Four years ago, Megan and Dave Miller started up the Bang Bang Pie & Coffee food truck. It satisfied a craving many Chicagoans didn’t even know they had. Within a year, the Millers, with their business partner Michael Ciapciak, had a brick-and-mortar cafe in Logan Square. It became a beloved neighborhood institution, always crowded. There were plans to open a second Bang Bang location in Pilsen. And then, six months ago, the Millers abruptly announced they were selling out to Ciapciak and opening up a new bakery in Lincoln Square called Baker Miller that would concentrate on making bread, pastry, and, of course, pie using traditional methods. Oh, and they were going to start milling and selling flour.
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“It’s like peppercorns that are preground that you buy at the supermarket versus peppercorns that you buy whole and then toast and grind at home,” Van Camp says. “You can taste the difference.” In the case of house-milled flour, it gave his pizza crust, breads, and pastas a pleasantly nutty, earthy flavor.
The studying turned the Millers into flour evangelists. Instead of making flour just for their own use—at Bang Bang, they went through more than 20,000 pounds in one year—they decided they would sell it to the public. The bakery would be their test kitchen, a way to show their customers just how good real whole-wheat flour could be. The goodwill they brought from Bang Bang was such that there was a line out the door when Baker Miller finally opened in September.
In the next few months Baker Miller will acquire a business partner and move the milling operation to a larger facility in some as-yet-to-be-determined corner of the city. Miller is sure milling is due for a revival, just like craft brewing, coffee roasting, and bean-to-bar chocolate making. It won’t be long before someone else sees its economic potential.
