CON PANE BAKERY CAFE TO REOPEN IN DEAL WITH COHN RESTAURANT GROUP
Con Pane, a beloved bakery cafe at Liberty Station that abruptly closed in January following an immigration audit, will soon be firing up its ovens again in a newly inked deal with the Cohn Restaurant Group.
David Cohn, who runs the 39-year-old restaurant group with his wife, Lesley, said that following some cosmetic renovations and kitchen upgrades at the 5,000-square-foot venue, they will reopen Con Pane Rustic Breads & Cafe in late September.
The Cohns had first approached Con Pane owner Catherine Perez two years ago about a partnership that would gradually transition operations over to CRG, but the coronavirus pandemic put the deal on hold.
“In the wake of COVID-19, the timing isn’t great, but we love Con Pane, and it’s our goal to preserve what Catherine has built over the last 20 years,” David Cohn said in a statement. “We want to continue the good work she’s done in making this bakery a great community asset.”
Under terms of the deal signed on Friday, Con Pane will remain in its Liberty
Station location at 2750 Dewey Road, Suite 105, about a quarter mile from where the Cohns have operated Corvette Diner since 2009. Perez will stay on as a consultant through December to pass along her skills in artisan baking.
“When David and I first started talking, we were discussing everything from a partnership to an outright sale,” Perez said on Friday. “After the closure in January, I decided to sell so I could explore different opportunities.”
CRG will hire a new baking team who will recreate some of Perez’s most popular recipes, which the Cohns purchased as part of the Con Pane brand assets. This includes the bakery’s popular turkey Cobb and “almost grilled cheese” sandwiches, brioche cinnamon roll, Point Loma sourdough bread and butterscotch latte. The restaurant’s retail and dining operations will be the first to reopen. Eventually, Con Pane’s wholesale business will be relaunched and expanded.
Founded in a small shop at Rosecrans and Cañon streets in Point Loma in 1999, Con Pane moved to
Liberty Station in 2010. It specialized in breads made with old-world European baking techniques. Among the artisan breads made from scratch daily and served at restaurants throughout San Diego County were ciabatta, French levain, mezza focaccia, and seeded and traditional French baguettes.
Con Pane’s closure on Jan. 17 was unexpected. In a Facebook post Jan. 15, Perez wrote that during an I-9 audit by immigration authorities, several suspect documents were found to have been submitted by employees.
“Although we require all workers to provide us with government specified documentation evidencing their employment eligibility, a number of our employees have been, without our knowledge, determined to be unauthorized workers. The discovery of a large number of unauthorized workers has so disrupted operations we have had no choice but to close,” she wrote, adding “although closing is a heart-felt loss, it has been an incredible journey filled with laughter and tears.”