Tonya's Cafe & Bake Shop
Bakery, Cafe, Restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC
- Address
- 400 S Elliott Rd C, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514
- Phone
- (919) 903-8087
- Website
- tonyascookies.com
About Tonya's Cafe & Bake Shop
Tonya’s Cafe & Bake Shop at 400 S Elliott Road in Chapel Hill is three businesses under one roof: a Southern cafe, a bake shop counter, and Tonya’s Cookies, which ships nationwide. The cafe serves breakfast 9am–11:30am and the main menu after that for lunch and early dinner, Tuesday to Saturday, with a Sunday brunch service where both menus run. The menu changes regularly, but recurring favourites include a Cornbread Flight appetiser, a Chicken Fried Steak Sandwich, and entrées such as Fried Catfish and Chicken and Pastries, with banana pudding and pecan pie among the desserts. The bake shop is where the prices are fixed. Whole cakes run $65–$150 depending on size — caramel, carrot, red velvet, chocolate, yellow with chocolate frosting, pumpkin with cream cheese frosting, raspberry pistachio and a Snickers cake — and the Cream Cheese Pound Cake is $75. Pies are $30–$37: sweet potato, pecan, chocolate pecan ($32), chocolate chess, apple, key lime, coconut custard, pumpkin and cherry ($37). Cookies are $45 a batch (chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia, cranberry white chocolate, and a sampler), with the Pecan Crisps — the cookie Tonya invented — sold as $24 pairs, $35 gift tins, $38 mini trios and $43 large jars. Peanut and pecan brittle are $14.99 each, or $30 as the Old Fashion Brittle Duo. Gift boxes run $57 for the Southern Snack Box, $89 for the Tar Heel Gift Box and $120 for the Southern Charm Gift Box, and brunch boxes are $75 for two or $125 for four. Gift cards are $25–$150. The Cream Cheese Pound Cake is one of Oprah’s Favorite Things. Pre-order desserts are ready for pickup in the bake shop in 48 hours, or shipped nationwide, and the shop caters events of any size. Open Tuesday to Saturday 9am–6pm and Sunday 9am–2pm; closed Monday.
Tonya’s Cafe & Bake Shop is the third generation of a Chapel Hill food family. Tonya Council is the granddaughter of Mildred “Mama Dip” Council, whose restaurant Mama Dip’s made her a pillar of Southern cooking in North Carolina, and Tonya grew up in that kitchen — first cracking pecans for her grandmother’s pies at the fireplace, later waiting tables and experimenting with recipes of her own between orders. The Pecan Crisp is the cookie that started the business. Tonya was trying to make something that tasted like her grandmother’s pecan pie and got it wrong about a hundred times; she was carrying a failed batch to the bin when her mother stopped her, tasted one, and told her to put them in the display case. The first customer to ask about them bought two. Her grandmother’s verdict — “Tonya, I think you’ve got something here” — was the one that counted. The business now spans a Southern cafe serving breakfast, lunch, early dinner and Sunday brunch; a bake shop counter for pickup and custom orders; and Tonya’s Cookies, shipped nationwide. Her Cream Cheese Pound Cake was named one of Oprah’s Favorite Things, and is also sold at Sweet Tea & Cornbread in Raleigh.
Services
- Cafe lunch and early dinner
- Custom cake and pie orders
- Dessert pre-orders for pickup
- Nationwide cookie shipping
- Weekend brunch
Photos
