Boots Bakery & Lounge to move out of West Main historic building, find home in Saranac Commons

Boots Bakery & Lounge, the popular downtown coffee shop, bar and vegan-friendly eatery, will move out of its original home in a historic building on West Main Avenue by the end of the year.

Owner Alison Collins and landlord Dan Spalding could not agree on terms to allow the business, opened in June 2012, to continue operating at 24 W. Main Avenue. Both were present at the shop on Wednesday morning, the day after Collins posted on social media that Boots would be leaving after Dec. 31.

Collins, sitting in the back of her shop Wednesday morning, said the plan is to move across the street to the Saranac Commons, an open-floor vendor marketplace.

“There will be a gap in service while that space gets prepared for us,” Collins said.

Collins said she spoke with Spalding in the fall about future operations in the storefront in the Frederick/Longbotham building, a brick structure originally built in 1909 that also houses Zola nightclub. She then received a letter, a copy of which she presented Wednesday, demanding Boots vacate the building “as long as your kitchen facilities are producing savory foods and baked goods for off-site sales.”

The sale of those goods, including vegan and gluten-free pastas, salads and bakery items, make up 70% of Boots’ bottom line, Collins said. Coupled with a rent increase on her month-to-month lease with Spalding, she said it wouldn’t make financial sense to find an off-site kitchen and bring food to the storefront to sell.

Spalding, sitting in a booth at the front of the store with a mug of coffee, said he believed the Saranac space would be better for the scale of Collins’ business.

“They’ve grown and expanded,” he said.

Spalding bought the Frederick/Longbotham Building in 1993 and began transforming it along with the West Main Avenue block, including designing and opening Zola in 2008, as well as providing the design for the Bon Bon bar in the Garland Theater. He’s involved in plans to redevelop the Jensen-Byrd hardware building into apartments and retail space in the 300 block of West Riverside Avenue.

Spalding said Boots was welcome to stay in the space, but the letter was intended to inform them that production needed to take place elsewhere. The building also has several tenants living and working on the upper floors, and preparation of food can create noise and odors for other people in the building, Spalding said.

“As the landlord, I’m tasked with trying to balance these issues that come up,” he said.

Collins said her operations have remained the same for the decade that she’s been in the space, and that she hadn’t heard any complaints from tenants about disruptions caused by the business.

Both landlord and tenant said the process of determining a future for Boots had been stressful.

“It’s a big change for a lot of people,” Collins said. “This is a safe spot for a lot of people.”

Boots had kept its doors open during the COVID-19 pandemic, serving to-go orders when in-person dining was restricted. The off-site food issue was not addressed in their lease with Spalding, Collins said, which expired in February 2019 and has been on a month-to-month basis since then.

Boots will change its menu slightly to accommodate its new location, Collins said. They won’t serve coffee, because Hatch Beaker + Burr already sells coffee in the commons. They’ll also steer away from alcohol sales, because craft beer brewery Black Label also operates in the space.

Collins said Boots has a “potential partnership” that will allow them to use a nearby commercial kitchen, rather than share with the other vendors in Saranac Commons. That’s due to the gluten-free and vegan recipes Boots sells in its cold case.

Spalding said he didn’t have a plan yet for the space at 24 W. Main after Boots moves out.

“I hope everyone can find some peace around all this,” he said.