Spokane native Lynette Pflueger is preparing to open Fireweed Baking Co. LLC, a seasonal bakery located inside The Dormitory building at 1516 W. Riverside, on the edge of Spokane’s Browne's Addition neighborhood.

For Pflueger, the bakery is about more than food. She envisions a space where seasonal ingredients, foraged finds, and house-made treats are paired with connection and conversation, creating a hands-on experience for her customers while celebrating Spokane’s culinary community, she says.

Fireweed Baking Co. is scheduled to open this month, with a grand opening planned for Bloomsday weekend.

The business will offer breakfast and lunch items alongside fresh breads, cookies, and grazing boards. Additionally, the eatery will have a small selection of packaged, house-made goods such as granola and spiced nuts. A tea program also will be offered. 

Rather than a fixed menu, Fireweed Baking Co. will shift its menu with availability, drawing from both curated and foraged ingredients and reflecting what is in season at any given time. An emphasis on guest interaction will shape how customers will experience the menu. 

“I hope that I can build an environment that makes it feel like we value the interaction over the transaction, so when people walk through the door, I expect to make a connection, not just serve you your cookie,” she says.

The bakery has the capacity to seat about 20 patrons and is designed to accommodate both quick visits and longer stays, while also leaving room for future expanded programming such as small dinners or events.

“I hope that people can trust us enough to come in and know that they might not find what they had last time but they are going to find something delicious and we should be able to steer them in the direction of that by picking up on moods and vibes or having a conversation,” Pflueger says.

Before securing a permanent space, Pflueger operated out of a rented commercial kitchen and sold products at local markets, an approach she says was difficult to sustain long term.

“I started with renting a commercial kitchen space and I did the winter market. I was like, I need a home, I cannot do this commercial kitchen thing, and so I am really glad to be here,” she says.

Both her business and Fireweed's menu are shaped by a career that spans more than two decades and multiple types of kitchens, but also by time spent outside of them. Pflueger began professional baking in 2004, completing culinary training in California, and worked across restaurants, hotels, and small businesses before returning to Spokane. 

In recent years, her focus has shifted toward food systems work through the Spokane Tribal Network, where she helped build a food sovereignty program centered on growing, teaching, and sourcing food locally.

“I got to spend a lot of time learning about what we can forage for in the wild, so I plan to bring as much of that into my business as I can and the menu will feature ingredients that can be foraged from the wild, such as nettles in the spring,” Pflueger says.

Fireweed Baking Co. also marks Pflueger’s return to Spokane’s food community.

“I am from Spokane. My parents raised me and my siblings here just across the river in West Central and now I live just down the hill in Peaceful Valley. So, this location is ideal for me. I had my eyes on it for a long time and everything just worked out kind of perfectly,” she says.

The idea to open a bakery was sparked early on for Pflueger, she recalls, explaining that late one night in her childhood kitchen, she worked beside her father moving trays of cookies from oven to cooling rack as he baked batch after batch.

“I was taking them off the trays and putting them on the cooling rack and he said, ‘Wow we could open a cookie shop,’ and ...  just a spark in my mind went off because I never thought of that. So that was a big moment in my life when I first thought about baking for a living,” Pflueger says.

That spark stayed with her through culinary school and years in professional kitchens across the country.

“I’m really excited to be connected again. I spent the last three years at the nonprofit, and before that, right through COVID, I worked at Spiceology selling spices to chefs. It’s been a while since I was working in a kitchen, and so many local chefs have reached out to say, ‘Let us know how we can help.’ In the past, I helped put on Chef’s Week at Sante Restaurant and Common Crumb Bakery, and I’d love to do something like that again,” Pflueger says.