La Brea Bakery
La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, California
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| Founded |
Los Angeles, California January 1989 |
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| Founder | Nancy Silverton |
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Key people
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John Yamin, president and CEO |
| Owner | Aryzta |
| Website | labreabakery |
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 468 S La Brea Avenue in 1989, La Brea has opened two much larger bakeries in Van Nuys, California, and Swedesboro, New Jersey, to serve wholesale clients. It also sells its products in the United Kingdom and Ireland. La Brea is one of the USA's largest sellers of fresh bread. Since 2001 La Brea has been owned by Aryzta AG, the largest bakery company in the world.
Founder Nancy Silverton had originally wanted to open a restaurant that offered fresh-baked bread. At the time, she 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."
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. 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. La Brea breads are widely available throughout Southern California and are sold in many supermarkets, 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. She has also written several books. The company’s website includes some of the articles that have been written about its breads.
In October 2008, La Brea Bakery was chosen to open a new restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport.
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Wikipedia