Writer's Grove

Red Elephant Bakery

I’m going to tell you all a secret.

There’s a really cool little place in Payson that I visit every time I’m in town to visit my parents. It’s called the Red Elephant Bakery (which you probably guessed from the post title) and it’s a wee place that serves coffee in porcelain cups on saucers, with a wee spoon on the side and real cream to pour into it from a miniature carafe. Paintings of the African Savannah adorn the walls, and in a tiny room they have a gift shop full of handmade goodies. The handbags in particular are stunning—if you bought them in a department store they’d be $70 or $100 easy, but they’re selling for under $20 because they’re getting the material almost free from a local upholsterer who lets ’em have scraps of his most sumptuous fabrics.

They have a small menu—salads, eggs dishes, and grains, not much meat—and I’m here to tell you that the portobello mushroom sandwich is mighty fine.

Free wifi, my friends, free wifi.

The bakery/cafe is actually inside an old house, so it’s very homey inside and it’s utterly anti-corporate. The people who own and operate it are completely delightful and very welcoming. I truly dig it and spend some time writing there every chance I get. Discover it for yourself if you ever make it up to Payson!