Bread Baking has become a lost art and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Clare Dold, one of the Owners of Bakersville Bread Co. to discuss her husband, Josef’s talent and love for baking bread.
What made you decide to open this business?
Josef is my husband and he’s the baker. He was raised in Germany and was in construction for many years but has always wanted to be a baker. Several years ago he changed directions in his career and moved out of construction and into baking. He worked for La Parisienne Bakery and Atlanta Bread Company where he made bread for the major markets such as Publix and Fresh Market. We had this desire to do it ourselves and felt this year was a good time to do it.
What brought you both to St. Augustine?
Josef has been here a long time, he came here from Germany and I came from England and we met here. I came in 1980 and Josef came in 1972. My brother was here graduating from Flagler and I came for a visit and I stayed. I became an American Citizen in 2016 and I’m happy to be here.
Did Josef have to go to school to learn how to make all these different types of bread?
He had some training with Atlanta but most of it is by trial and error. Bread baking is a great skill, we make everything from scratch here so it’s interesting how sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I guess depending on the weather and the humidity. Sometimes you can’t tell why a bread did really well yesterday and not so much today. When you are baking this many different types of loaves at the same time, each has a different recipe and different timing, he is very talented and has a gift for it.
How’s it going so far?
It’s going ok. It’s been slow this past month, but we do have some wholesale orders. We work with the Floridian, the Funkadelic Food Truck, and Hyppo Cafe. It’s lovely to have small businesses buy from us because we would love to see them flourish too. It also keeps it manageable for us because we are not a factory set up for huge amounts of bread.
What time does he start baking bread in the morning?
He gets here at 2:30-3:00 and he is often is here until 5:00. He has very long days.
Did you build out the space for the bakery?
We had fun putting this bakery together. We did the whole build out ourselves and everything is planned for functionality. Josef made the table in the middle, it’s on casters. We honestly had one square inch left to fit the bread slicer, Josef did some really good measuring, I guess his construction background came in handy.
Do you typically sell out of the bread?
Sometimes we have hardly any left, but when we don’t sell out we donate the bread to St. Francis house or the Betty Griffin Center.
Do you do any gluten free bread?
People are wanting more gluten free and it is not easy to make. We are working on other recipes but we have been able to make the potato rosemary and cinnamon raisin as a gluten free option and we are working on some rolls as well.
Can you tell me about this painting you have hanging in the front area?
James Corman did this painting, he always puts John 8:12 on all his pieces. We saw this in the Casa Monica Gallery and it reminds us of the Rhine Valley where Josef grew up. It’s a very beautiful painting and it was the first thing we bought for the bakery and the last thing we put up.
What type of breads do you make daily?
We generally have:
Potato Rosemary
Multigrain
German Farmers
German Sourdough
Italian
French Sourdough
Soft Pretzels
Cinnamon Raisin
Do you have any plans for the bakery?
We are featuring an international bread weekly. We are going to be making an interesting Australian bread, it has tomato, beet and spinach juice in it which gives the bread three different colors, it’s very nutritious.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with the community?
We make high quality breads from scratch and it's definitely a passion for us. We hope the local community finds us and enjoys our breads as much as we do.
Bakersville Bread Co. is located at 233 West King Street, St. Augustine FL 32084
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