Andrew Peters

It’s opening weekend in early November at Marble City Market and a hungry crowd fills the newly opened food hall, eager to try some new and familiar Knoxville restaurants.

The smells of pizza, fresh baked cookies and sandwiches are emphasized in every corridor of the food hall.

Nestled into one of the stalls of Marble City is Paysan Sandwiches, a specialty sandwich shop with lunch and dinner offerings.

Blake Sallie owns Paysan Sandwiches, and he has been up since before the crack of dawn, baking and preparing bread that will soon be the vessels for the sandwiches his restaurant will serve. He wears a flour-covered apron as he makes his way from the kitchen to the front of the food stall to guide his small team through the day.  

Sallie has made a name for himself as a premier baker in Knoxville. Fueled by a love for bread making, Sallie has now turned his passion into a thriving business where he and his team are producing some of the most popular baked goods in Knoxville.

In 2013, Sallie was working as a cook at Dancing Bear Lodge in Townsend, Tennessee. After a fire at the restaurant late in 2013, Sallie and hundreds of others were left without work. That was until Matt Gallaher, owner of Knox Mason, sent out a message on Facebook offering work to those affected by the fire.

Sallie joined the team at Knox Mason as a line cook, serving up southern dishes to the downtown Knoxville area. The Gay Street restaurant was one of Sallie’s first experiences serving Knoxville. It was also where he first got to make bread.

Sallie began making bread for fun at home while working at Knox Mason, not really looking to do anything but enjoy fresh, made-from-scratch bread. His bread making soon turned from a hobby to a job.

“At one point I started baking bread at home and they were like ‘why don’t you bake bread here?’ so, I was cooking there and then I started baking the bread,” Sallie said.

Sallie also began baking bread at Emilia, an Italian restaurant in Market Square.

Now making loaves and artisan bread at a commercial rate, Sallie began to perfect his craft and turn his hobby into a living wage.

Sallie’s passion for bread making continued to grow and he soon shifted his focus from making bread just for restaurants to making bread for the public.

“I really started enjoying baking and I wanted to pursue it a little more,” Sallie said. “I started to rent a commissary kitchen and started to sell bread at the farmer’s market and that started doing really well.”

As Sallie baked more and more, the idea of a brick-and-mortar location became more realistic. Sallie began experimenting with bagels, and when the time came to open a new location, he knew bagels were the way to go, as north Knoxville lacked many bagel options.

“During that process we started messing around with bagels and we were like ‘well, let’s open a bagel shop,’” Sallie said.

Sallie’s bagel recipe wasn’t perfected overnight. Months of experimenting went into finding the right recipe.

“He tinkered with it quietly for months and wouldn’t let me try it,” Gallaher said. “I remember it was Valentine’s Day and he showed up at Knox Mason with a little paper bag of bagels and he was like ‘I think these are good,’ and I toasted one up and knew immediately it was excellent.”

Gallaher and Sallie combined a business mind with a baker’s skill to form Paysan Bread and Bagels in 2018, five years after Sallie got his start in the baking game.

The location for Paysan Bread and Bagels was strategic. It is located in the heart of north Knoxville off Central Avenue, next to Remedy Coffee. The quaint shop is no bigger than a classroom and offers just about any bagel option one could ask for as well as bagel sandwiches.

The Paysan and Remedy duo has been beneficial for both parties, as many patrons of Paysan will stop in Remedy for a cup of coffee, and people meeting or studying at Remedy will go next door for a bagel.

The relationship between the two is a great business plan that has blossomed into a friendship.

“We love our relationship with Remedy,” Sallie said. “I was in the other day, on a Saturday morning, and I was running around, and they set a jug of coffee on my car hood for me to take with me. That’s just an awesome relationship.”

While Paysan only sold bagels out of its new location, it also continued to be the bread supplier for many local restaurants, like Knox Mason, Emilia and more.

Through serving the north Knoxville community with his bagels and providing bread to Knoxville restaurants, Sallie established himself and his restaurant as a Knoxville staple.

In early 2020, it was announced to the public that a food hall was coming to the Old City. Gallaher, being a premier chef in Knoxville, was given the opportunity to own a few stalls. Not only did he have plans for his own restaurant, he also wanted to bring along his long-time business partner Sallie.

The question for Sallie became, should he continue serving bagels or develop a new concept?

“As much as I love baking – I’m still doing it – I kind of missed cooking, too,” Sallie said. “With the sandwich shop, I can kind of marry the two.”

Sallie decided to combine his two worlds: cooking and baking. The sandwich industry gave him the opportunity to get back to his roots of cooking while also giving him the opportunity to continue baking, as he makes all the bread for his sandwiches.

Long-time Paysan fans were excited to hear the news that their go-to bagel spot was now broadening its horizons.

“I went to Paysan for the first time a few years ago and was immediately excited to have another bagel option in Knoxville,” Paysan patron and UT sophomore Abby Ramsey said. “Now that they’ve expanded and started doing sandwiches, I’m super excited to experience Paysan in another context. They have always had such a welcoming environment.”

The food hall gives Sallie the opportunity to serve sandwiches to Knoxville while being surrounded by other businesses with the same goal of serving Knoxville great food.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever done or seen. Everyone is really sweet,” Sallie said. “It’s very familial feeling; we’re all in it together. Everyone has been very supportive of each other, and we want each other to succeed. That kind of energy keeps you going through all the craziness and exhaustion. At the end of the day everyone is really proud of what we’re doing here.”

Sallie is undoubtedly proud of what Paysan has become, but he also wants to help others around him grow.

Paysan isn’t just about serving bagels and sandwiches, it’s about fostering an environment that sets up his team to succeed by providing leadership opportunities and encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit.

“The bagel shop is small,” Sallie said. “My partner Hannah (Claudio) and some of the other people that work there, they all want to do this as a career, but it’s so small; it’s hard to move up. If we expand, everyone can move up. We all get to grow.”

Sallie has mastered the art of bagels and is on his way to doing the same with sandwiches, but he remains humble throughout his success.

“There’s this quote that’s like ‘move in silence and let your success make all the noise,’” Gallaher said. “Blake kind of embodies that.”

Whether it’s serving up hand crafted bagels or creating new sandwich concepts, Sallie’s end goal remains the same: making fast, good food.

“The bagel shop turned into kind of like a casual, grab and go breakfast place,” Sallie said. “With this, the whole concept is fast, casual offerings that are really good. I love doing that.”