100% sourdough. No cheating – is what is promised from the Danish-Norwegian-owned bakery, artisanal sandwich-café concept called BARTELS, with operations in Bangkok, Phuket and Saigon.
Bartels, which is the surname of co-founder Nicolai is a business that came about by chance and is now also benefitting from a somewhat unexpected development within the residential community on Phuket following the Covid-19 period.
Partner and investor Jakob Lykkegaard Pedersen – known to many as the former co-owner of PlayLab and as an AR games producer with his own Lykke Studios, and who is himself a Phuket resident these days – explains at the Blue Tree Phuket-based outlet in Cherng Talay.
Behind this business are some remarkable coincidences that made things happen. Jakob met Nicolai Bartels and his partner Eva Bartels by chance as they moved into a home he was leaving. Nicolai had during may years been baking sourdough bread in his spare time – and fine-tuned his baking skills in the process, especially as regards to the complexity of baking this particular type of bread. As a consequence of Covid-19 Nicolai and Eva’s business Scandinavian Makeup Academy was temporarily shut down and they found themselves sitting on a Sukhumvit roadside rental contract. They decided to utilize the location and follow their dream of creating a neighbourhood hangout with sourdough bread baked in-store, artisanal sandwiches and great coffee.
“People liked the bread and I was actually one of the one of these first customers because they started posting about it. I tasted the bread and I got enthusiastic and told him: ‘This could be so much bigger than this!’,” recalls Jakob.
“I got involved out of pure bias, as I had just moved to Phuket lacking good bread and coffee here. The quality wasn’t here; I would say pre-covid, Phuket was dominated by tourist trap type of food services in many places. But since the Covid-19 period so many people have been moving here from Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore etc. – who has this sense of quality that they want. So, I suggested to open Bartels also in Phuket as well, instead of just Bangkok. I then joined the company, invested, and we opened the second branch, that was in Bang Tao.”
“This was in May 2021, so even though we could get hold of a preferred street front location for a good price it for sure took some convincing with Nicolai that this was the right move, in a time where there were few people around due to Covid-19.”
“But from the moment we opened up we have pretty much enjoyed a full house. It felt like we hit a void here,” reflects Jakob.
This means that thanks to this change of demographics and recent other factors such as the skyrocketing cost of living in Singapore in particular, Bartels has been experiencing another – and no doubt welcome – coincidence: namely to get as main customers a volume of expatriates previously unseen on the island!
And regardless of what segments each F&B venue targets, from 2022 the island started to see a large volume of new F&B outlets opening up, and very much concentrated to popular residential areas like Cherng Talay and Rawai, in addition to the large tourist hotspots.
“A lot more places have opened now and we are busier than ever. And in the past Phuket wasn’t really known for great food or nice lifestyle but I feel that a lot of that has improved. So, the more we can get of great cafés, restaurants and hotels, the more people that will also attract of the right clientele. I don’t really see the tourist buses anymore – rather it’s about people who have bought a home, living here.”
While none of the entrepreneurial founders have any F&B background Jakob happily calls Nicolai a ‘chef’, since he deems that he is so passionate and adept when it comes to sourdough: “It’s a complex process to master, since you don’t use commercial yeast. I would say even our baking team here are amazing, but if you put them in another room with other equipment
they can’t necessarily replicate what we have here – where you need someone like Nicolai to help with the tweaking and learning to smell the dough development from the fermentation.”
“Here in Thailand, we do it a little bit lighter than what you’ll find in Denmark – which also fits the local palate better; the nice wheat taste also make the ingredients of the sandwiches shine through.”
Jakob, meanwhile have been very much involved and passionate about conceptualising the brand concept and getting a unison guest experience in place both when it comes to the quality of food and drinks as well as the design for all the branches of the artisanal sandwich-café concept. Only getting the coffee right has involved a big effort with a complete replacement of everything from water filtration to espresso machines, grinders, beans and roaster.
Bartels also has a focus on healthy food, with ingredients like ginger, salads, grain bowls and booster smoothies.
“Of course, one can get cakes, pastries and everything else, but we want to make sure that everything that all ingredients are unprocessed, clean and fresh. You know what you’re getting – which is very much home-baked style for everything.”
“We also want to achieve the feeling that once you enter any Bartels outlet you feel the familiarity of the brand. Thus, we try to reuse the same elements across the different locations to get that similar feeling. We call it Tropical Scandinavian,” says the Dane and continues: “We focus very much on keeping it real; that the design needs to be pleasant to your eye, the wood and the plants you touch are real – it’s like it everything needs to fall in place, we don’t want to leave anything to chance.”
They have designed it from their heart and a lot of people notably share their feelings about what looks and feels good, shares Jakob, who himself eats there six times a week and even uses the home delivery service.
“The bread is a big seller for sure and I can confidently state that nobody beats us on this. But we focus a lot on the atmosphere, where we aim to make the Bartels branches into community hot spots where people meet up – which is also what we have ended up achieving.”
Their guest clientele – apart from getting an additional 20-30% customers during high season – consists of island residents.
“Even in September we’re pretty much full over breakfast and lunch; especially on weekends and in Blue Tree mainly with residents. The outlet in Bang Tao, meanwhile, has a lot more people from Laguna and its properties coming in – people staying here for 3-4 days up to a few months.”
Bartels’ success – paired with optimism – also means that they are expanding, with more branches to open in Phuket, Bangkok and Vietnam.
“2025 will be a busy year for us with 3 more branches opening in Bangkok and Saigon and two new Phuket branches in Chalong and Kamala. Going forward, Phuket Town and Rawai are also interesting locations. I don’t expect any downturn similar to what Phuket experienced in the past. From year 2019 to now Phuket is completely different, with so many new residents having come in, and with the big cities not really being that popular anymore. The main difference between now and before is that families have moved here and put their kids into school, so they don’t just move back after a few years but have actually fully established themselves here. So, I am definitely not seeing any bubble that will burst” believes Jakob.
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