Tartine co-founder Chad Robertson opens Altbau, a 7,500-square-foot bakery in Williamsburg, on Thursday

One of the most anticipated bakery openings of the year arrives this week. Altbau, the first New York project from Chad Robertson, the co-founder of San Francisco's Tartine, is set to open Thursday, Oct. 29, at 184 N. 8th St. in Williamsburg, Grub Street reported Tuesday.

Robertson, a James Beard Award winner, moved to New York this year to build the bakery, according to an earlier Grub Street profile. The 7,500-square-foot building, just off Bedford Avenue, was a warehouse that previously housed a martial arts academy, Greenpointers reported. The name is German for "old building."

What's on the counter

Customers enter at the end of a long alleyway designed to pull the expected line off the sidewalk and past windows into the bread and prep rooms. The bread program covers baguettes, sourdough and rye that use West Coast grain varieties as well as einkorn, spelt and rouge de Bordeaux wheat. Pastries come from chef Wei Si Phua, who previously worked at Radio Bakery, according to Grub Street. Planned items include:

• cinnamon rolls, apple turnovers and buckwheat financiers;
• a twice-baked chocolate-banana pecan croissant, a cheesecake-filled croissant and an "everything" croissant with chive cream cheese;
• a buckwheat-einkorn chocolate cookie and an olive oil sandwich bread.

Coffee comes from Condor Coffee in Wisconsin. Flour will initially come from suppliers including Brooklyn Granary and Cairnspring Mills, but the team plans to mill its own grain, including einkorn, on a stone mill in a glass-walled room on the second floor.

An upstairs hangout, but no Wi-Fi

Upstairs is a seating area with a small library of books and magazines and vintage hi-fi speakers. The space can hold 150 people and has its own kitchen with a pizza oven, which the team wants to use for classes, tastings and pop-ups; the bakery has a liquor license. Its first pop-up, with Copenhagen's Atelier September on Nov. 7 and 8, is already sold out. The Infatuation, which flagged the project in September, described a cafe on the ground floor and an events space upstairs.

Jake Israel, a real estate developer and one of Robertson's partners, told Grub Street the goal is eventually to stay open until 9 or 10 p.m. on weekdays and until 2 a.m. on weekends. Altbau has not yet published opening hours; its website lists the North 8th Street address and the Instagram account @altbaubakery.