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Since last September, The Baker Next Door has been selling fresh, handmade bread and pastries at Friday pop-ups in downtown Redwood City. And by late summer it should have a permanent bakery and cafe at 851 Main St., where construction is currently in full swing (the pop-up events are held in front of the building.)
On a recent morning, as a steady stream of customers turned up to snag their weekly batch of baked goods, founders Jenna Johnson and Brian Clarke greeted many by name, chatting as they bagged up their baguettes and sweet treats.
The lineup includes a variety of bread loaves (mostly made with natural leavening), including Danish rye and seeded country; tantalizing focaccia with toppings like Kalamata olives and caramelized onions; and pastries such as morning buns, monkey bread, croissants and peanut butter sandwich cookies.
“The cherry pecan bread is probably my favorite. I probably have a slice of that almost every morning when it’s available to me,” Johnson said. “My children devour everything. They are our best critics.”
And the friendly atmosphere makes sense for an endeavor that’s all about local roots and neighborly connection.
Clarke and Johnson are indeed literal neighbors (hence the business name), and their partnership came about after Johnson’s family moved to Redwood City and became fast friends with Clarke’s. When Clarke’s daughter began babysitting for Johnson’s kids, she mentioned her dad’s desire to someday open his own bakery.
Clarke has been baking out of his garage – which he built into a baking space in 2017 – as a cottage food business, and he used to sell at the Portola Valley farmers market under the name Red Lantern Bakery. Johnson, meanwhile, has had years of experience working in the restaurant industry in Brooklyn and in the Bay Area, including helping out with the set-up of The Hut, a barbecue restaurant and bar in Santa Clara.
“That was good to see, building something from the ground up,” she said of the experience, although, as a mom of young kids, she realized the late hours of the bar scene were not for her. Her thoughts soon turned closer to home.
In Johnson and Clarke’s Oakwood neighborhood of Redwood City, near the Atherton border, “a lot of people have fruit trees, and we both have chickens, and in the summer we’re growing vegetables and Brian’s baking bread so we joked about an Oakwood co-op essentially,” Johnson recalled. “That was kind of an aha moment for me: ‘Why don’t we just make it something permanent?'”
“Fast forward, she calls me on the phone and is like, ‘Hey I’m going to go look at this place, you want to do it?’ And I’m like, ‘Hell yeah I do!'” Clarke said. “I left my law career in January of ’23 and I’ve been doing this since.” Getting the storefront up and running has taken longer than originally anticipated, but Clarke said they’re “making progress.”
“It’s been a great adventure, and Jen and I have been doing great work together,” he said.
Once the brick-and-mortar space opens (most likely in August), Johnson will be developing the cafe menu based on Clarke’s baking, which will all be done on-site. The plan is to offer breakfast, lunch and coffee service.
“We’re going to hire a barista who will run the coffee program. I do not need another artisanal thing to do so I’m not going to get involved with that stuff,” Clarke laughed. “The barista will handle all the coffee program, make sure we’re sourcing some great coffee from local roasters. Everything ideally is going to be local and mostly, like, 98% organic; wholesome products, all handmade.”
In addition to taking inspiration from European-style bakeries, Clarke said they’re also inspired by the charming cafes of Berkeley (both Clarke and Johnson are Cal alumni.)
“I got turned on to the really good bread back in the mid ’80s when I tasted stuff from Acme Bread. That turned some light bulbs on. From then on, I just developed a passion for it. I just got more of a burning itch to do it,” Clarke said.
They started the pop-up shop in September after finding that local farmers markets already had bread and pastry vendors.
“We checked in with the city and we got a permit to do our own little farmers market here on Fridays,” Johnson said. “Right away it was nice to see people who live so close, the foot traffic that comes up and down Main Street, and right off the bat it was excitement from people in the neighborhood.”
They plan to continue that neighborly vibe when the full cafe opens, aiming to create a community gathering place.
“A lot of the places you go to that have good food and really good product, they’re not making it on-site, they’re making it other places – which is all fine, but that’s not the environment that I think we want to establish.”
Their hope is for The Baker Next Door to be “a place where people can come and have great food, great conversation and connect up,” Clarke said. “That’s what brings me joy. I like making people happy.”
The Baker Next Door, 851 Main St., Redwood City. Instagram: @thebakernextdoor_rwc. Pop-ups are held most Fridays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.