave River Books, Homegrown Skateboards and the LaHave Craft Co-op. Deep inside, at the core of the building, LaHave Bakery is baking bread, cooking food and releasing the rich, heady aromas of the good life, seven days a week.
Available now in print, the story behind the bakery – featuring photographs, illustrations, and recipes – as told by nine individuals.
LaHave Bakery: The Building, the Baker, and the Recipes that Revitalized a Community tells the bakery's unique story, from the construction of the historic building in 1901 as a general merchant and ship chandler to its present-day multi-faceted use as a bakery, a craft co-operative, a skateboard manufacturer, a bookstore, and a grocery.
This fascinating history is told through nine compelling first-person voices—including those of proprietor Gael Watson and her adult children, as well as friends and past and present employees—who share reflections on the bakery, the building, and the community. Their memories are supplemented with more than seventy curated images dating from the building's early days and encompassing the bakery's four decades of operation, beginning in 1984. Artists contributing to the book include Kat Frick Miller, Anna Bald, and Marnie Troyer.
And for the literal icing on the cake, LaHave Bakery also features a baker's dozen of Gael Watson's signature recipes for delightful breads and sweets.
◆ The present-day building was constructed in 1901 by Boehner Bros. Woodworking of West LaHave, for Laughlin B. Currie, merchant.
◆ It originally operated as a ships’ chandlery, or outfitting company, a general merchant, and fish plant.
◆ The LaHave Outfitting Co. co-owned several schooners that were engaged in the great salt cod industry that was slowly winding down by the early 1900’s.
◆ These ships started by setting out to the Western Grand Banks to fish, returned here to cure and salt the catch, reload and travel to the Turks and Caicos Islands to trade the salt fish for salt, sugar, molasses and of course RUM!
◆ In 1935, the company invested in the refrigeration plant, which included a compressor and the large diesel engine that can be seen in the grocery store. This created FOUR freezer rooms used to freeze fish for shipping to points further west in Canada.
◆ The top floor of this building housed the Canadian Bank of Commerce from 1918 until 1922, at which time it moved to the newly-built brick building across the street. In 1934 it became a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, before being sold to a private owner. The Vaults are still intact!
◆ The white house next door to the bakery was bought by Gael in 2018 to use as a staff accommodation. It is called “Ruby’s house.” It has three bedrooms in it. The building was built in 1914 and made into a home by the Grays (the previous owners of the LaHave Outfitting Co.), and has a ship’s mast as a supporting beam. Three people who lived in that house (Vera Getson, Ruby Gray & Lawrence Gray) ALL lived to be over 100!
◆ The Brass cash register upstairs was made in 1896 ! The brass register downstairs is from the early 1900s. We still use them EVERYDAY!
