When Jeannette Del Angel met Alexandra Dyckman in 2021, she admired her new friend’s intentional approach to their coffee dates. “We were meeting for coffee all the time,” Del Angel reminisced. “I really appreciated how much she enjoyed just slowing down for a moment.”
Originally from Stockholm, Dyckman taught Del Angel about the Swedish tradition of fika (fee-kah). Both a verb and a noun, fika indicates a pause throughout the day to enjoy coffee and something to eat. “It means a lot in just one word,” Del Angel shared. “It reminds me to slow down and appreciate small moments with the people I love.”
Del Angel’s expert confectionary skills have offered sweet, simple pleasures to her native Corpus Christi for years, most recently through her pop-up business Sucré and her involvement in opening Central Kitchen.
“I was wanting to create my own space,” she shared, and Dyckman provided some inspiration: a book called Fika. Flipping through the pages of recipes, Del Angel found herself thinking: “This is what my concept is going to be … because I do this already.”
She had a hunch other people were also taking fika without realizing it, and her pastries could play a role in elevating the coffee break. “I want them to be so distracted by the flavor of the pastry that it becomes a moment for them,” Del Angel shared.
In attempting to craft a memorable fika experience for everyone, Del Angel set sights on the space next to local jewelry shop Lavender+Lee on Alameda. When construction delays arose, crowdfunding from the community actually helped finish the build-out. “A piece of everyone is in this space, and it’s just so amazing to see that it was community-built,” the owner said.
The microbakery handcrafts pastries like the Swedish bun, which resembles a puffy pretzel but tastes like a cinnamon roll imbued with cardamom. “I want it to be very artisan, so someone knows that we took the time to do this for them,” Del Angel shared. She also encourages folks to embrace the full fika slowdown with a pour-over coffee, custom blended by Driftwood Coffee Co. just up the road.
Though she spends half the year in Sweden, Dyckman attended Fika’s soft opening in January. In the whirlwind of well-wishes and open-for-business endeavors, Del Angel found the briefest moment, while coffee brewed, to sit down with her friend.
Fika is now open Wednesday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and if there is a friend you have not seen in far too long, it’s the perfect place to fill your cup.
Contact: 4411 S. Alameda St. | @fika_microbakery
