West Coast Bread Fest

Jessie Youngblood of @doughbauchery came with us to @westcoastbreadfest this last Saturday repping Simply Bread. It was an intimate, all-day celebration of bread baking and community. Her day included classes, conversations with bakers, tasting the bakes, and meeting everyone in the room. There’s something particularly special about being in a space where everyone showed up because they genuinely love what they do. Being part of the very first West Coast Bread Festival meant a lot to us. Thank you, Jessie, for bringing us along🫶🏻

This last Saturday, we had the honor of hosting the very first @westcoastbreadfest here at Keith Giusto Bakery Supply + the Artisan Baking Center and the energy all day was unreal. Our building was packed with bakers, pastry chefs, pizza makers, fermentation fanatics, flour enthusiasts, educators, students, and bread lovers all coming together to share knowledge, ideas, techniques, and a love for the craft. From naturally leavened croissant classes and sourdough conversations to the incredible bake off featuring around 40 beautiful loaves, there was inspiration everywhere you looked. More than anything, it was amazing seeing so many people connect over real bread and the community that surrounds it. The conversations didn’t stop when the festival ended either… Things wrapped up with an after festival dinner and roundtable discussion with friends old and new over at @griffodistillery .. Huge thank you to everyone who attended, taught, volunteered, judged, baked, and helped make the first West Coast Bread Fest such a memorable event. And thank you to @theearlyrisebaker for helping bring so many great people together under one roof. Already excited for next year. 🥖🔥 *** #WestCoastBreadFest #KeithGiustoBakerySupply #ArtisanBakingCenter #RealBread

This Saturday we got to spend the day at @westcoastbreadfest surrounded by people who care deeply about bread, fermentation, grain, pastry, and the craft behind all of it. Jon taught one of the only classes at the event fully focused on naturally leavened croissants and sourdough pastry, with around 20 bakers in the room, from beginners to strong bakery owners. Even though laminated sourdough is impossible to fully cover in one session, it was incredibly rewarding to share knowledge, answer questions, and hopefully inspire more bakers to keep exploring naturally leavened pastry. We got to reconnect with friends, meet new bakers, judge an incredible bake-off with around 40 beautiful loaves, and spend the weekend talking about real bread with people who genuinely love the craft. Weekends like this remind us how much knowledge-sharing matters in this industry. A rising tide really does lift all ships. Thank you @theearlyrisebaker to connect all of us together! And if seeing this makes you want to learn with us in person, we still have a few seats left in our upcoming sourdough classes at Proof (Shea location). We’re not sure yet when the next round will happen, so if you’ve been thinking about it, this is a good time to register! Link in bio.

This weekend, Jessica of @doughbauchery traveled with Simply Bread to Petaluma CA for @westcoastbreadfest , where we spent the day in a room full of people fully engaged in their craft, and in the work behind it. From the moment the day began, there was a steady excitement. Dough being shaped, ovens opening and closing, conversations building around shared experience. Every table held someone refining a process, asking questions, or passing along what they’ve learned. There is something powerful about being in a room where this level of focus is the baseline. You feel it in the pace, in the attention to detail, in the way people stay present with what they’re doing. We’re grateful to have been there, to meet and see everyone and to spend time within a community that continues to shape and strengthen this craft. Thank you Laila @theearlyrisebaker for building something that brought so many people together and for creating something special that people will carry with them long after the day ended.

Wow! What a day! 🥰☀️ Bread. People. Craft. That’s @westcoastbreadfest . From hand-on classes to endless bread tasting, this day was all about real bread and connections❤️ Can’t wait for next year @theearlyrisebaker !😉

This weekend I got to hang out with a group of passionate and inspiring bakers at @westcoastbreadfest 💫 I taught a class on tsourekia for the first time! A bread I love to eat and make at @colossusbread after lots of formulation, trial + error. Bakers share. Recipes, knowledge, tips + tricks, experience and culture. What a privilege to share this bread and meet so many new and curious people. If you made tsourekia with me this weekend, I hope to see your own version soon❣️ Thank you to the amazing Host of the Most @theearlyrisebaker , @artisanbakingcenter and cheers to the first of many West Coast Bread Fests!

Thank you to everyone who made this possible and created such a beautiful event—bringing together a strong, hardworking, passionate community of bread lovers who truly share what brings them joy. 12 hours of soaking in knowledge, inspiration, and connection. I may not have won the raffle or the bread contest, but I walked away so proud—this was a big step forward, pushing past my fears. I left feeling like a winner 🏆 I left with a full heart.💗 I left wanting more. I can’t wait to take everything I’ve learned, bring it into my bakes, and share it with my local community. Thank you 👩🏻‍🍳🤍#littlenoonhouse #westcostbreadfest #sourdoughcommunity #communityovercómpetition

Yesterday, I found myself teaching in a room full of flour-dusted hands and people who speak the same strange, beautiful language, the language of fermentation, fire, patience, and instinct. West Coast Bread Fest. Not a competition. Not a spectacle. Something way mo better. A gathering. Held together somehow, impossibly by Laila O’Boyle aka @theearlyrisebaker . The kind of person who doesn’t just organize an event, but builds a table big enough for all of us to sit at. The kind of effort that doesn’t show up in photos: the emails, the money, the sleepless nights, the quiet belief that if you bring good people together, something meaningful will happen. And it does. You look around and see it…bakers trading notes like secrets, laughing like old friends even if they met an hour ago. Recipes get shared. Stories get told. Failures get admitted. Wins get celebrated. No ego, just craft. No competition, just respect. This is the part people don’t see when they bite into a loaf. The community behind it. I’ve loved being a baker since the moment I started. The early mornings, the rhythm, the obsession—it gets in your blood. But being here, surrounded by people who feel it the same way… it reminds you why you stay. Why it matters. This isn’t just bread. It’s culture. It’s camaraderie.

@westcoastbreadfest part two! I picked up a bunch of knowledge and techniques in the croissant and baguette classes. It was a challenge for the teachers to try and squeeze what they wanted to share into an hour but I leaned a ton nonetheless. It was cool to meet Jon from @proofbread I have been following him since the garage days. He brought a wealth of experience with sourdough croissants and a quiet intensity for his craft. The baguette class was very informative and inspiring and Karen Bonarth of @bbga_ogr was a fantastic teacher. The day winded down with a lovely taco dinner and panel discussion and I was about full to bursting with bread and baker vibes.

What a bread fest!! I took a slab bread class with Andrew Janjigian! I marveled over all the sourdough boules submitted for the contest, wow! Hung out with some very well known sourdough bakers, which means I lurked behind them! Got some great tips for my baking. Now I'm unstoppable. @westcoastbreadfest

We arrived early and watched it “Rise”! 🙌🥐🥖🍞☕️❤️🎯🤙😎@westcoastbreadfest

If you’ve purchased a dinner ticket, you’ll have 2 extra tickets in your name tag holder. Those will be used to get your dinner and first drink! Head on over to @griffodistillery after we announce the winners of the bake off and the raffle. It’s a super easy 5 minute walk. We’ll start with dinner by @tacosdonpepefamily (2 tacos and 2 sides) from 5:30-7. From 7-8:30 enjoy a panel discussion with our fabulous panelists, and then who knows where the night will go? #westcoastbreadfest