Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly visited Pasta Corner.
Taking over the old Waffleshot stall is Gone Bananas Bread (est. 2023), a new Farmers Market vendor dedicated to all things banana bread, as well as a handful of bottled and canned drinks. In addition to six varieties of banana bread, the stall sells banana bread pudding and “bananyays,” tiny heart-shaped pieces of banana bread that are deep-fried and coated in a sugar glaze. You can order banana bread by the slice or pick up whole loaves. Oddly enough, per GBB’s Instagram stories, the company held a “grand opening” pop-up at another stall in the Farmers Market almost a year ago, but I can personally attest to the fact that it didn’t actually open as a full-fledged market vendor until quite recently.
On my 40th weekly visit to the market, I’m fresh off another scouting meal in Gardena, so I made my way quickly from the parking lot to the Gone Bananas Bread stall. A pink and yellow neon sign, as well as a large hand-painted graphic with a few banana peels, mark a sharp visual departure from the old Waffleshot. The branding is admittedly quite cute, and there's a stack of greeting cards for sale by the register that read “I find you appealing,” with illustrations of a few bananas. A few curious people have lined up, and through the glass I can see GBB’s signature heart-shaped chocolate chip banana loaf. As adorable as it all looks, I’m here for the taste, so I order a slice ($6) of every type of banana bread available: Big Banana (plain), Bluenana (blueberry), OG (chocolate chip), Nucking Futs (pecan) and Nucking Futs with cream cheese frosting. I also grab a half dozen bananyays ($9.50). They’re out of Cinnabanana (cinnamon) and the bread pudding, so that’s the extent of my order.
I don’t sample the goods until I get home, eager to get out of direct sunlight—a heat wave is about to hit and I can already feel the temperature rising to an uncomfortable degree. Once I do, it’s clear that—just like with a great homemade recipe—the quality and consistency depends on which part of the loaf you consume. My OG slice is an edge slice, making it a little tough to chew, whereas my Big Banana and Bluenana slices are nice and fluffy from the middle. The cream cheese frosting on the Nucking Futs slice is excellent, but again, this is not life-changing banana bread. If you don't like banana-flavored things or banana bread, it will not change either of your personal preferences.
Last, I sample the bananyays, which are slightly greasy. In some sense, they vaguely remind me of the apple fritters from Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts, and they’re way better than the actual beignets from the Gumbo Pot. Given how easy banana bread is to make at home, I wouldn’t recommend going out of the way for these, but the heart-shaped loaves might make a great edible gift during the holidays. Paired with their Millennial pink boxes, Gone Bananas Bread is clearly trying to win people over through aesthetics—but the loaves themselves haven’t quite worked their magic on me.
Meals from Table at Third & Fairfax fall into three categories: Skip It, Worth Trying and Must Have.
Vendor: Gone Bananas Bread
Order: Banana bread (multiple flavors), “bananyays”
Verdict: Worth Trying. It’s good banana bread, but it wouldn’t necessarily change your mind if you’re not already a fan.