This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
Sandwich options include, from top left, a BLT&A, turkey pesto, chicken salad and a chicken milanesa torta at Pan & Coffee, a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
A chicken milanesa torta includes breaded chicken breast, avocado and refried beans on a fresh baguette at Pan & Coffee, a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
A chicken salad sandwich comes with avocados, dried cranberries and toasted pecans on a house-baked baguette at Pan & Coffee, a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
Pastry options include an almond amaretto concha, foreground, a croissant and an apple danish at Pan & Coffee, a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
The menu at Pan & Coffee
The menu at Pan & Coffee
The genesis of Pan & Coffee goes something like that old storybook “The King, the Mice and the Cheese,” in which the the remedy to a mouse invasion begets a cat infestation which begets an overflow of dogs and so on up the food chain.
The Pan & Coffee tale began when Laura Lawitz and her daughter Andrea Rodriguez and Andrea’s husband Roberto Rodriguez opened the Stone Oak shop a year ago, planning to concentrate on mountain-grown coffee from Chiapas, Mexico.
But then they needed something to go with that coffee, and so they added the bakery component. But now that they had the bakery, there was all this bread. And here we are at sandwiches.
Pan & Coffee is a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
Pan & Coffee does a pretty solid job with all three, moving with grace from coffee creations like a sweet concha latte with pastry crumbles to baked goods such as an almond amaretto concha that behaves like a lush morning coffee cake to sandwiches that incorporate baguettes, brioche and even focaccia bread decorated with cherry tomatoes and rosemary.
On ExpressNews.com: Get a great Cuban sandwich at Bilia Eatery & Coffee in Castle Hills
It all happens in a towering corner space laid out like a spread in a home-decor magazine, encompassing tall ceilings with parallel slats of honeyed wood, tiers of display cases filled with croissants, cinnamon rolls and conchas and a towering glass foyer set aglow with green lights radiating through a lattice wall made of rolling pins.
The turkey pesto sandwich includes roasted turkey, basil pesto and mozzarella cheese on tomato-and-rosemary focaccia bread at Pan & Coffee, a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
Best sandwich: Every Thanksgiving, I wonder why I don’t eat roasted turkey all year long. It’s because I forget how much better real roasted turkey tastes than the homogenous slices of deli turkey I settle for during all the months that aren’t November. Pan & Coffee understands me, and the turkey pesto sandwich ($13 with a side salad) is proof.
Laid out in thick, irregular slices, the turkey bounced and glowed with the juice and resilience of freshly roasted bird, layered with melted mozzarella and an aromatic housemade basil pesto, built on soft rosemary focaccia bread with baked-in slices of tomato arranged like ornaments over the top.
On ExpressNews.com: Review: Frida Mexican Restaurant & Bar in Stone Oak among San Antonio’s worst Mexican restaurants
Other sandwiches: Pan & Coffee knows its way around a baguette, baking long, light loaves with a stout, toasted crust and fluffy, air-pocket interiors, the kind of bread capable of handling generous scoops of chicken salad that’s given sweetness and texture by mayonnaise, dried cranberries and toasted pecans ($12 with potato chips).
The baguette’s infrastructure was sturdy enough to easily handle a chicken milanesa torta ($14 with chips or salad) with a lightly fried chicken breast pounded thin but still firm to the bite. It was stacked with layers of avocado, salsa fresca and refried beans, each lending its own measure of earthiness, creaminess and sharpness for a well-balanced Mexican-style sandwich.
The BLT&A sandwich includes bacon, roast beef and avocado on freshly baked brioche bread at Pan & Coffee, a bakery, sandwich shop and coffee shop in Stone Oak.
Toasted — overtoasted, in a few spots — brioche bread laid the foundation for a different take on a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich, this one adding slices of roast beef and avocado to the mix. The beauty of a BLT is the smoke, fat and crispiness of bacon playing against cool veggies. This sandwich ($13.50) lost some of that simple charm, with the beef and avocado forging a bland middle ground that took away from the sandwich’s usual yin-and-yang contrast. In the quest to become more, it became less.
Location: 19298 Stone Oak Parkway, Suite 1101, 210-756-7312; panandcoffeeusa.com
Hours: 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday; 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
Mike Sutter is the Express-News restaurant critic. Before joining the Taste Team in 2016, he served as restaurant critic for the Austin American-Statesman and editor of FedManWalking.com. He's appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered," ABC's "To Tell the Truth" and written for The Guardian, Bon Appetit and The Wall Street Journal.