Overbrook Bakery & Cafe'

The Overbrook Bakery & Café in the Overbrook Conference Center is a WEST Philadelphia Institution. For over fifteen years this bakery has based its success on high quality products and specialized service. The Overbrook Café is patterned on “Oldenburg’s third place” model (the first place being the home and the second being work).  The third place is a distinctive informal gathering place that makes customers feels at home, they nourish relationships and the diversity of human expression.

There are essential ingredients to a well-functioning third place environment. They must be free or inexpensive to enter, and quality food and drinks can be purchased within. They must be highly accessible to neighborhoods so that customers find it easy to make the place a regular part of their routine- in other words, people should be able to comfortably walk to the third place from home.

The place should be where a person goes on a regular daily basis. It should be a place where a person feels welcome and comfortable, and where it is easy to enter into conversation. This place, should allow the persons who goes there to be able to find both old and new friends each time he or she goes there. This place, the “third place” is the Overbrook Café & Bakery!