Kneads Bakeshop & Café continues its carb-fueled takeover of Baltimore’s bread scene.

The fast-growing boutique concept from Baltimore’s H&S Bakery is opening a new branch at the Shops at Canton Crossing this fall. It comes as Kneads is rebooting its pop-up in Locust Point and launching a concept in the Village of Cross Keys this winter. All told, the company will have four retail locations, including its flagship in Harbor East, which opened last year.

The Canton location was previously occupied by Atwater’s. “When we heard the space was available, we jumped right on it,” co-owner Kira Paterakis said in a statement. “After COVID, we find that people are sick of working from home. We encourage those with remote jobs to bring their laptops and stay a while.”

The shop will operate from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and feature coffee from Aveley Farms as well as Wight Tea Co. The owners eventually plan to get a liquor license.

Kneads also runs a pop-up at 838 E. Fort Ave., formerly home to The Local Oyster, which closed down last year. The city’s Health Department shut down the pop-up in August over permitting issues but cleared it to reopen this week. Kira Paterakis said she and her brother, Kneads co-founder Adam Paterakis, are pleased with the success of the café in South Baltimore and are in talks with the building’s owners to come up with a longer-term lease.

The siblings say that the expansion of retail shops has happened faster than expected. “These opportunities just kind of fall in our laps,” said Kira, who views them as tools for building Kneads brand awareness throughout the area. All of the baked goods are made at the Harbor East branch, which is 17,000 square feet.

The Kneads’ founders’ father, Bill Paterakis, heads up H&S Bakery. The larger family has deep roots and influence in the area — Bill’s own father, John, the longtime head of H&S, spearheaded the redevelopment of Harbor East. And Kira and Adam’s cousins, Alex and Eric Smith, founded the Atlas Restaurant Group, which owns more than a dozen eateries in the neighborhood and many in other parts of the city and state. In addition to her role at Kneads, Kira is a leasing and special projects manager at Harbor East Management Group.

Over time, Kneads has distinguished itself from Atlas by focusing on casual diners and families. “We are like kids central on the weekends,” Kira said of the Harbor East eatery. “There’s strollers everywhere.” Both Kira and Adam have young children and are conscious of ways to accommodate them at restaurants. An extensive dessert menu features house-made gelatos as well as a kid-friendly edible cookie “shot” with milk in it (an adult version comes with a White Russian).

Kneads featured a more elevated menu when it first opened, but the owners have since gone in a more approachable direction. “We’re not going to take people away from going to Tag[liata] and Monarque and all these amazing places,” in the neighborhood, Kira said, referring to the Atlas-owned restaurants next door to Kneads.

And Kneads and Atlas have gone into business together: Last year, Kneads bought Cunningham’s wholesale bakery from Atlas and has since taken over wholesale accounts previously managed by the Towson shop. The transition faced some bumps, with a few customers complaining about quality. Hampden customer The Wine Source scaled back from daily deliveries to two per week.

Adam said the quality issues came up during a two-week period but have since been resolved. “The very same individuals that were making baguettes at Cunningham’s are still making baguettes for Kneads,” he said.

Kneads now supplies wholesale to nearly 100 different clients, with Atlas being their biggest customer.