The early birds get the biscuits at ButterPunk. The new Depot Street coffee shop and bakery held its grand opening on May 10 as part of the upper River Arts District’s RAD Renaissance celebration.
ButterPunk rang the breakfast bell two hours before the festival’s 10 a.m. kickoff — good news for the people at the door eager to get their hands on one of pastry chef Beth Kellerhals’ butter bomb biscuits, made famous during her four years of residency at local tailgate markets.
Standing at the register was Kellerhals’ partner, friend and fellow pastry chef, Dana Amromin.
“Opening day was a zoo!” recalls Amromin with delight. “People all over the dining room, out the door and down the sidewalk. It was wild.”
By noon, everything was sold out; the second day of business was a repeat of the first.
Kellerhals moved to Asheville in 2019 after attending college in South Carolina, studying abroad in China, then going to pastry school in Chicago, followed by a stint in Los Angeles, where she worked for (now celebrity chefs) Brooke Williamson and Roy Choi. Quite unintentionally, she found her biscuit groove at Smorgasburg open air market in LA and developed a pimento cheese scone with a chef from Raleigh.
Scones and biscuits went on hold when Kellerhals moved to Asheville to help develop French Broad Chocolates’ ice cream program. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she pulled out her specialties and debuted as Good Gravy Bakes in 2021 at the East Asheville Tailgate Market. “I brought everything in packs of four and sold out in half an hour. I didn’t see that coming,” she recalls.
Kellerhals gave Amromin her first job out of Le Cordon Bleu’s pastry program at Williamson’s Beechwood restaurant in 2010. A few years later, Amromin moved to Seattle to run the creamery program for Cupcake Royale, then was pastry sous chef for Rachel Yang’s restaurant group.
Amromin gave Asheville a short whirl in 2022, returned to LA then moved to WNC permanently with partner Leo Zimmer (also a pastry chef) in 2024, finding her sweet spot at Potential New Boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Kellerhals had tired of markets. “I wanted a place where people could come inside, and I could hold their baby,” she says with a laugh.
The place — 372 Depot St. — presented itself in February 2024. She signed the lease in July, Amromin became a partner in August, and they began the buildout shortly before Tropical Storm Helene stepped in. Fortunately, they had not yet installed equipment, decorated or furnished the first-floor space, which took on 5 feet of water when the RAD flooded. After cleanup was completed in January, the team began the transformation
People arriving at ButterPunk are greeted with cheery bursts of color, whimsy and kitsch — “Betsy Johnson was our design North Star,” says Kellerhals. The main room is awash in pink, with nods to Kellerhals’ love for all things Chinese and British, an enormous octopus chandelier strung with paper lan- terns (installed by Zimmer), retro bar stools, wooden chairs sourced from Zambra’s basement (refurbished by Zimmer) and a large community table. A giant pink-framed mirror in the bathroom evokes a portal to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The menu offers four biscuit sandwiches with more to come, while the antique pastry case displays sweet and savory scones, cookies, short- bread, cakes and pies. Kellerhals says the strong coffee program, which features beans from women-owned roasters, was crucial to her vision.
“The day we opened, so many of my market customers came in, and I was teary all day,” she says. “I really feel the love here.”
ButterPunk is at 372 Depot St. Hours are 8 a.m.-2 p.m., Thursday-Monday. Follow ButterPunk at avl.mx/e9k.
