Grand Bakery, Oakland’s oldest kosher bakery and one revered for its challah, just went on the market for a single dollar.
Owner Sam Tobis announced the news late Wednesday afternoon in an email seeking “someone passionate about Jewish baking to take the reins of the Grand Bakery in Oakland – available to purchase now for a mere $1!”
Why that low price? “Because I’m less interested in profit off the sale and more invested in finding the right individual to carry on the beloved bakery’s 60-year legacy,” Tobis wrote. “I’ve maintained the Grand legacy for seven years but the time has come to pass it on to the next set of loving hands.”
Tobis bought the bakery in 2017 to “keep the Grand legacy alive for future generations,” he said in a statement on the bakery’s website. “But life sometimes has other plans.” Tobis also recently became a partner at Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen in Berkeley, and running the two seems to be tough.
“[F]or the last two years I’ve been trying to steward both,” he wrote. “Being part of the Jewish food community in the Bay is my greatest joy and I wish I could do it all, but I can’t. It’s time to pass Grand to the next set of loving hands.”
The person who snags the $1 sale will receive the brand, recipes and current staff. Tobis said he is “open to different arrangements on the equipment and vans, including carrying a loan.” There was no mention of rent arrangements. Grand Bakery’s current production facility is above the natural-goods store The Food Mill at 3033 MacArthur Blvd.
The Mercury News reached out to Tobis for comment and will update this story when he responds.
The bakery opened in 1961 as the New Yorker Bakery, then became Ernie’s Strudel Palace and finally Grand Bakery. Its products are on the shelves in stores across the Bay Area, from Safeway to Lunardi’s to Piazza’s Fine Foods. Its clientele also includes many synagogues, community organizations and Jewish day schools.
According to a 2014 interview with former owner Bob Jaffe in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, the baker cranked out “more than 120,000 macaroons and 350,000 challah loaves every year, 20,000 sufganiyot on Hanukkah and tens of thousands of hamantaschen on Purim.”
Interested in the $1 sale? Then fill out this Google form and Tobis will give it a look.
