Oak Cliff Bread & Baker-Curated Grain from Barton Springs Mill

Written & Photographed by Melinda Ortley

On South Polk Street in Oak Cliff, the DART rail runs every few minutes. It connects the corners of Dallas, Uptown to Deep Ellum and the suburbs to the city's edge. Set back from the tracks, tucked inside Tyler Station, a converted industrial complex, you'll find the bakery, Oak Cliff Bread.

Forty-five minutes before it opens, there are already eight to ten cars in the parking lot.

A young woman is the first out of her car, book in hand. She walks straight to the door and leans against the railing, easy and unhurried. She deleted Instagram this year, she mentions. She’s not necessarily happier, but has more time. Time for a book. Time to be first in line at her favorite bakery. A few minutes later, a man in a business suit falls in behind her. Then a mother with a baby. Then two men, carrying orange vests and headed to work outside. By the time the door opens, the line outside is lengthy.

Inside, the case is double stacked with pastry and the racks filled with bread. Among the offerings is a pain au chocolat so golden and light you can almost hear the light crunch through the glass, a glistening pain au raisan as large as your hand, and an individually baked circular coffee cake that deserves its own silver tray.

Chayanne Rooney is behind the counter. Through the bread shelves, you hear the clank of a bench knife hitting the work surface. Her husband and head baker, Tyler, is weighing pillowy dough for their signature sourdough country boule. 

The back of the house has just enough room for everyone to work within a foot or two of their station. Tyler and his small crew move through it: quiet, tight, focused, unhurried. What's remarkable is what they chose to do with the space they had. They gave the front of the house to the neighborhood. Tables. A child’s toy. Room to stay. While the baking happens shoulder-to-shoulder in the back, the front is open and generous. Before long, two teachers claim a table and enter a deep conversation on grading papers.

Tyler Rooney has been quietly obsessed with bread since 2015. He was working as a line cook and sous chef in Austin, at Parkside, where Chayanne once accidentally walked off with his knife, and that's how he got her number, and he kept finding his way to the bread station between shifts. He read Tartine Bread. He enrolled in a weeklong course at the San Francisco Baking Institute.

"It's always been about making great bread and croissants," he says.

When they moved to Dallas to be near family, Tyler joined the kitchen at Macellaio (now closed), and then in 2020, he turned their Oak Cliff home kitchen into a cottage bakery. Whole grain berries were delivered right to the porch, milled in-house, and everything baked the morning of pickup. They expanded from porch pick-ups on Fridays to the Dallas Farmers Market on Sundays. Word traveled fast through the neighborhood. In the fall of 2023, they moved into Tyler Station. 

From the beginning, Tyler knew he wanted to bake with Barton Springs Mill grains.

"It's always been Barton Springs Mill," he says, "because of the relationship they have with farmers and what that means."

Today, organic whole wheat berries and stone-ground flour travel from the mill in Dripping Springs to Dallas weekly and arrive at Tyler Station, where Tyler uses a combination of stone-ground flour and wheat berries (ground with his own tabletop mill) in everything from his Country Sourdough to a bright brioche jam bun that catches the eye.

His country boule rests its flavor on Yecora Rojo, a hard red spring wheat milled fresh in-house, run at 80% hydration. The day before this visit, it ran a little higher. A few too many holes, Tyler says. But beautiful. Bread is a daily conversation.

Barton Spring Mill’'s Ryman Rye shows up in his hearty seeded loaf, which looks like the perfect vehicle for an overflowing reuben. Tyler soaks and sprouts the berries first, a slow process that draws out the grain's depth and makes it more digestible. You can't shortcut it. "That seeded loaf is a staple. It will last forever, too." Sometimes he'll throw a dash of rye flour in a batch of chocolate chip cookies. "It just changes the flavor slightly, enhances it."

Outside, a few customers are talking, and a woman is brushing crumbs from the table. Leave them, I say. They look so good in a photo. She laughs, and then looks up.

"I just want you to know," she says, "that this is the best croissant I have ever had in my life." A pause. "And my mother was French."

She leaves smiling. The DART rail hums past. Inside, the teachers are still talking. Chayanne is packaging an order, Tyler is in the back, bench knife clanking on the counter, and a new line has formed.

Oak Cliff Bread is located at Tyler Station, 1300 S. Polk St., Dallas. Open Thursday–Saturday, 8 a.m.–3 p.m. www.oakcliffbread.com

SHOP Barton Springs Mill collection of organic stone-ground flour and organic whole wheat berries curated for artisan bakers.