LAUREN IBANEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
Ammy Sanchez speaks with Miriam Bettant who runs a French bakery with her husband in South Beach. Though the space faces upheaval she’s determined to remain in an area she loves.
A South Beach staple French bakery may be relocating later this year
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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Miriam Bettant and I work at Bettant Bakery and Café on South Beach.
Sound from the store is played where a worker greets a customer and asks them how they are doing.
I was born in Suriname in Dutch Guyana and I grew up there for a few years and then I moved to Miami with my mom. And we already had family living here because my mom is half Puerto Rican, half Dutch.
We were here for a few years, and then my mother met a French man, so we moved to France when I was eight, nine years old. I went to an international school and that’s where I met my husband.
So he wasn’t quite sure of what he wanted to do for his life, but he’s a fourth-generation baker and he thought, why not continue the legacy? So we wanted to find a location that would work well for a family. Cause at that point we already had probably one or two out of our three kids. So we were wondering where could it work out well with kids for our business to be able to flourish and for us to have a nice lifestyle?
We checked around our city in France and we just didn’t feel it.
And Miami really became the first choice for us, especially since we also have family here, because that’s also reassuring if you’re moving around with kids.
When I moved here as a young adult, things were extremely different from now. Unrecognizable. Miami did not have all of this construction and it was not this busy, and it was a lot less hustle and bustle. I think there are beautiful things that happened for my family and myself here.
What it means to be a Floridian for us also means living in the sun all year long. We get to have kids who play outside. Our kids are homeschooled. We’re nearby the beach. We get to do field trips to museums.
The bakery is located in the heart of South Beach. It’s actually called the Entertainment District. And it’s quite lovely when you look around with all of the beautiful art deco style mid-century buildings that are very specific to this area.
So we get people from Europe, from Asia, from South America. We have the snowbirds who come from Canada as well. And we can also expose our kids to all of this eclectic movement.
When we open, the girls come here a little earlier and they start setting up. The back has started a few hours before and then we start the bake.
Sound of two workers preparing the dough in the back of the bakery while they talk and laugh.
And then we start dividing and packing for the different locations, and then they start the delivery. The bakery delivers to a lot of locations, ’cause that’s, you know, the, the most of our, of our business. So it’s two, it’s really two different worlds here as well.
Sound of a Bettant Bakery worker using the blender.
Our landlord is the museum, the Wolfsonian FIU and we surprisingly read an article in the Miami Herald about our current location being demolished for a rebuild of state-of-the-art classrooms and the museum expanding. So it was kind of a bittersweet feeling, only because the project is so lovely and that we know it’s gonna really better the area.
However, it kind of impacts us in a challenging way because we now have to move.
Once they’re done, we’re hoping to move back here. We couldn’t just drop the bakery. This is really something that we’ve worked hard for and we didn’t wanna lose it.
My husband and I both traveled a lot throughout the world and we really wanted to end up somewhere where we could have a mixture of cultures, and that’s really what Miami is.
In the middle of the night, workers get to Bettant Bakery to start preparing all of the pastries they’ll be selling throughout the day. Cutting fresh dough and braiding it into challah rolls, or folding it into croissants.
By 7 a.m. the front staff opens up the shop and the espresso machines start up as customers come in to get their breakfast.
A staff member of the Bettant Bakery in South Beach is preparing the dough for the brioche bread on Monday, Jan. 2, 2023.
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
Miriam Bettant and her husband, Matthieu, are the owners of Bettant Bakery—a French bakery in the heart of South Beach, a bustling neighborhood of Miami Beach full of palm trees and art deco buildings from the 1930s and 40s.
“The colors are always lovely,” Miriam Bettant said, looking out the bakery’s storefront window. “The buildings are pale pastel colors.”
This part of South Florida—two blocks from the beach—attracts a lot of tourists and has something for everyone. In the block where the bakery is located there is a mix of businesses including a Turkish restaurant, a gay bar and a Miami souvenir shop.
Miriam Bettant is in charge of the administrative work of the bakery. “Customers that we get are from around the world,” she said. “We get a lot of Europeans during the summer, we get locals from around Miami and all year long we get visitors from South America. We [also] have the snowbirds from Canada.”
