The redevelopment of the Rathskeller building of the Schmidt Brewery site in St. Paul is getting close to completion, and two exciting tenants are working hard on their spaces.

First, Rose Street Patisserie, the celebrated French bakery, is opening a cafe later this summer to go along with the already-operating bread and pastry lab and bakery that curious pedestrians on West Seventh Street might have noticed through the gleaming front windows. The building is just across the street from the Keg and Case West Seventh Market on West Seventh Street.

Second, Worker B, the bee- and honey-centric beauty and wellness line, is opening an innovative spa that will include a meditation room coated in beeswax, a float tank and an infrared sauna.

The Rose Street cafe will be down the hall from the production bakery, which will have additional windows inside so that curious building visitors can watch fermented bread and laminated dough taking shape. The cafe will serve the pastries and breads it is known for along with a full breakfast, lunch and coffee menu.

“It’s the first full kitchen that we’ve done,” said owner John Kraus.

The cafe will have 38 seats inside and another 40 on a sweet little patio off the back of the building.

Rose Street currently has a small counter in Keg and Case that sells chocolates and macarons, and a few other pastries are available from Five Watt Coffee in the market. The patisserie also has another St. Paul location, in addition to the original spot in Minneapolis.

Owners Kraus and Elizabeth Rose said the new baking facility will serve as ground zero for their apprenticeship program, something they feel passionately about.

“This will be a training ground, a teaching kitchen for the future,” Kraus said.

In fact, pastry chef Kathryn Goodpaster is currently training at the facility for the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, the world cup of bread baking, which takes place in Paris in 2020.

In addition to cultivating some of the world’s best bakers, Kraus wants to help teach all kinds of young people interested in baking through a formal program.

“Generationally speaking, we’ve put so much pressure on people to go to college that we’ve left the trades out,” Kraus said. “And that’s still a good way to make a living.”

Baking is an exacting profession, as much chemistry as it is creativity and finesse, and Kraus wants to show the next generation how satisfying it can be to pull a perfect baguette out of the oven.

“After eight hours of work, you don’t know if it’s proper until you pull it out of the oven,” Kraus said. “With the apprenticeship model, they can come and work and see if they like doing it before they commit to expensive schooling.”

As for the Worker B spa, the 2,500-square-foot space will be focused on relaxation, but also on wellness.

They’ll offer facials using their bee-powered beauty products, but not just to adults.

“We want to offer services to young adults, so they can build a routine,” said co-owner and CEO Michael Sedlacek. “It’s more than just straight facials.”

Massage offerings will include sports massages and those targeted at the lymphatic system.

The infrared sauna heats the body to a higher internal temperature, which Sedlacek said helps with circulation and blood flow as well as muscle and joint healing. You will also be able to get a vaporized salt treatment in the sauna, which helps with respiratory function in addition to being good for your skin, Sedlacek said.

A float tank will offer sensory deprivation, and if you want to continue the zen-like experience, you can spend some time in a cutting-edge beeswax-lined room with a heated floor, which Sedlacek said creates a calming, warm atmosphere that has therapeutic effects on skin, but also helps with respiration.

All of this, Sedlacek said, is just the beginning of what the facility hopes to offer. There is a three-year plan for adding services to the space, as well as beehives to the roof.

The spa will open in September.

These two businesses are just part of the revitalization of the Rathskeller building, which was sold to developer Craig Cohen by the city in 2017 for $1. The stunning original rathskeller, or gathering space, for Schmidt Brewing remains intact downstairs. Details about the re-opening of that space are still in the works.

Kraus and Rose say they love the way both the Rathskeller building and Keg and Case have brought historic buildings back to life.

“This is a pretty cool continuation of a building that sat dormant for 15 years,” Kraus said, noting that the space is still “all about fermentation,” a nod to the fermented breads Rose Street and Patisserie 46 (their south Minneapolis spot) are known for.