Pistacia Vera

Pistacia Vera began in 2004 as Pistachio, a patisserie opened in Columbus' Short North Arts District by siblings Spencer Budros and Anne Fletcher, who paired his training as a pastry chef in Scottsdale, Arizona with her background in financial planning and investment management. After three years in Short North, they moved the business to German Village in 2007 and renamed it Pistacia Vera. The German Village building carries its own local history: it originally housed Reiner's Bakery, opened in 1930 by German immigrant Gottlieb "George" Reiner, and later became Tom Thurn Foods, a neighborhood fixture from 1974 to 2004. The siblings restored the building and pastry kitchen, work that earned an American Institute of Architects merit award in 2008. That restoration underpins the current shop's daily routine: French macarons, laminated pastries and plated desserts made on the premises each morning, served alongside breakfast, lunch and house coffee from 7am to 5pm. The throughline from Reiner's 1930 bakery to today's patisserie means Pistacia Vera occupies a building that has served baked goods to the same block of German Village for close to a century, under three different names and owners.