The Bettants took over a French bakery that had already been there for 30 years, but added their own touch. There is a small ramp at the entrance that leads to a black-and-white menu board and glass cases containing food and drinks. The bakery is well-lit and has white walls decorated with black-and-white pictures and phrases in French and English like “In bread we trust.”
Bettant Bakery tailors its offerings to adapt to the South Floridians’ taste, as opposed to the French taste, which was their previous clientele. They have baguettes, of course, but they also have danishes with cheese and guava, empanadas, and desserts with dulce de leche (a caramel-type confectionery from Latin America).
Miriam Bettant owns, along with her husband, Matthieu Bettant, the Bettant Bakery in the heart of South Beach, on a block that caters to both locals and international tourists.
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A few of the decorations on a wall of the bakery include books, plants, signs and a frame with the phrase “In bread we trust!” There is also a photograph of a boy and an old man riding a bike through down a road surrounded by trees in France.
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The bakery is a South Beach staple, but they found out through a Miami Herald article that they will likely have to move while their landlord, the Wolfsonian-FIU museum, redevelops the space.
“We first were very concerned and worried,” Miriam Bettant said. “We just started looking for another location because we couldn’t just drop the bakery. This is really something that we’ve worked hard for and we didn’t want to lose it.”
They are looking for areas west of Miami Beach that have warehouses since their business heavily relies on deliveries all the way from downtown Miami to the north in the city of Aventura.
“We obviously want to keep a storefront in South Beach because that’s really ground zero for us,” Miriam Bettant said.
Miriam Bettant has always had a strong connection with Miami. She moved to Miami from Suriname as a young girl with her mother, who is half Puerto Rican and half Dutch.
“Miami did not have all of this construction and it was not this busy. It was a lot less hustle and bustle,” Miriam Bettant said.
When Miriam Bettant was about eight or nine years old, she and her mom moved to France. She attended an international school, where she met Matthieu Bettant, and completed her primary and secondary studies there.
But no matter how much time passed, she always made her way back to South Florida, even if for short ventures.
In 2008, Miriam Bettant came to Miami to participate in a six-month-long hotel marketing internship.
“Miami has a special spot in my heart, I really love this city,” she said. “There are beautiful things that happened for me and my family here.”
After Matthieu Bettant finished his studies, he was ready to take on his family’s legacy of French bakers. But his parents were not ready to pass on the torch just yet.
So the Bettants had to make a big decision: Where would they go as a family that provided a nice lifestyle and opportunities for their bakery business?
“We had to think a little bit outside of the box,” Miriam Bettant said. “We checked around our city—because we’re from Lyon, France—and we looked at different bakeries, different opportunities, and we just didn’t feel it.”
Every day, staff members lay out the dough to make kouign-amann (a butter cake) at Bettant Bakery, located in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach.
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Babka is a sweet braided bread topped and filled with chocolate that Bettant Bakery sells on its menu.
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A Bettant Bakery worker uses a ruler to size and cut the dough to make chocolate croissants.
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
Two Bettant Bakery workers prepare pastries like chocolate croissants and kouign-amann (a butter cake).
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
A Bettant Bakery staff member is working on a pastry called the kouign-amann (a butter cake).
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
They also traveled to India and China, but no place seemed to be perfect for the job—until Miami came to mind.
“Miami obviously popped up, especially since we also have family here, because that’s also reassuring if you’re moving around with kids,” Miriam Bettant said. “Having family is always a little bit of a safety net. So we ended up here.”
The Bettants have grown fond of the neighborhood where the bakery is located and want to see it prosper, so they believe the expansion of the Wolfsonian-FIU museum will have a positive impact.
“It’s a beautiful architectural project. It’s a great thing for the city. [It’ll] bring more arts, bring state-of-the-art classrooms. So it’s a very positive thing. However, it kind of impacts us in a challenging way because we now have to move.”
And though the future location remains uncertain, one thing they know for sure is they want to stay in the same neighborhood.
“For us, it’s really our lifestyle. The bakery is not so much just a job or something that we come to and then we go home,” Miriam Bettant said. “It’s kind of a bittersweet feeling to know that they’re going to expand.”
The French bakery is located on Washington Avenue in South Beach and is open every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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A worker places a tray with challah bread into a machine that controls the humidity and temperature levels.
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
Challah bread sits in metal trays before the staff sprays butter and adds sesame seeds to them.
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO
AMMY SANCHEZ / NEXTGENRADIO