Bright Bear Bakery welcome addition to east Petaluma
Breaking bread has long stood for the idea of sharing a meal with family and friends. It carries an innate sense of community, which is exactly what Bright Bear Bakery + set out to embrace when owners Bruce and Sibyl Baldwin began looking to break ground on their east side bakery.
Although there is some evidence that starchy type substances were being baked as far back as 30,000 years ago, it is likely that bread really started to come into its own at the commencement of the Neolithic age, in roughly 10,000 BC. This is when agriculture began to flourish as a source of sustenance, and people started moving away from a pure hunter/gatherer existence. And despite the fact that wild yeast is sufficient to leaven bread, different cultures usually developed their own sources of yeast. Pliny the Elder, the Roman lawyer, philosopher, and historian, not the popular Russian River Brewing Company beer, reported that the “Gauls and Iberians” used the yeast from beer foam as the rising agent for their breads.
Bruce Baldwin’s history with bread started in his youth. “His happy place is baking in the kitchen,” says Sibyl of her husband. “When we first started dating, my family and friends always wanted me to ‘bring the pie guy’ because Bruce liked sharing his creations.”
Bruce’s passion for baking is evident whenever you see him in the bakery. Whether at the beginning of an early morning shift, or finishing out a long day, Bruce is always smiling and is never too tired to talk about baking and hear feedback from his customers.
Bruce grew up in San Francisco and Novato and met La Jolla native Sibyl while they were both working on an information technology project in 1979. Both had degrees in science, Bruce’s in biochemistry and economics and Sibyl’s in neurobiology, but the two were drawn into the emerging IT world as tech companies were looking to train bright people.
After living in Novato for many years, working for Fireman’s Fund, and then IBM, the Baldwins moved to Petaluma because their children were swimmers and Petaluma had a swim team. As their children started entering college, Sibyl felt it was time to follow her life-long dream to open a coffee shop. Although Bruce still works remotely for IBM, he thought it sounded like fun, so long as there was a bakery involved.
Admittedly, it is a lot more work than these two first-time restaurant owners anticipated, but they also say it is a lot more rewarding than they would have imagined.
“Because I love baking, I don’t mind the long hours,” says Bruce. “And the customers make it worth it.”
To help run the kitchen, Bright Bear tapped Thomas Geisler from Amy’s Breads in New York City to fill the shoes as head baker. “He worked production, which is a good starting point,” says Sibyl. “It gives him a solid foundation, which is important once you start working on artisan products like the breads and pastries we create.”
It takes a community for a bakery to succeed, and Bright Bear seems to have struck a chord at its location at the corner of Lakeville Highway and Casa Grande Road. “Because of all the great customer feedback, we really feel like part of the community,” continues Sibyl. “We aren’t set in our ways, so when a customer asks ‘have you thought about …?’, we are thrilled to try to accommodate them and their tastes.”
With backgrounds in science and technology, the process-oriented Baldwins have happily switched gears into a business that is not only customer service oriented, but also requires the patience and thoughtfulness of an artist.
“Baking really is artistry,” says Bruce. This echoes the words of Julia Child, who stated that, “the art of bread making can become a consuming hobby, and no matter how often and how many kinds of bread one has made, there always seems to be something new to learn.”
“Dough often does as it pleases and we have to adapt to that,” continues Bruce. Luckily, the baking community is an inclusive one and the Baldwins have had a great time learning and developing. “In general, these recipes have been around for centuries, so it isn’t like they are giving away a family secret,” says Bruce when pointing out that bakers tend to share their knowledge, where chefs tend to keep their cards close to their chest. “Baking is literally a living, breathing work of art and most bakers want to pass their passion along to others.”
Because everything at Bright Bear is made from scratch, using ingredients from the likes of Cowgirl Creamery, Tomales Bay Foods, Central Milling, Feed Sonoma and Green String Farms, it pays to step outside one’s comfort zone when choosing a few treats from Bright Bear’s case.
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