Owner of Market's Newest, Euro Bakery, Has Paid His Dues

Bari Sinani at his nearly sold out pastry case.

Bari Sinani is ready for Labor Day to be here. That's the day his second Euro Bakery will open in the renovated Roanoke City Market Building and he will be serving his burek (pastry pie) and filled rolls, turnovers, baguettes and bakllava to people who work downtown in Roanoke.

Bari and his wife Elizabeta (he's Albanian, raised in Serbia; she's Bosnian) have operated the bakery at Lamplighter Mall--a thoroughly internationally little strip center on Williamson Road--since November and he says that the experience has made him feel like a full-fledged member of Roanoke's business community, a veteran, as it were.

Bari, dressed in a white shirt, shorts and covered in flour can be found signing in his kitchen at all hours of the day and evening and Elizabeta is there serving up the warm bread with an occasional kid running around the open space of Euro Bakery. It is a warm and inviting place, but the City Market facility will be quite a bit different in tone.

Barry says he's eager for people to buy their burek rolled up instead of as a triangular pie. The burek, which is filled with beef and onion or cottage cheese and spinach, comes from the oven puffed up like a chef's hat, but as it cools, it falls flat and becomes a flake-crusted, goodie-filled lunch item that is marvelous.

Bari's prices (ranging from 50 cents for crescents and pretzels to $14 for a full burek pie which costs $3.50 a slice) are on the under side of reasonable--a deal, in short, and something for the other lunch vendors on the Market to watch for pricing.

Bari's bakery is one of four food businesses signed up so far for the market building. Leasing agent Roger Elkins of Hall Associates says about 20 businesses have applied for spots (Barri says it's more than 60) and that Roger will release some more signees in the coming days.

So far Hong Kong restaurant, New York Subs and All Sports Cafe are in. Bari says the paperwork has been exhaustive, but he loves the quality control that will be exerted by Hall Associates. It will be clean, he emphasizes, "and that is very, very important."