BREAD SHOP ON THE RISE
Since opening in January, new Bread Shop quickly drawing a crowd to Lena Street
It’s just about noon on a Friday, and the bright, trim new Bread Shop on Lena Street is bustling. The bakery has been open for about an hour, and the slices of plain focaccia have all been snatched up. For the moment, there are still hearty loaves of sourdough boule, spears of baguette and dark, heavy loaves of seeded rye.
But the pile of sesame seed-scattered ski cookies beneath the glass dome on the counter is dwindling, and people are getting a bit territorial.
In the span of just a few minutes, the cookies go from a half-dozen to four, to two, to one. Moments after a customer in line claims the last nutty, sweet-savory treat, a newcomer pipes up, “Hey, do you have any cookies left?”
Baker Jacob Brenner opened Bread Shop on Jan. 30, but word of mouth means loaves already are flying off the rack. Stated business hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., but he’s regularly selling out between 1:30 and 2.
Did Brenner expect that kind of groundswell of popularity? He didn’t even have a “sold out” sign, he confessed with a laugh — he had to whip one up by hand to post on the door.
“I really didn’t expect it to be this soon,” he said. “Everything has been unbelievable, the way people have come out to support a local guy doing what he cares about.”
Brenner, 30, is a Santa Fe native and a graduate of Santa Fe High School. He left home for liberal arts college in Portland, Ore., but made his way back here in 2018 with now-wife Mayme Berman (the couple married in September), where his parents and a brother still live. He had cooked while attending college and eventually began working full time as a line cook at Paloma.
On the side, though, Brenner was discovering a love — and a talent — for baking, despite having never worked in a professional bakery. He made loaves for family and friends and brought batches of his so-called ski cookies — hearty riffs on oatmeal cookies with walnuts, chocolate chips, raisins and flavorful sesame seeds — to take along on snow outings with buddies.
“The support and feedback I was receiving on something that I genuinely loved doing made me think maybe this is the thing,” he said.
He found his small bakery and storefront space on Lena Street in the former home of ice cream shops La Lecheria and then Sunset Swirl. Here, he starts work at 4 a.m., baking and also tending to his naturally fermented dough. That means the bread is made without commercial or industrial yeast.
“It’s all leavened by mixing flour and water and refreshing to harvest wild yeast to create sourdough starter, or levain, which gives energy and life to the bread,” he said. “The longer, slower process leads to better bread and causes it to be better for you.”
He takes care with his choice of flours, sourcing certified organic flour or using small farms employing organic practices. Nearly all of his goods are vegan. And the fine ingredients he uses, he said, yield a high-quality, nutritionally rich product.
Compared to other styles of bread-making,
Bread Shop’s loaves have a heartier crust and deeper caramelization. Brenner uses more water in his dough, which makes for a harder crust and a moister interior.
He turns out about 70 loaves of varying sizes a day and a couple of focaccia breads, which are sold by the slice. Oh, and about 25 ski cookies a day. Brenner wanted to sell a couple of items — like the cookies and focaccia — that could be eaten right away, and the space features a few stools tucked beneath a high, slim bar against the window and a carafe of water with glasses.
Sourdough boules are $9 and a smaller version is $6; baguettes are $4; focaccias range from $3.50 to $4; cookies are $2, mini spelt baguettes rolled in sesame seeds are $3; and that seedy rye loaf — a moist and dense German-style loaf perfect for breakfast and packed with flax, sunflower and pumpkin seeds — is $11.
Brenner sees some wiggle room that would allow him to increase production, but he wants to see if the bakery’s initial popularity burst translates into loyal customers. Though selling all his fresh-baked goods is the goal, he hates turning people away empty-handed and is considering adding a subscription model and preorder option. Someday, he said, he might grow into his own small restaurant.
For now, though, customers will find Brenner himself working just behind the counter; his brother, Zac, might be on hand helping out with the register. Though he’s the baker, the business, he said, is built on a bedrock of community, personal and professional support.
“People come in and see just me here, and they like that — they like the bread, but they also like seeing one or two people doing something they like to do,” he said. “But it’s hard to overstate the help I’ve gotten from friends, family, community.”