By Laura Walter

My eyes dart from pastry to pastry when I walk into Kaan’s Bakery, a café in downtown Millsboro. Should I order the orange frosted cupcake, or a sprinkled cake pop? The classic cronut, or the chocolate hazelnut croissant?

My eyes have gotten too big, and the clerk loads my plate with about six pastries from the glass case. Two cups of coffee will follow.

Kaan’s is behind the Millsboro town hall, a few blocks from U.S. Route 113 and DE Route 24. Although it’s a nice day on the patio, I choose a two-top by the window, and the breeze tempers the heat of oncoming summer. Two aquariums are full of fish, tiny orange and black creatures who swim laps during a calm hour between breakfast and lunch.

Two ladies enter, and it’s clearly not their first time meeting for coffee and pastries. The clerk—this is Mina Pomakoglu, mother of Kaan, who loves baking the pastries herself—knows that these women want walnut-covered sticky buns as soon as they arrive. She pulls chunks of it from a giant wheel of sticky bun at the counter.

Mina returns to ask if I’d like to try Turkish coffee (yes, please!). She brings a small, pretty saucer of coffee – so thick and rich, served with square flour cookies that soak up the brew, plus two Turkish candies (jellied fruit with a chunk of pistachio).

“Yum,” I actually mumble to myself. It’s a warm feeling.

The baklava has honeyed layers of phyllo dough and nuts. The spinach and feta savory has a surprisingly smooth filling under a buttery lattice. The oven timer rings for several loaves of Italian and rye bread.

“In our tradition, Turkish people love food,” said owner Kaan Pomakoglu. He and his family opened this spot two years ago. There are a lot of prepackaged options in this world, so Pomakoglu focuses on homemade sweets, bread and sandwiches for local customers to enjoy.

“That’s my main thing. If I don’t like something that I make, then I don’t sell it. If I like it, everybody likes it … I want to make people happy.” He joked that tends to eat the parfait-like magnolia cups before they can even sell.

Then the two ladies get up—but not to leave. They’re just refilling coffee at the self-serve station before they continue chatting at a table nearby.

“We always come here when we go shopping at Lowe’s [a few miles away]. It’s like a code now! ‘You wanna go to Lowe’s?’ really means coming here,” they say.

As a non-morning person who usually wants coffee and pastry as an afternoon snack, I am greedily grateful that Kaan’s is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Millsboro. I could grab a dinner baguette, or have a 3 p.m. caffeine break to push through my work deadlines.

Cakes are also a big business, both fresh from the case or special-ordered. Patrons can also nosh on breakfast sandwiches, plus the weekend breakfast buffet. Pizza will be coming this summer.

Find Kaan’s Bakery at 314 Wilson Highway in Millsboro, Del., with a second location at 33 Wilmington Avenue in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and www.kaanbakery.com.

Bay to the Beach: Byways is a regular column in which we explore interesting places and projects on the Delmarva Peninsula. Videos and more photos at baytobaynews.com/bay-to-the-beach-byways.