Bread Artisan Bakery bakes loaves with love for O.C. restaurants, resorts and farmers markets
Yannick Guegan doesn’t really like to take a day off. The master baker often finds his way into Bread Artisan Bakery’s baking facilities in Santa Ana even on days he isn’t expected to come in.
Guegan’s hometown of Brittany, France is known for the kouign-amann, or butter cake. Traditionally, a kouign-amann has flaky folds like a croissant, each one generously layered with butter and sugar before baking, making the end result a sticky, crackly, caramelized treat. Guegan comes in on weekends to make the decadent sweet and other pastries.
Guegan will knead, roll and fold dough carefully, lovingly. When he speaks, his soft-spoken voice carries a strong French accent. It can be hard to hear him in the baking facility, where industrial-sized mixers whirl.
“This year, it is 29 years that I am a baker,” Guegan said.
Jonnie LoFranco found herself the owner of Bread Artisan Bakery in much the same way Guegan finds his way into the bakery on his days off: by accident.
“My father, this [business] was his dream, and I am just living it now,” LoFranco said surrounded by speed racks filled with rows and rows of unbaked bread.
LoFranco’s father, Bob Peckham, launched the bakery Breads & Spreads in 1995, but passed away in 2001. Several years later, LoFranco decided to help the family by trying to sell the business.
“I didn’t sell it,” LoFranco said with a smile, “I had always worked with restaurants and we are big food family, so I always felt like this was my calling.”
LoFranco left her job as an advertising executive in 2010 to take up her father’s dream. She was given the opportunity to deliver a big order (1,200 rolls big) to a popular local theme park.
She was able to meet the order by subleasing a bakery and its staff, but soon realized she needed an expert baker if she wanted her business, Bread Artisan Bakery, to rise to the next level.
“One project led to another project, led to another project,” said LoFranco, “I finally outgrew that space. Then I met Yannick.”
The bakery Guegan was working for at the time was closing and a mutual friend introduced him to LoFranco.
“He took a chance on me,” said LoFranco. “We just connected. He liked my vision, I loved his passion and we started making bread together.”
Guegan agrees.
“When I met Jonnie, magic happened,” he said.
They moved into the current space in 2012.
LoFranco said she looks at her partnership with Guegan as the true start of her business.
“Prior to that, yes it was functioning, but it wasn’t what is now and what it has become since he joined,” said LoFranco. “We weren’t able to make the kind of bread that we make today.”
Guegan attended an after-school apprenticeship at a small bakery in Milizac, France in 1984.
“I started very young,” Guegan said of his early baking life.
He spent a decade learning the business before coming to U.S. in 1994.
The pastries that Guegan makes — about 1,500 pastries weekly — go out to local farmers markets. Bread Artisan Bakery can be found on Saturdays at the Laguna Beach farmers market, and Sundays at the Laguna Niguel and Ladera Ranch farmers markets.
The bakery also churns out hundreds of breads daily for some of Southern California’s most popular restaurants, baking everything from baguettes and sourdough loaves to burger buns and ciabatta. The baking facility is hot inside on a Thursday afternoon, but filled with the fragrant scent of freshly baked bread.
“Our customers are our friends and the relationships we have with the people we work with are very close,” said LoFranco. “So developing things together is great.”
Bread Artisan Bakery can be found on menus all over Orange County. They make bread for Marche Moderne, Tableau Kitchen & Bar, Gem Dining, Mario’s Butcher, Sapphire, Haute Cakes Caffe, Ironwood, Mayfield, Strong Water Anaheim, OEB, the Cheese Shop, Vine and Water Grill. The bakery makes sourdough loaves for Nick’s and grinder rolls for Docent Brewing. The brioche used at popular egg sandwich concept Flippoly comes from Bread Artisan and so does the rosemary focaccia used on the eggs Benedict at Bloom in San Juan Capistrano.
“I’ve been ordering bread from them for almost nine years now,” said Paul Cao, chef-owner of Burnt Crumbs in Irvine. “We use their buns for our breakfast sandos, sourdough for our avocado toast and our famous spaghetti grilled cheese.”
Besides the love that gets baked into each loaf, the service Bread Artisan Bakery provides is also part of what keeps chefs like Cao coming back.
“Listen, the bread is obviously very good. But what makes me a longtime customer is that not only is the care and thoughtfulness evident in the quality of their breads, but also in their level of customer service,” said Cao. “They have helped us with all kinds of bread emergencies over the years, going above and beyond to make sure our bases are covered when it comes to bread.”
Besides restaurants, Bread Artisan Bakery also provides bread for specialty grocery stores and local hotels. What began as a one delivery truck operation has since grown to a fleet of 11.
Guegan and LoFranco watched dough get loaded into a machine that forms uniform dinner rolls and spits them out on to a conveyor belt. With more space, a second machine could be added, which Guegan said would make life easier for the bakers.
“We are making, I would say, 45,000 to 55,000 pieces of bread a day,” said Guegan.
Baguettes and other breads are formed by hand and Guegan has a corner where he makes his pastries, but all the bread no matter the style, gets loaded on to a rolling rack and taken to the large industrial oven for baking. Bakers with clothes dusted in flour, use large wooden paddles to carry hot bread from the oven to black stacked racks to cool.
Bread Artisan Bakery is quickly outgrowing their Santa Ana space and looking for a 25,000-square-foot building to move into. While the growth is great, Guegan said the real reward is making people happy with bread he has baked with love.
“The most rewarding thing is when you can see people enjoy eating your final product,” said Guegan. “Some people will not understand, but it is a personal satisfaction when you see your product coming out great.”
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