A Tartine Bakery Might Be Coming to Your Neck of the Woods (Really!)

San Franciscans (and tourists): soon you'll only have to wait in one (long) line for Blue Bottle New Orleans iced coffee and Tartine's citrus-scented morning buns. Everyone else: you might soon be able to enjoy Tartine's pastries (without baking one of its recipes at home) in your hometown. How? The two Bay Area institutions are joining forces in the most delicious merger we've heard of maybe ever.

In a nutshell, this means that Tartine will upgrade its coffee and espresso program from really good to otherworldly by using Blue Bottle beans and (hopefully) will add some of Blue Bottle's beloved drink recipes to the menu, like the aforementioned New Orleans iced coffee. For its part, Blue Bottle will add some of Tartine's famed baked goods to its already lovely pastry case. (Bread and laminated dough pastries like croissants and morning buns aren't yet a part of Blue Bottle's menu and are two categories Tartine excels in, so those are likely bets.)

Even more excitingly, this means major expansion for Tartine, which until recently was a one-outpost bakery (two, if you include the restaurant Bar Tartine). A second bakery is set to open in Tokyo this Spring, as well as an additional San Francisco bakery this Fall. The Blue Bottle merger brings further expansion into Los Angeles by the end of 2015 and New York in 2016. Bar Tartine will be sold to its chefs Nick Balla and Cortney Burns and will get a new name, though Tartine's Chad Robertson says that they'll continue to collaborate.

Now that that mouthwatering news has sunk in, let's contemplate the gorgeous goodies that might make the crossover onto both menus.