La Brea Bakery

La Brea Bakery is a retail bakery, restaurant operator, and an industrial baking company started in Los Angeles, California. Since opening its flagship store on 624 S La Brea Avenue in 1989 — six months earlier than Campanile, the restaurant it was built to serve — La Brea has opened two much larger bakeries in Van Nuys, California, and Swedesboro, New Jersey, to serve wholesale clients.[1] It also sells its products in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[2] La Brea is one of the USA's largest sellers of fresh bread.[3] Since 2001, La Brea has been owned by Aryzta AG.[4]

La Brea Bakery
FoundedLos Angeles, California
January 1989 (1989-01)
FoundersNancy Silverton and Mark Peel
OwnerAryzta
Websitelabreabakery.com

History

Founders Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel had originally wanted to open a restaurant that offered fresh-baked bread. At the time, Silverton was working at Wolfgang Puck's Spago. However, she found that "unless you were really set up for it, it wasn't very profitable to make your own bread. You need to have a dedicated space and you need to do wholesale to make money at it."[5] Originally just a small storefront, in 1998 the business raised US$10 million for a new production plant in Van Nuys and became the largest artisanal bakery in the United States.[6] The facility prepares par-baked bread, dough that has been 80% baked and then quick-frozen for baking later, and employed around 100 people in 1999.[6] La Brea breads are widely available throughout Southern California and are sold in many supermarkets,[7] but the original small storefront remains popular with Angelenos craving its artisanal fresh baked goods.

In 1990, Nancy Silverton received the James Beard Foundation "Best Pastry Chef of the Year" Award.[8] She has also written several books.[9] The company's website includes some of the articles that have been written about its breads.[10]

In October 2008, La Brea Bakery was chosen to open a new restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport.[11]

In 2014, for the company's 25th anniversary, the logo and packaging was redesigned. The burgundy logo with a capital "B" was replaced by a lowercase "b" on a bright red background. The flagship location also underwent a design renovation.[12][3]

See also

Footnotes
  1. Archived November 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  2. "La Brea Bakery Find a Store Near You". Labreabakery.com. 2012-12-04. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  3. Nassauer, Sarah (26 March 2014). "The Marketing Decoder: La Brea Bakery". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-01-03. Retrieved 2015-01-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. Parsons, Russ (29 January 2014). "Nancy Silverton looks back at 25 years of La Brea Bakery". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  6. DEBORA VRANA (1998-08-03). "La Brea Bakery Uses Private Stock Offering to Raise Dough". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  7. Archived October 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  8. Archived March 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  9. Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery. "Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery: Nancy Silverton: 9780375501937: Amazon.com: Books". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  10. http://www.labreabakery.com/2008.aspx%5B%5D
  11. LAX welcomes La Brea Bakery and other restaurants LA Times online travel section October 16, 2008 by Susan Derby http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/lax-airport-new-rest-3031/
  12. Anderson, Hornall. "Brand New: New Logo and Identity for La Brea Bakery". UnderConsideration. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
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