After having had a stall on the market for two years, rain or shine, Eric Dolzon is still smiling. I really don’t know him any different. We talk to each other on a weekly basis and the last few months the tension was definitely increasing. “I keep on dreaming about the interior design”, Eric was panicking now and then. Now he is finally baking the yummiest handmade bread, croissants, pains au chocolat, muffins and other bread rolls in his own little bakery on Van der Pekplein. Together with his wife, every morning (except Tuesdays) from 7 o’ clock.
When the door opens you instantly picture yourself in that one little French bakery on your holiday in France in that one hot summer. That bakery you kept talking about on birthday parties afterwards. Handmade bread and other delicacies (such as sausages) mixed with some peculiar antique stuff, which is also for sale, are paramount in the interior. The scent of fresh bread just out of the oven brings you straight back to that one summer for a moment.
There’s a little table to sit at so you can quickly sip on a cup of filtered coffee whilst enjoying a croissant. Coffee with creamer that is, how ‘Noordish’ can it be. No fancy cappuccino or anything like that. “Such a coffee machine is way too much work”, Eric explains. “And of course it shouldn’t become something like a community centre”.
In the mean time one customer after the other drops in, and leaves the bakery with a smile and a loaf of bread tucked under the arm. “Yes, Luc.” He smiles yet again. “I am fine here now; I could never have dreamed of this. This way it doesn’t matter that I have to get into my car at 6 o’ clock each morning to come here from Almere to go baking”.
Oh and by the way, Eric also still has his stall on the market. “I like it too much to miss out on that, you know me, don’t you?”
Dolzon is open every day (except Tuesday) on 15A Van der Pekplein from 07.00 AM until 07.00 PM.
// original blog written for ilovenoord.nl:Luc Harings (30 nov 2016) – translation: Anke Feenstra
