This could also be called why your kids’ weekend soccer (hockey, chess, fencing……whatever) games don’t have to completely ruin your life because my kids’ soccer is the reason that we found Touba Bakery in the first place. We usually find out the week of the game where our game is and what time it will be. We have games on Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes we’ll have a Saturday soccer game in Olympia and a Sunday one in Everett and we end up all over Washington in the span of 48 hours. So I’ve made it a habit now to use Google Maps to find bakeries and coffee shops within a 5-10 minute drive of where our games are so that at least if we’re driving to places we don’t usually go to, at least we get to really experience the places that we visit. While the kids are doing their pre-game warmup, the hubby and I grab warm drinks and snacks or lunch and then it’s more like a date than a weekend inconvenience. Lately we’ve found some really cool places like Touba Bakery (and Red Arrow Coffee and it’s made us a lot more excited for soccer weekends.
Google Maps search bakeries, coffee, best lunch places near me
When I was looking for places near a soccer field by Paine Field Airport I happened upon Touba Bakery. At the time I looked it up, this bakery had over 140 reviews on Google Maps and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a place that gets that many reviews and still gets a perfect 5. Even if you were trying to enhance your own ratings and had all your friends write the reviews, I think it would be pretty hard to find 140 people to write them and then still not have a stranger give a score below a 5. So seeing this perfect score on google maps made me want to visit this bakery even more.
And Touba Bakery is such a delight, it really is 5 star
When I arrived at the little shopping complex where you can find Touba Bakery there were already a few people inside ordering. There was ample parking. And a local coffee store owner came in after me to pick up two big boxes of pastries as well. While he was picking up his order, a smiling, animated person I assumed was the Touba Bakery owner came out and started chatting with him, offering him coffee for his wife, and free breads to take home to his family. All the while, I was being helped by someone else and then this man looked up and offered me a few breads to take home as well before he disappeared back through a curtain to the back room. I asked the person helping me if this was the owner and if he was always this friendly and jovial.
“Yes, always.” she said. And I believe it.
After visiting the bakery, and tasting the delicious pastries at home (we loved the apricot danish especially) I read on the website that the owner Papa Seck who comes from Senegal made this bakery to “make people happy, this is my dream.” Next time my dream is to try the Cafe Touba, the coffee he makes that is spiced with Guinea pepper and I’m thankful that he has created such a beautiful, happy place full of delicious pastries and I hope you get a chance to visit it too.
(PS if you are looking for more Seattle ideas like Coffee Shops or maybe a great Seattle-area place to stay, I have more of these on the blog and you can find out more about me, Terumi, too on my about me page or instagram as well.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)