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We both have ADHD so, if you decide to read this, you will be taken on our mental side quests - or you can read the last paragraph. Short & sweet doesn't exist here.
Once a one-off bagel pop-up (a fun but short-term venture), the biscuit iteration of Tall Poppy kicked off in 2021 when two industry chicks needed extra income to get by during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
We (Sarah Thompson & Andy Donaldson) met while working at Bloomsday Cafe in Headhouse Square in 2019. Andy, clocking in, as I was having my shift drink (probably coffee tbh) after working in the basement kitchen aka meat & pastry dungeon. Not a few months later and the pandemic hit, throwing the restaurant world into pure chaos.
Fast-forward through the pure terror of a rapidly spreading deadly virus, buying the 12 in commercial toilet paper rolls at Hoa Binh Plaza (RIP - closed and demolished for NO reason), stimulus checks, side jobs packing orders for Philly Foodworks and a brief stint working at a restaurant in the Catskills (because, no, I did not get the unemployment supplemental income and was an "essential worker"), - I ended the summer of 2020 incredibly burnt out and needing literally anything to remind me that I do like food and want to remain in this industry. Andy was meanwhile also still working the skeleton crew of the restaurant doing take-out orders and helping with mutual aid projects in the city.
We reunited and commiserated about wanting to a creative outlet where we could use our varied skills and make our own food. Plus we needed money, dog. Thus Tall Poppy was resurrected and transformed into a biscuit pop-up. For the love of all things breakfast!
I, with my biscuit-making and butchery experience, and Andy, with her passion for canning, jamming, and kicking ass on a breakfast line, joined forces and the rest is history.
We've been off and on since 2021 - I f*cked around and got the desk job I'd been dreaming of (no-college-degree-gang rise up), and Andy dove into multiple restaurant ventures - now we're finally ready to have our own space, at least part-time for the foreseeable future (I'm now praying to get laid off from said dream desk job that's shifted to all-AI-everything).
We hope you come hang and eat biscuits!
Press
https://www.phillymag.com/best-of-philly-archive/tall-poppy/
https://www.phillymag.com/restaurants/2020/11/23/spotted-lanternfly-honey-pennsylvania