Backhaus opens 2nd location in Burlingame

Hours will expand as the team finds their stride and continues to hire staff, Anne Moser, CEO and head baker at Backhaus, said.

The new breakfast menu will feature a breakfast sandwich on brioche, a ‘Backhaus breakfast board’ with bread, jam, cold cuts, egg and cheese, croissant French toast, and a brunch salad option, alongside other hot food.

“I think there’s something for everyone,” Moser said. “You can you can sit down with your party and someone might go for the breakfast sandwich, and somebody else’s like ‘you know what, I just want a croissant with a side of house-made jam,’ or something very simple. So you have that option of going just for a pastry or for a full-on dish.”

Backhaus will also begin to mill their own flour, which it will incorporate into their products and also sell.

Moser and her husband, Robert Moser, began baking out of their home kitchen and delivering loaves to family and friends over seven years ago. They started selling their goods at local farmers’ markets in 2016, moving over to commercial commissary kitchen KitchenTown to accommodate their increase in product.

By 2019, Backhaus — German for bake house — opened at a physical location in San Mateo.

“Now it’s four and a half years ago almost, that we opened that brick and mortar, and we’ve just been continued to grow,” Moser said. “Then about two years ago, I found this location here. We had been looking for a new space to be able to offer a more comprehensive Backhaus experience. We really wanted to be able to actually make dishes with the baked goods that we bake.”

The new location is an airy, spacious two-story building at 261 California Drive. It features skylights, large windows overlooking the street, plenty of seating, and an open kitchen so guests can watch their pastries and baked goods being prepared.

“When we found this space, we decided if we move our pastry team over here, we then have space still for a kitchen to do the sit-down food for people that we want to do, and then our bread team can take over the other location,” Moser said. “So we still bake everything and make everything within our two locations.”

The San Mateo location was getting crowded with production, she said, so the new location is an opportunity to split up the baking — with the pastry team taking over in San Mateo and bread and other food baked and cooked in Burlingame. Every day, deliveries from one location to the other will ensure both storefronts are stocked with the full Backhaus selection.

Moser, who is originally from Germany and spent time in France growing up, said her cultural and childhood influences — alongside those of her team members — are an important factor in their products.

“I always say, we want to share with people what we love to eat. And that’s not just me, but that’s the rest of the team as well. So we always want to hear from everyone, what kind of food is nostalgic to them, what flavors … but I think there’s a lot of things on the menu that are just very nostalgic for me,” she said, noting the Backhaus board as one example.

The new storefront building has a long history in the community, originally as Burlingame’s first movie theater, and the Backhaus team is excited to “bring new life to the space” for the Bay Area community.

“What we would like to be able to do is just deepen that connection with the local community. So we hope to be able to offer our house made jams for sale, and the flour and then maybe we can do events, bring back classes,” Moser said. “Deepening our impact is kind of the goal.”