Local favorite, famous for their sourdough, is expanding
Sumano’s Bakery, locally famous for its Watsonville sourdough, is on the rise—adding a branch in Los Angeles County and some tasty new burger buns, too. We talked to owner Ray Sumano about what’s new at the South County bakery.
GT: When did you start doing burger buns?
Ray Sumano: We started doing those about six months ago. Yeah, those are good. We used to only make them for restaurants before, but now we’re doing them for some grocery stores. We’re hoping to increase that line. We have whole wheat burger buns, we have plain white, and we have sesame seed, and we have them in different sizes.
Your bread’s tasty, but it doesn’t keep as long as some breads do.
It’s good, and it’s bad, since we don’t use preservatives, and it’s all-natural. That keeps us being very careful. We go to the store seven days. And whatever doesn’t sell, we will bring it back and put fresh bread every day. If we leave it in the store for a long time and forget about it, by the time you buy it, it’s going to be old bread. There are a lot of preservatives, chemicals on the market for bread that will keep it forever. It’ll be in the store for three or four days, and then you take it home, and it’s good for another two or three or four days. But we are not into the chemicals for our bread.
Sometimes we have to explain that. But people don’t read the labels that good. If you read the labels on our bread, you can read all the ingredients really easily. It’s three or four ingredients. That’s why it goes bad quick. We would rather open another place than send our bread far away.
Do you ever get late-night calls when something goes wrong?
This morning I got called at five in the morning when our truck broke down in Capitola, so I had to come back here and take a back-up truck there and switch trucks and wait for the towing truck. That’s normal, it happens. We have equipment here that sometimes goes bad. I get calls, and sometimes if they don’t find a mechanic, I’ll jump in and try to fix it.
Do you ever make it worse?
Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes I get lucky, and I get it right.
sumanosbakery.com, 722-5511 PHOTO: CHIP SCHEUER
