Following the announcement of Potts Point eatery Paper Bird’s impending closure on August 3 comes the news that the space it occupies is going to be quickly filled. Starting mid to late August, Bourke Street Bakery – which operated in the space before Paper Bird moved in in 2017 – is going to be selling its lamb sausage rolls, ginger brûlée tarts and sourdough loaves once again in the bunker-like room.

“Because it wasn’t going well for Paper Bird and we’re responsible for the lease, we thought we’d take it back over,” Bourke Street Bakery co-owner David McGuinness tells Broadsheet. “A lot of restaurants in that area have closed recently, and from what I’ve been told they’ve got lines out the door on Friday and Saturday nights, but on weekdays there’s nobody around.”

On weekdays during the day it’ll operate as an outpost of Bourke Street Bakery in the same mould as its sister venues across Sydney, but there’s a plan to open a restaurant-style eatery Thursday to Saturday nights further down the track. McGuinness says it’ll be in a similar vein to Bourke Street Bakery After Hours, which was in the same location several years back and served European-style dishes and wine at night.

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“It’ll be an extension of the bakery, with bistro-ish food like great venison pies – bakery food, but elevated,” he says, adding that it’s still very much a bunch of ideas and there’s no chef lined up, and no concrete date for the restaurant’s opening.

“[BSB] After Hours traded well last time, but we [he and co-owner Paul Allam] were still very hands-on with the bakery, we were still baking at 4am then finishing at the restaurant at midnight,” he says. “Now I’m not as hands-on at the bakery, I do have the time to put into the restaurant.

“We just need to get the bread racks in. Just roll those in, give it a coat of paint – one coat of paint – and put up the old logos.”

Bourke Street Bakery is slated to re-open at 46a Macleay Street, Potts Point in mid to late August.