To Build a Bakery
is a Craft to Crumb series, sponsored by King Arthur Baking Co., featuring stories of growth for bakeries of all scales. From establishing a first brick-and-mortar location to multiple shops and beyond, the series connects with bakers from across the country about how they’re scaling up their businesses. If you would like your bakery’s story to be considered, please email Annie Hollon at annie@avantfoodmedia.com.
OAKLAND, CA — The first time Brian Wood, head baker and CEO of Starter Bakery in Oakland, CA, tried a kouign-amann at a shop in Manhattan, NY, he was blown away.
“It was everything: salty, sweet, buttery, flaky, caramelly,” he recalled. “I knew then that I really needed to learn how to make it.”
He didn’t master the French sweet good until a few years later, but that first bite was foundational and would transform his career from baking instructor to bakery owner.
Over the years, the bakery and pastry have become synonymous: customers and bakers alike can’t think of one without the other, and for good reason. Yet there’s more to the Starter Bakery story — and plenty to come.
An origin story
While Starter Bakery’s first retail storefront opened March 2023, the business began as a pop-up more than a decade earlier.
Brian had been trying to open a retail bakery for a while but didn’t have the funding at the time. In 2010, an opportunity came to participate in the Pop-Up General Store, a gourmet food event showcasing Bay Area culinarians. He took it, bringing the same baked good that had previously enraptured him.
Consumers and bakers alike are more tuned into kouign-amanns these days, but at the time, the baked good wasn’t part of the culinary zeitgeist. That would quickly change.
“During this event, we brought about 350 pieces, and they sold out within two hours,” Brian recalled. “That pop-up event was really the start of Starter Bakery.”
The seed was planted for Brian to take this moment and carry it forward. He realized that while it wasn’t feasible to operate a storefront at the time, there was an opportunity to offer these treats and more through other channels.
“I felt a lot of momentum, and I ended up finding a wholesale space in the industrial part of Oakland,” Brian recalled. “Within a few months, we had it operational and were delivering to cafes.”
That first 1,400-square-foot iteration got the ball rolling in 2011. The business grew little by little, expanding into the neighboring space a couple years later. Starter Bakery bloomed, and in turn, ended up moving once more, increasing its square footage nearly tenfold.
In 2018, the bakery settled into its current home, 13,000 square feet of what previously served as a Berkeley, CA, brewery. The bakery includes everything from a temperature-controlled room for viennoiserie production to bread and convection oven area to proofing rooms. Setting up shop for the wholesale business provided Brian with valuable insight into considerations for the future retail expansion.
The foundational first
Once established in the wholesale bakery facility, Brian revisited the idea of opening a storefront. At first, he considered opening the retail shop as an add-on to the wholesale facility, but the location wasn’t ideal in terms of parking and ample foot traffic.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, he noticed “For Lease” signs at retail spaces in the area as well as other neighborhoods. After driving around and making some calls — and using his learnings from opening the wholesale facility — he locked down Starter’s first brick-and-mortar, signed a lease September 2021 and got to work.
From finding the space to opening day, it took nearly two years to get Starter Bakery’s retail presence up and running. Funding for the build stemmed from the wholesale business and a bit of savings. Although Brian still had a lot to learn, having been through a similar process before worked in his favor.
“There are so many aspects to building out a retail storefront that are reliant on a team of people and having a sense of what you want,” he said. “I’m glad that I had a few larger construction projects under my belt before I did the retail shop. It enabled me to understand the process a little bit better, the time frame and how to operate within other professionals’ expectations.”
Akin to bakers with their formulas and recipes, contractors and architects also have their processes. Ensuring everyone is aligned can smooth out the construction phase, and, in some cases, save a baker from an unexpected cost or setback related to considerations such as electrical and plumbing, all of which can impact other investments.
“It’s important to be involved throughout the process, because sometimes weird decisions are made, and if you don’t catch it, you can be stuck with something that’s not right,” Brian shared. “Having that awareness before it’s too late in the process is important.”
Team-first operations
Brian’s learned many lessons throughout the development of Starter Bakery. The most critical? Building the right team.
“You’re not going to do much without it,” he said. “I don’t think the business could have gone through the expansion that it has if I hadn’t increased my capacity and ways in which I can work with people.”
An important part of bringing the right people into the business is providing the tools they need to succeed. For Brian, this includes having the right systems in place to onboard team members quickly and efficiently.
Setting up a reliable, consistent back-of-house cohort as well as a front-of-house group that not only understands the bakery’s product lineup but also knows the flow of service to maximize customer experience is crucial.
Many menu offerings — including (but not limited to) its signature kouign-amann, croissants, pie, bread and babka —can be traced back to the early days of the business. But the bakery team is also keeping the lineup fresh, retiring low-volume items and rolling out some new ones.
“We’re well known for having a good variety of products, and with that comes a responsibility to make them effectively and efficiently,” Brian said.
One standout to support this commitment is Starter Bakery’s comprehensive food safety program. Created with the assistance of an outside consultant, this investment offers guardrails for team members, preserves the quality of Starter Bakery’s offerings, and helps verify traceability and allergen contamination management.
“It’s critically important to be sure what we’re doing is safe — especially as we have new employees joining the team as we grow — and make sure everyone’s aware of the standards we’re looking to produce,” Brian said.
Store No. 2 coming soon
Starter Bakery is now wrapping construction on its second retail location in Albany, CA, expected to open this fall.
Having already gone through the bakery building process, elements such as space design are locked in and serve as the foundation for the new shop. Backed by the same architect and general contractor from the first brick-and-mortar storefront, Brian is equipped with the tools and know-how to make it a bit easier this time around.
“There are similar elements, and it’s different, which is exciting,” Brian said. “Starter Bakery is different than it was when it opened in Oakland two-and-a-half years ago. Because of that, it needs to show some change.”
Those changes include fresh paint colors and finishes as well as some equipment decisions, Brian teased, that will open the door for more product variety.
From a pop-up to a notable bakery with a robust wholesale program and growing retail presence, Starter Bakery has come a long way in the past 15 years. With many lessons tucked away, a rich background and bright future, Starter Bakery is a lot like the buttery French pastry: a bit of everything.
