Getting Ready for Success at Pleasanton Brick Oven Bakery!

by Barbara Overdier

2007 Picture Your Place Photo Contest 

Places to Work - First Place

A fire made Thursday night, stoked up to 700 degrees will be ready for bread baking on Friday morning. It will accommodate pie baking on Saturday, and still have enough heat left to bake cookies on Monday.  An old maple tree -recently fallen across trails at the commons - could provide wood to fuel this brick oven fire all winter.

Gerard Grabowski, owner, explains this to anyone who is interested in knowing about the efficient process he is engaged in at work.

Bread has been traced by scientists as one of our oldest foods: evidence of a crude form of bread (ground nuts, roots and other fibers) dates back 12,000 years ago. On a Friday evening in September 2007, a line is forming in front of the counter where Pleasanton bread is being sold. Grabowski, although possibly exhausted, shows patience and consideration to his customers and employees alike. 

It is so pleasant here!

A pregnant woman and her three year old son stop in and sit down at a round table to warm up.  The little boy is eager to sample a sesame cookie Gerard generously bestowed upon him.  An Italian friend, in town for the Epicurean Classic this weekend, stops to drop off or discuss a recipe for Brick Oven Pizza.  A relative, visiting from California comments, "How ironic!", Building 66, the 'Fire Building', that once housed emergency fire extinguishing equipment, now has a contained fire burning, raging inside weekly!