Maillard Pastries to close both locations as owner cites ‘exhausting’ work

Maillard Pastries, a bakery serving croissants and other pastries in Hampden and Hamilton, will close both its locations by early May, owner Caitlin Kiehl announced in a social media post Monday.

“It’s been an incredible journey and the greatest privilege to serve two wonderful Baltimore neighborhoods alongside an amazing staff,” Kiehl wrote.

Kiehl said she’s looking to take some time to rest and reset with family and friends. “The reality is, this work can be mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting,“ she wrote.

Running the businesses at 3528 Chestnut Ave. and 5414 Harford Road is a 12-hour-a-day job, Kiehl said in an interview Monday. This year was the first time in over five that Maillard Pastries didn’t make more money than the last, yet the costs of ingredients and day-to-day operations rose in 2025, she said.

“It definitely wasn’t a year of growth,” Kiehl said, adding there’s still no sign of a reprieve.

She described starting the business as an uphill battle. When Kiehl first signed a lease, she opened a credit card to pay the shop’s rent, and she worked a second job to keep paying rent on her home. And there’s not a day when she isn’t sweaty, sticky or moving dumpsters and fixing grease traps, which prevent fats and oils from being mixed in with the building’s wastewater.

“You see line cooks work and it’s fast-paced and it’s sweaty, but people think of bakers as just standing there and putting sprinkles on a cupcake,” she said.

The mixing and lifting have taken a physical toll, as have the long hours. But Kiehl doesn’t regret expanding from Hampden into Hamilton, where she was optimistic about a larger kitchen space and air conditioning — a long-awaited asset that made baking croissants easier, she said. It made sense at the time due to the Hampden bakery’s high demand, but in retrospect, Kiehl said she would have crafted a more sustainable plan for the company’s future.

Both locations of her shop will remain open for the upcoming holidays, including Easter, which is often described as a hectic period for local bakeries. The spaces will soon be available for new tenants, Kiehl said in her Instagram post.

She worked as a pastry chef at Woodberry Kitchen, Charleston and The Alexander Brown Restaurant before opening her own store. Kiehl started selling baked goods wholesale and at farmers markets in February 2020 using a kitchen space at B-More Kitchen, a shared commercial kitchen and incubator. Kiehl later launched the Hampden storefront in March 2022, before taking over Bramble Baking Co.’s former Hamilton space the following year. Bramble owner Allie Smith also penned a message to patrons ahead of her bakery’s closure, attributing it to burnout and high operating costs.

The Harford Road location is nearly four times the size of Kiehl’s Hampden spot. Kiehl previously told The Banner she planned to pursue more of a wholesale business following the expansion. Her pastries initially drew interest through sales to local ventures like Sophomore Coffee and Café Los Sueños.

Her storefronts often change menus based on the season, rotating between savory options like spinach and feta hand pies and a range of tarts and morning buns.

Kiehl wrote Monday that there are “some fun things we’d like to do before we’re finished so we hope you’ll stick with us as we enter into our final months.”