The ASUO Street Faire has come and gone, and hopefully, you found something new that you want to check out around town. The faire is a great opportunity to discover a restaurant that’s local to Eugene.

This guide will help you if you’re looking for a new spot for pastries, barbecue and even kombucha.

Crema & Bloom bakery

You might have missed Crema and Bloom’s tent at the Street Faire, given that it was set up closer to Allen and the far end near the EMU.

Crema and Bloom is located on Marcola Road in Springfield. Crema and Bloom’s sister company, Sugarmama’s Baking, bakes traditional goods but specializes in kolaches. The kolaches are available at Crema and Bloom.

Originating in the Czech Republic, kolaches can be savory or sweet. Kolaches are a yeast dough recipe and contain different meat or fruit fillings. The sweet kolaches can be bought at Crema and Bloom for $36 for a dozen and $18 for a half dozen. Dozens of the savory will be $54, with half dozens priced at $30.

“The savory ones are basically like pocket sandwiches,” stand representative Anna Hanson said. “There’s bacon, sausage, brisket, and chicken as the options; and the sweet ones, there’s a merry berry, lemon, and apricot.”

The chicken kolache was my personal favorite. The ingredients wrapped in a single piece of folded yeast make it easy to eat on the go. You can’t go wrong with the fruit pastries either, which will pair better with coffee at Crema and Bloom.

Homemade Fried Bread
If you venture down the concourse at Autzen Stadium to the food trucks and vendors, you’ll run into UO alumni Katie Brown’s family-owned stand.

Homemade Fried Bread is known for its “elephant ears” family recipe. ”We make our dough from scratch,” Brown said. “Some elephant ears booths will cook it all ahead and put it under a light, we make it when you order it and top it in front of you.”

Funnel cakes and corn dogs from Homemade Fried Bread are a fun alternative if the Autzen dog isn’t doing it for you, or if you just want to skip the long lines at the student section concession stands.

The Bold Flavor

Eugene has a few good barbecue spots, with restaurants like Bill & Tim’s and Hole in the Wall BBQ being popular for catered events.

The Bold Flavor brings a Créole twist to barbecue classics. Owner Johnny Jean Louis said he is passionate about bringing Haitian influence to the brisket, the kitchen’s benchmark.

“We are a slow process, how you cook our food,” Jean Louis said. The Bold Flavor uses a Haitian paste, called the epis, to marinate the brisket.

The Bold Flavor can be found at the Eugene Saturday market, which offers live music, food carts and local handmade goods. Grabbing a serving of brisket while listening to a local band is a must-try for a fall Saturday.

BNF Kombucha

If you’re looking for a way to kick-start a new health regimen, look no further than BNF Kombucha. BNF has been in town for ten years and is Eugene’s exclusive taproom.

BNF is sold at the Eugene farmers market, as well as in grocery stores like Whole Foods and Market of Choice.

I sampled the Raspberry Reishi, which is a whole lot lighter than traditional kombucha. “The [Raspberry Reishi] is actually a Jun, so it’s sweetened and fermented with honey, rather than organic cane sugar,” Troy Keys, retail manager at BNF, said.

BNF also has three flavors of a unique energy kombucha made with a Mate base and extract. Keys says the energy kombucha is a good alternative to energy drinks.

If you’ve never tried kombucha before, go for a Jun, which is often called kombucha’s classier cousin. It’s less bitter,as it’s made with green tea and honey instead of black tea and cane sugar.

There are tons of great local spots around Eugene for all different palates. But if you need somewhere to start, these are solid places to check out.