For now, Y'ollk Bakery is open Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the owners call that a temporary schedule. That six-hour window is a good way to understand what changed on Ritchie Highway this fall. Three new businesses opened along Route 2 in September. Two of them serve coffee and breakfast-style food, and the third is a personal training studio.

Severna Park's biggest fall Saturday comes this weekend, on October 24. Nearly all of it runs between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., which sits inside the bakery's hours.

Three openings on Route 2 in under a week

The new businesses opened within days of each other, at addresses from 360 to 580 Ritchie Highway.

Toastique, a toast, juice and coffee bar, opened at Park Plaza in mid-September. The Daily Record reported that it planned to open on Saturday, September 19. The Severna Park Voice covered a grand-opening ribbon-cutting on September 18 at 580 Ritchie Highway, Suite K. It's the county's second Toastique, after the one at Annapolis Town Center.

Y'ollk Bakery celebrated its grand opening on September 19 at 489 Ritchie Highway, Suite 101.

Foundation Fitness held its grand opening on September 24 at 360 Ritchie Highway, Suite 348a. It offers one-on-one and small-group personal training, the Severna Park Voice reported.

All three are daytime businesses: a café, a bakery and a training studio. All three opened in the four weeks before the fall event calendar fills up.

A bakery built around the morning

Y'ollk is the newcomer with the most to say about itself. Owners Marie Cris Garay and Basaran "Bas" Mulgan met while working at a catering company. Garay got her start in a baking and pastry class at Anne Arundel Community College. Mulgan is a chef who worked at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman. The two develop the menu together, and Mulgan told the paper Garay is "running the show." Garay explained the location choice to the Severna Park Voice: "I wanted to (open) in Severna Park because we don't have a local bakery – like, artisan, where you make everything from scratch, intentional."

The menu mixes French-inspired technique with Filipino and Turkish flavors:

• Ube coconut rolls and donuts, made with the purple yam Garay grew up eating in the Philippines
• Brioche donuts, including strawberry shortcake and a Tombul flavor
• Tombul, a hazelnut-and-cocoa spread the owners created themselves, made in Maryland with Turkish hazelnuts
• Biscuits and from-scratch sandwiches, including smoked turkey and smoked salmon
• Macarons, cake pops, cinnamon rolls and a full espresso menu

Pastries are baked fresh every day in small batches, and nothing is frozen. Garay told the paper she plans to buy produce from the Severna Park farmers' market and is cutting back on preservatives, food dyes and sugar. The name combines egg yolks, a baking staple, with "y'all."

The storefront used to be retail space, so the bakery was built out from scratch. The buildout was long, and Mulgan oversaw the construction. Most of the front-of-house staff are students, by design. Fully staffed, Y'ollk will employ about 16 people, and it's still hiring bakers. That explains the 9-to-3 schedule. It's set by staffing for now, so check the bakery's Facebook or Instagram before a weekday stop.

October 24 runs inside the bakery's hours

The weekend starts Friday evening. The rest of it is scheduled for late morning and early afternoon, between Kinder Farm Park and Park Plaza. Here's the order, from the Severna Park Voice fall roundup:

1. Friday, October 23, 5 to 8 p.m. The Severna Park Community Center at 623 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard hosts its Halloween Spooktacular. It has games, crafts, a trunk-or-treat and a dance performance by Star Elite. Costumes are welcome.
2. Saturday, October 24, from 9 a.m. Y'ollk opens at 9, which leaves time for coffee and a brioche donut before anything else begins.
3. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Friends of Kinder Farm Park host a trunk-or-treat and costume contest, with pop-up hayrides, farm education and crafts. Preregistration online is encouraged. Tickets will also be sold at the event while they last.
4. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The Greater Severna Park and Arnold Chamber of Commerce holds SHOPTOBERFEST at Park Plaza Shopping Center. It's free, with local vendors, music, trick-or-treating and a costume contest.

Park Plaza is also where Toastique opened in September. SHOPTOBERFEST will be the new café's first big event at its own shopping center.

The two Saturday events overlap almost completely. Families who want both can do Kinder Farm Park first and still reach Park Plaza before the chamber event ends at 2:30.

One more costume event lands midweek. Hallow-STEAM runs Wednesday, October 28, from 6 to 6:45 p.m. in the Severna Park Library Community Meeting Room. Children watch "mad alchemists" brew spooky potions and then mix their own. The listing suggests messy clothes.

The one newcomer that never closes

Most of the new arrivals keep daytime hours. Back Nine Golf will be open around the clock.

Franchise owners Evan and Patrick Lipinski leased 2,900 square feet at Robinson Crossing, the shopping center at Ritchie Highway and Robinson Road. The Capital Gazette identified the space as the former Sherwin-Williams building. The plan calls for Full Swing simulators that measure swing, ball speed and launch angle. Players can choose from simulated courses around the world, take lessons from PGA professionals, and join leagues and tournaments. The facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and needs only a few employees to run.

The owners expect to open by the end of the year, according to The Daily Record. They haven't announced an opening date or prices. Patrick Lipinski also owns the Back Nine franchise in Towson, which opened earlier this year.

Earlier, Ritchie Highway had lost some evening hours. In August, the Capital Gazette reported that Romilo's Restaurant & Bar had closed temporarily because of an ownership change. So this fall's daytime openings came after a summer when the corridor's evening options got smaller. The next big change after dark is a golf simulator open all night.

November keeps to the morning too

After Halloween, the calendar shifts to holiday shopping, and most of it ends by early afternoon. These are the dates already announced in and near the Park:

• Saturday, November 7, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The American Heritage Girls Craft/Vendor Fair at Severna Park Baptist Church, 506 Benfield Road, with crafts from the troop and vendors and Filipino food from Tatay's Apron.
• Monday, November 16, 6 to 7 p.m. "Talking in Code: A History of the WWII Native American Code Talkers," a free talk by the National Cryptologic Museum at the Severna Park Library, 45 W. McKinsey Road.
• Saturday, November 21, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church Holiday Bazaar at 611 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, with free entry, vendors, holiday shopping, food and Santa.
• Saturday, November 21, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The St. Margaret's Women's Guild Holiday Bazaar at 1601 Pleasant Plains Road in Annapolis, with vendors, raffles, food and live animals.

The two November 21 bazaars run at the same time. The Woods Memorial bazaar closes an hour earlier, so it makes sense to start there.

The library talk is the only evening event on this list. Each of the three Saturday events starts at 9 a.m., the same hour the new bakery opens.

If you're curious how this fall's openings and events might change what buyers notice about your part of Ritchie Highway, the Sandra K. Libby Group is happy to talk it through over coffee in the Park. Request a Complimentary Home Valuation and we'll show you how your home compares this season.