“Welcome to our workshop.” Family comes home, opens northeast Ohio French bakery
The family behind a newly opened bakery in Cornersburg is honoring their past roots in the Mahoning Valley and origins in French artisanal baking going back generations.
Meet the Pisan family, owners and operators of Cerise Stone Mill Baking Company.
Samantha Pisan is married to Marc Pisan, a co-owner of Cerise Stone Mill Baking Company with his brother Alain Pisan.
Alain is married to Renee Pisan, a fellow culinary chef. In the early 1990s, Alain and Renee began baking for the northeast Ohio community at Renee’s French Bakery in Canfield.
“I met Marc 27 years ago when my sister and I went in to see Renee, my future sister-in-law, at Renee’s French Bakery when they opened,” Samantha said. “We went in to say hello, and Mark was visiting to help them get the new restaurant up and running.”
The Pisans also owned the French Street Café in Niles.
Samantha and Renee are both originally from the Trumbull County area, while Marc and Alain’s relatives were artisanal bakers in coastal Provence, France.
“Their whole life was spent baking around their grandfather and father, who are also bakers,” Samantha said. “People love the traditional pastries, our Napoleons are really popular. There are Southern French pastries because the brothers are from Provence. We’re having fun with some new flavors, bringing in some flavors from family traditions, but also enhancing and honoring those traditions.
In 2006, Alain and Renee relocated and the brothers joined forces to open Chloe’s French Café and Catering in California.
“Marc is also a wine expert, so that’s what we did in California,” Samantha said. “We moved there for the wine industry, so we’re thinking of bringing some of that back into the business as well with food and wine pairings.”
It’s been a long-awaited homecoming for the business operators, and Samantha said the Cornersburg community has been embracing the Cerise Stone Mill Baking Company.
“It’s been pretty profound, a great feeling to be welcomed so heartily and to feel at home,” she said. “We had someone come in and tell us a story about thirty years ago, when they were a kid coming in with their grandparents. Now they’re bringing their kids to this place. Everyone’s been so welcoming. People have been so generous and excited too for the success we’ve had so far in Cornersburg.”
At Cerise, spelt flour is milled on site that’s grown in Ohio, mixed with organic and non-GMO flour, then incorporated directly into cookies, croissants, pastries and dried pasta.
“Alain got interested in milling his own flour, so he imported a small mill from Austria. We’re milling spelt flour on site, and he’s been experimenting in what we call our workshop. You’ll see on our website and our front door, ‘Welcome to our workshop.’ It’s experimenting with combining this hand-milled flour with other natural grains to give a new flavor profile to a lot of the traditional favorites.”
The bakery is open from 7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. or until items are sold out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 3500 Canfield Road in Cornersburg.
Check out Cerise Stone Mill Baking Company online to learn more.
