On most weekend mornings, a line forms outside a pint-sized building, snaking down a quiet block of upper King Street. The uninitiated may wonder what draws such an eager crowd, but those in the know will gladly join the queue. At Welton’s Tiny Bakeshop, the brainchild of Charleston chefs Hannah and Zachary Welton, the wait hardly compares to the delights found inside.
Both trained chefs, the bakery owners met while working at Husk in 2015, during the time Sean Brock helmed the kitchen. In the following years, their culinary partnership has been a nomadic one, including restaurant gigs in Hannah’s hometown of Houston, Texas, and Zachary’s native New York, as well as a two-year stint at Tulum’s famous Hartwood, an off-the-grid restaurant known for its woodfired cuisine.
By the time they returned to Charleston in 2021, the Weltons were ready for a more permanent change. “The industry can be a damaging place,” Hannah said. “We kept thinking, there has to be a better way to nourish others.”
Their first business plan hinged on a roving, woodfired pizza oven, the heart of a catering operation dubbed Weltons Fine Foods. “We always wanted to be mobile and cook outside,” Hannah said. From the spring of 2021, business quickly took off — at weddings, events and spots like Munkle Brewing Co. and Bar Rollins, the couple served char-crusted pizzas and slices of salted honey pie and soon gained a bit of a cult following.
A bakery is born
When Weltons current space, the former 26 Divine, came up for sale, the couple jumped at the chance for a more permanent operation. “We were ready for four walls,” Hannah said. “Though we didn’t know if it was going to be a slice shop or a bakery or what.” Still, they signed the lease in just two days, and a vision came together. By October 2023, Weltons Tiny Bakeshop was open for business.
The new shop lives up to its name. “It’s small as hell,” Hannah said. “But that’s the beauty of it. We prep everything fresh daily. There’s no room to sit on pre-baked product.” Keeping things tight isn’t just a physical constraint — it’s a baked-in principle.
“Our team is sandwiched in like sardines, but we understand why we’re so small. It keeps us true to our morals. We love abundance, but the good kind.”
In Charleston, Weltons’ style feels fresh, reaching beyond the typical lineup of croissants, muffins and scones. Instead, the counter is lined with naturally leavened, European-style goods: flaky kouign-amann (a layered pastry of laminated dough), gooey pasteis de nata (Portuguese egg tarts) and sweet and savory kolaches (pillowy Czech pastries) with vanilla bean curd or bacon and spring onion cream cheese. Mini loaves are showered in benne seed, danishes are studded with seasonal flourishes (mushroom, goat cheese and green garlic one week, asparagus and parmesan the next), and sourdough biscuits are slathered with butter and fresh strawberry jam.
Each pastry is a clear labor of love and a reflection of the owners’ unique trajectory. “One thing that surprises people is neither of us are trained in pastry,” Hannah said.
Early in her career, she purposely refused several pastry gigs. “If you’re a woman, sometimes you’re just automatically put on pastry — it can be a very sexist role,” Hannah said (though she eventually led the program at Hartwood). “I was very vocal about that in a male-dominted industry,” she said.
Home was where she and Zachary began baking, experimenting with savory recipes as often as sweet. Today, the bakery’s majority savory menu items reflect that affinity — and the couple’s history as chefs. “I think that depth is what sets us apart. We see these as more than just sweet treats,” Hannah said.
Weltons’ reliance on locally sourced ingredients is another key component of the business. They were influenced by their foundational years at Husk, an early pioneer of the purveyor-forward model that now rules Charleston’s food scene.
“At Husk, we got to touch Anson Mills flour every day,” Hannah said. “We saw Celeste (Albers of Green Grocer) dropping off fresh milk. We still have these incredible relationships.”
For both the bakery and Welton’s Fine Foods, which continues to operate in tandem (and often sets up shop in the bakery’s alleyway on Sundays), seasonality is everything. Each week, deliveries from producers like Rosebank Farms and Marsh Hen Mills help dictate the menu.
“Just like our pizza, we see our baked goods as a blank canvas,” Hannah said. “We have a few foundational things that stay on the menu, but then we’ll get, say, a case of first-of-the-season strawberries, and really hone in on that.”
A new take on dining
In February, the Weltons launched a third endeavor: the Butter Room. Housed in the bakery’s back room and adjacent alley, the dining concept is another manifestation of the owners’ philosophy: keeping things small, honoring ingredients and offering an alternative to prevailing hospitality conditions.
“We thought, why can’t we create a dreamy experience for 10 to 18 people, on our own terms?” Hannah said. In addition to private bookings, the Butter Room hosts a monthly ticketed dinner. Here, every detail feels personal, down to the playlist, the wine pairings and the dishware. “We want it to feel like, ‘Welcome to our home.’”
As the Weltons develop their next concept, they see the Butter Room as an incubator. “Opening a sustainable restaurant is definitely on the brain, but for now, this is a way to express that,” Hannah said. “It’s an avenue to cook again, in a more healthy and manageable way. We get to be home by 9:30 p.m. It’s a huge shift in perspective, and a quality of life we’ve honestly never had.”
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