Organic sourdough SLO bakery is now officially open in its new home
A trio of bakers have officially launched their brick-and-mortar shop after having been “softly open” since November.
The Bread Bike organic bake shop was “softly opened” in mid-November, while its three baker-partners — Matt Gamarra, Sam DeNicola and Mariah Grady — got their team and their production kitchen up and running.
Bread Bike also will continue selling its organic, slow-fermented sourdough breads and other products in its farmers market booths (including in Cambria), sales at selected shops and through its in-town home delivery service.
The bakery is open from 5 to 9 p.m., at 2020A Parker St.
The full-fledged opening celebrates the trio’s road from baking for others (Grady) or cottage baking at home (Gamarra and DeNicola) to running a full-fledged, organic bakery that focuses on whole grains and seasonal ingredients.
Their current product line, as listed at www.slobreadbike.com, includes 10 breads, five cookies, sweet rolls and scones, plus less-sweet “California style” pastries, galettes and other specialties.
Their leavening is a natural sourdough that they made themselves many years ago. While their signature baguettes do include a bit of baker’s yeast, DeNicola said, ALL their loaves get a low-temperature, overnight fermentation that is the hallmark of a good sourdough bread.
Two of their products, the Persian love cake and the Our Bar anytime treat with tahini, oat flour, toasted pecans, coconut flakes and dried tart cherries, are gluten-free.
They also add some seasonal specialties, such as their current spring scone flavors: Double chocolate cherry marzipan and the savory cornmeal, cheese and black pepper.
Many of their products can also be found at five farmers markets, select retail locations and through CSB (Community Supported Bakery) deliveries by bicycle, hence the bakery’s name.
In fact, that’s how DeNicola’s business began, as a home-based cottage bakery with products he delivered on his bike throughout San Luis Obispo.
How the three bakers came together
While DeNicola’s Bread Bike and Gamarra’s Loaf Osos cottage industries were technically competitors for a time in the specialized world of small-scale sourdough production, the two self-trained bakers became friends even when both were selling similar products at farmers markets.
That friendship evolved, DeNicola said during an April 5 phone interview, as they began “ordering flour together, sharing recipes and equipment.”
He had met Grady in passing through friends years before, but it wasn’t until early 2020 that he convinced her to leave her Sonoma baking job and return to her hometown of San Luis Obispo to join him in expanding his fledgling business.
Then he had to move, and his new place wasn’t suitable for cottage-industry baking.
It was a rock-and-a-hard-spot decision.
DeNicola recalled that “either Bread Bike would end, or I’d find a bakery that would let me lease space.”
Finally, they arranged to bake a few days a week at the Joliene Bakery, and Bread Bike continued.
Meanwhile, Gamarra’s Loaf Osos business was outgrowing his home kitchen, which he’d outfitted with a nifty electric Rofco oven. Its three 18-by-18-inch stone decks are ideal, he said, for creating the steamy atmosphere that helps encourage yeast rise and “oven spring” during the first part of a bread-baking cycle.
Ultimately, later in 2020, the trio started talking partnership, DeNicola said. “He’d grown out of his home. We really needed our own setup, so we started looking together for somewhere to lease for our own bakery.”
They found their spot at 2060A Parker St., between High and South streets.
Since then, they’ve divvied up responsibilities, with Gamarra running the bread team of four other bakers, Grady overseeing her group of five pastry bakers and DeNicola acting as spokesperson, newsletter-writer and general administrator. And they’re awaiting delivery of a 40-inch New American Stone Mill from Vermont, which will let them mill higher volumes of whole grain, much of which they plan to get from Central California farms.
The college grads are all in their late 20s (at least until DeNicola’s 30th birthday on Saturday).
All three have college science degrees
Gamarra’s UC Santa Cruz biology degree indirectly led him into baking, when his microbiology class used sourdough as an example. That “sent me going down the rabbit hole” of baking with the natural leavening, he said. (DeNicola holds a UC Berkeley degree in geophysics, and Grady’s biology degree is from Santa Clara University).
These days, DeNicola is mostly absent from the bread bench, he said in an April 5 phone interview. While he may miss the daily Zen of dough handling, he said, he and his partners are learning what many young entrepreneurs with growing businesses are discovering: They really enjoy running their teams and the shop.
“Baking always made me happy,” he explained. “It made me feel like a superhero. But the schedule of a baker is difficult, and the schedule of a baker and business owner is another thing altogether.”
Gamarra said, “my favorite part of being a baker is working on the bench with my bread team, working quickly but also joking and having fun with each other. My favorite part of being a bakery owner is getting to support my staff and watch them grow and improve, as well as meeting all the different people that enjoy our products.”
Grady said her favorite part of being a baker “is being on my feet and using my hands. I just love moving, and I love the intuitive nature of baking. I also love, love, love recipe testing, coming up with an idea, however vague, and turning that into a physical form, learning about all the nuances of how each ingredient is working together in the process.”
Owning a bakery means she’s “able to provide a positive space for all our employees to work and grow. I just want to give them the best experience they can have.”
So that’s how an unlikely combination of three 20-something college grads — one each from Sebastapol, San Luis Obispo and Oxnard/Los Osos — came together to bring home-baked flavor and professional techniques to the San Luis Obispo sourdough baking scene, a partnership designed to serve the community they love.
To learn more about Bread Bike, go the website or call 805-242-1588.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
