Located in an industrial neighborhood, Melrose Baking Company is not an easy place to find. Drive down Painter Avenue using 10609 Painter Avenue in your GPS. You will see Petros Builders Inc and an alleyway between Flores Street and Sandoval Street. Turn into the Petros Builders parking lot and follow the alleyway. It may seem shady or circumspect, but if you get to the end and see a parking lot with some Melrose Baking Company vans (or a broken down Melrose Baking van and what looks like a rusted metal bomb shelter), you have arrived at the right place. It will be odd, and you will need to park in the lot. The admin office is located through the red door where the helpful staff will likely be surprised that you were able to find them without calling first. Thanks to Olivia T. for her tips and photos on finding this place!
This is a production facility that’s really quiet during the day since all the baking is done late at night or in the wee early morning hours. During the hours from 8AM-2PM, they allow the public to come in and make purchases of any extras not shipped out to their hotel or restaurant clients like Plan Check. Walking into the warehouse, you are greeted with a massive shelf of bread. Sandwich bread, brioche, sourdough, multigrain, wheat, pretzel rolls, Mexican sandwich rolls, ciabatta, focaccia, lobster rolls, hamburger and hot dog buns, dinner rolls…you name it. They also offer pastries like danishes, lemon bars, croissants, bear claws, and muffins…but you may need to call ahead to order pastries because I saw a limited supply. This place is carb heaven and everything is made without preservatives or additives so you will have to eat it fast, freeze it, or share with friends. The portions are also super generous because the loaves and packages are fairly large. If you have something specific in mind, you can also call ahead and pre-order, if they have all the ingredients, they’ll make it for you…I hear the cinnamon brioche makes a delightful French toast or bread pudding.
Pricing is super reasonable for a huge loaf of bread that they will slice in your desired width. A large loaf of sourdough runs about $3-4, but their harder to find loaves life squaw will run $11-12. Squaw bread is usually made for clients and they don’t often have leftovers to sell to the public, and the loaves are easily 2-3 times larger than the grocery store loaves of bread. The squaw bread is delightful…slightly sweetened and super soft with a nice chew and perfect for a great sandwich or simply toasted with butter.
Once you’ve gone shopping in the warehouse, you head back to the office to pay for your purchase, and that’s it…you’ve got great bread for whatever your purpose is. Looks like I may put together a sandwich tray for our next gathering with bread from here.
(Jar of bay leaves used for scale)
Squaw bread - 1/2 inch sliced (they have 1/2”, 3/5”, and 3/4” slicers)
Sourdough loaf
