Brick Weekly has a nice feature/profile of Sam Marques, the baker behind and owner of one of Bellevue’s favorite new additions, Sammy’s Bakery.

“We’re still working on our bakery’s persona,” says Sam Marques, between helping customers on a recent morning. “I have things I’d like to add to our repertoire. It’s a matter of customer appeal.”

Marques, a first-generation immigrant from Portugal, favors European-style baked goods. I’d like to “move away from muffins and crumb cakes and into things like éclairs and puff pastries. There’s a dearth of it…so it would be more of a niche for me.”

If anyone knows about different niches, it’s Marques. The tanned and rugged-looking 61-year-old is a renaissance man even by Leonardo da Vinci standards. Some of his former incarnations have included linguist for the U.S. Navy (he speaks English, Portuguese and Thai), actor and playwright, stand-up comedian, hotel worker, restaurateur, construction company owner and now pastry chef and baker. In every endeavor, maybe none more so than the current one, Marques has been guided by a willingness to take chances on his creativity.