Al & Ernie’s Bakery Cafe gets bagels right in Battle Ground

A seaside vacation inspired Joylyn and Devin Bowen of Al & Ernie’s Bakery Cafe to make bagels.

“We were at the beach for our anniversary. We often go there to dream of business opportunities,” Devin Bowen said.

The couple ate bad bagels at a cafe and Devin declared that he and his wife could do better.

“We went home and the next morning we made a dozen bagels, but they were terrible,” Devin Bowen said.

The couple made bagels every day for 45 days until dialing in their recipe and technique to bake the bagel they envisioned.

“We wanted to make really good East Coast bagels, though neither of us has spent time on the East Coast,” Devin said.

Their friends, who loved the bagels, encouraged them to start a business. The Bowens ran Bethlehem Bagels out of their home, taking orders online and delivering them to a parking lot. They closed their business when they didn’t see a way for it to grow.

Coincidentally, Devin’s friend Camden Spiller bought a grocery store space in Battle Ground’s Old Town with his brother Mac Spiller with plans to open a bakery. Spiller didn’t know that the space, commonly known as Al & Ernie’s, had been the site where Joylyn’s grandfather Ernie had opened Battle Ground’s first grocery store with his cousin Alvie in 1951.

Spiller did know that the Bowens were bakers. He approached Devin Bowen to open a bakery in the space he bought. They named the bakery and cafe Al & Ernie’s to honor Joylyn’s family.

The Bowens knew they had to sell their bagels here, but they had other ambitions for this bakery. They needed fresh baked bread for sandwiches. In addition, Joylyn has a passion for pastries. They went about perfecting recipes for these items and finding the best sources for ingredients. Everything had to be done to their high standards.

Grains for their baguettes come from Burlington’s Cairnspring Mills, which was created to stone grind grains for a group of Skagit Valley farmers. For Al & Ernie’s sourdough loaf, Devin drove to Camas Country Mill in Eugene, Ore., a grist mill that stone grinds grain from the Willamette Valley, and came home with a trunk full of flours to test. Stone grinding grain is an ancient process that leaves vitamins and minerals in the grain kernels intact. It also gives a complexity of flavor and texture to baked goods.

The Bowens also bought a sheeter to press dough into whisper-thin layers for their pastries. Clark County bakeries don’t commonly use sheeters because they’re expensive and making fresh, layered pastry dough is extremely labor intensive and unforgiving. Hours of work can be undone if the butter isn’t just the right temperature.

On a recent Tuesday morning, the line at Al & Ernie’s kept growing as customers gazed at the artfully etched boules of sourdough bread, slender baguettes, bagels, cornetto with chocolate or almond, cardamom buns, frosted cinnamon buns and Earl Grey scones.

If I hadn’t driven here myself, I might have thought that I had dozed off and entered a bakery dreamworld — a magical Oz filled with flaky pastries and crusty loaves.

I grabbed a sourdough boule ($11) and ordered a chocolate cornetto ($6), cardamom bun ($5), an everything bagel with lox ($9 for a half, $18 for a whole), and a breakfast sandwich on a plain bagel with sausage ($6). I got my food to go because the long line made it seem impossible to grab a table, but surprisingly there was a spot so I sat and waited for my order.

The bagel and lox was visually stunning: a sliced bagel topped with a swirl of pickled onions, thinly sliced cucumber, capers, microgreens, sprigs of fresh dill, cream cheese and thinly sliced line-caught smoked coho salmon.

The everything bagel was well seasoned with a light airy center and a glossy crisp crust — an ideal bagel. Too often bagels are dense and tough, but not here. This exquisite bagel with its elegant and delicious toppings was so absolutely perfect that all other bagel and lox will suffer in comparison. This dish is now available all day (although the website still states that it’s only served until 10:30 a.m.)

The bread was exceptional and all the pastries were good. The chocolate cornetto was a standout. I remember this fine pastry from my honeymoon in Rome where it’s a ubiquitous treat for Italians to savor with their morning espresso. Joylyn Bowen began making them after watching a corny, Hallmark-type movie with her husband one night. The film was about a bakery owner whose passion was baking cornettos. Al & Ernie’s version closely follows the Italian tradition of adding lemon zest and vanilla as well as dots of high-quality dark chocolate. If I close my eyes and take a bite, 20 years slips away and I’m a newlywed in Rome standing to sip my morning coffee accompanied by this flaky, elegant pastry.

The Bowens have been working 18-hour days to fill the pastry case twice a day and bake bread for their lunchtime sandwiches, but none of this was obvious to the long line of customers who ordered their treats and sat at the wood tables. The staff here are kind and professional. They keep the line moving while also giving the space a comfortable, easy vibe.

I recently watched the new documentary about Martha Stewart on Netflix. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t last five minutes as her employee because this woman is obsessed with perfection. Nonetheless, if for some bizarre reason Madame Stewart decided to have me give her a food tour of Clark County, I would take her to Al & Ernie’s because I believe the food here would meet her high standards. I’m certain that she would say that this unassuming bakery and cafe in Battle Ground was a “good thing.”