• Courtesy Of Piper Patterson
• From left: Andrew Sepic, Nicole Grinstead and Chris Johnson of Nomad Coffee

Seven years after opening their first mobile café in Essex Junction's Five Corners, Nomad Coffee owners Nicole Grinstead and Andrew Sepic are selling their shops. Nomad's head baker, Chris Johnson — who has built a following for his croissants and kouign amanns over the past two years — will buy the biz at the end of October. This winter, Johnson plans to add a bakery on Burlington's Church Street Marketplace.

The sale, for an undisclosed price, includes Nomad's existing brick-and-mortar locations in Burlington's South End and Essex Junction and a seasonal pop-up at Sugarbush resort. The new bakery will occupy 140 1/2 Church Street, the longtime home of the Red Onion Café until that business moved to Charlotte in 2020.

"My bakery dreams dough come true," Johnson said with a laugh. "It'll let us do more production for all our locations, so we can have more consistent offerings and more of the things I've been really hoping to bring to Burlington."

• Courtesy
• Nomad Coffee's kouign amann pastry filled with housemade coffee semifreddo

Those new items might include "sweet classics" such as caramel-Twix brownies and savory treats such as breakfast sandwiches on pretzel brioche buns, Jamaican beef patty-inspired croissants and a bacon version of Nomad's breakfast pop-tart, he said.

Johnson came to Nomad in August 2021 from New York City, where he honed his pastry skills working for Dominique Ansel and Thomas Keller. He'll have support running the coffee side of the business from Nomad's roasting partner, Brio Coffeeworks; Brio owners Magda and Nate Van Dusen now have a small ownership stake in Nomad, Johnson said.

Grinstead and Sepic will remain in the area, pursuing work opportunities outside the food and beverage world as they prepare to welcome their first child in December, Grinstead told Seven Days. She's most proud of the relationships they've built with employees during their tenure, she said, and happy that Johnson has stepped up to continue and grow the brand.

"This was our baby for the past seven years, but we're ready to scale back and be more family focused," Sepic added. "The thought of a Nomad Coffee on Church Street is really exciting — and we don't even have to be involved."