Eight years, one oven, and a lot of patience.
Masoomeen Bakery began in 2018 as a windowsill experiment in Hayward. Today it is a small neighborhood institution — and we still bake the way we did at the start.
"I never set out to open a bakery."
In early 2018 I was working as a hospital administrator and feeding a stubborn sourdough starter on my kitchen windowsill in Hayward. I baked one loaf for myself and one for a neighbor. The neighbor told another neighbor. Within a few months I was running flour through my apartment by the fifty-pound sack.
That December I signed a lease on a tiny corner space three blocks from CSU East Bay. I had no formal training and a single secondhand deck oven. What I did have was the conviction that bread is meant to be slow, and that a neighborhood gets better when there's a place to sit with a coffee and a warm pastry on a Tuesday morning.
Eight years later, we are still here. The starter on my windowsill is now a wheel of three mother cultures we feed twice a day. The single oven has become two. The neighbor who tried that first loaf still comes in on Saturdays. Thank you for being part of this.
— Leilani Josef
Founder & head baker
The small things we refuse to compromise on
Time over speed
Every loaf gets at least 36 hours of fermentation. Croissants take three days. The kouign-amann takes two. We don't shortcut.
Whole grains, milled fresh
We mill heritage wheat, rye and spelt in-house from California farms. Fresh flour tastes the way bread is supposed to taste.
People over volume
We bake what we can do well in a day. When we sell out, we sell out. The bakers go home at a reasonable hour.
Local first
Eggs from Petaluma. Butter from Sonoma. Berries from Watsonville. Coffee from Oakland and Alameda roasters. We name them on the menu.
Six pairs of hands
Leilani Josef
Founder & head baker
Started Masoomeen in her kitchen in 2018. Trained at home, then under a mentor in Berkeley. Likes long ferments and short emails.
Marisol Aguilar
Head of pastry
Joined in 2020 from a small viennoiserie in Oakland. Responsible for every laminated thing on the counter.
Theo Nakamura
Coffee program
Manages our roaster relationships and trains the bar. Believes a great latte is mostly about the milk.
Quietly noticed
"Hayward's most quietly excellent croissant." — Bay Area Bites
"Worth the drive from Oakland." — The Infatuation SF