Pelham pastry chef takes over Nashua’s Riverwalk cafe
Life sometimes has a funny way of coming back full circle — at least that’s been the case for Rachel Manelas. The Pelham native and internationally experienced pastry chef frequented downtown Nashua’s Riverwalk Cafe & Music Bar while a student at Bishop Guertin High School, never once thinking she would someday take over the spot as owner.
Earlier this year, after studying abroad in Florence, Italy, and launching her own successful home baking business, Manelas purchased the Nashua storefront from longtime owners Steve and Jane Ruddock. She has big ideas for the storefront — now known as Riverwalk Bakery & Cafe — that will include an expanded focus on scratch-made pastries, as well as future plans for an evening menu, all while continuing to offer fresh breakfast and lunch options and house-roasted coffees. An adjoining space that recently became available will soon be home to a larger kitchen.
“I want it to be the place you go to before you go out,” said Manelas, a baking and pastry arts graduate of Johnson & Wales University who went on to attend Italy’s Florence University of the Arts. “In Italy, there’s a concept that I love that’s called aperitivo, where you can get a drink and a small plate or bite of food in the afternoon, and it’s kind of like a happy hour special. … It also helps people be able to taste things that might be different from what they’d been coming in here for. So my goal is to really try to get into a place where we can do that, and hopefully have more room in the new kitchen for experimentation with different foods and pastries.”
After completing her bachelor’s program a year early, Manelas spent the summer of 2019 in Florence, where she “fell in love” with the country and ended up staying longer than the two months planned. In late February 2020 she flew back home to join her family for a vacation, with the goal to return to Italy a week later — Covid, of course, had other plans.
“They canceled my flight and closed the borders. I had left everything there, my laptop included,” Manelas said. “Five months later I got to go back, but within that time frame, I kind of said, ‘OK, I don’t know when they’re going to open the borders again, I need to do something.’”
Around April 2020, while working as a line cook at Windham Junction, she started an online bakery through Instagram called Life’s What U Bake Of It. That business has since evolved into a website with its own online ordering system for specialty cakes, freshly baked cookies, themed French macarons and more — pickups for all of those items are now available at Riverwalk.
The cafe’s regular breakfast and lunch menus have largely remained the same, though Manelas has added her own items here and there, like a smashed avocado toast on fresh sourdough bread with cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and sunflower seeds. Coffees are still roasted in house every week using an old-school Turkish drum roaster, and Manelas is continuing to build on the pastry side — she recently added cinnamon rolls to the menu on the weekends.
“I would also love [for us] to make our own croissants. I used to make them every day in Italy and they are really, really good when they are made from scratch,” she said.
In late 2019, Riverwalk transitioned away from a ticketed live music venue in favor of a more community-focused coffee house and cocktail bar. Manelas said she plans to carry on that vision — a rotating selection of cocktails is available as part of her aperitivo concept.
“I just want it to be a nice meetup place in a casual setting, because it’s such a part of the culture out in Italy … and that was the culture that I fell in love with,” she said.
Riverwalk Bakery & Cafe
Where: 35 Railroad Square, Nashua
Hours: Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Friday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
More info: Visit riverwalknashua.com, find them on Facebook and Instagram @riverwalknashua or call 578-0200
Featured photo: Photos courtesy of Riverwalk Bakery & Cafe in Nashua.
