Land Park's Freeport Bakery Sold as Founders Retire After Nearly 40 Years

Freeport Bakery, the Land Park cake shop that's turned out celebration desserts for Sacramento families for nearly 40 years, is changing hands. Founders Walter and Marlene Goetzeler are selling the business to Lisa Calk, owner of Ettore's Bakery & Café, as the couple prepares to retire on September 7.

The sale marks the end of an era for a business the Goetzelers built from the ground up starting in 1987, when they bought Freeport Bakery in Sacramento with just six employees and residential-sized equipment, according to Abridged – PBS KVIE. Under their nearly four-decade run, the shop grew into a roughly 70-person operation and became one of Sacramento's most iconic culinary institutions, per the same outlet. Marlene Goetzeler said she and Calk share similar values and that Calk wants to preserve what makes Freeport, Freeport.

Calk isn't a stranger to the neighborhood or to rescuing a beloved bakery. She purchased Ettore's Bakery & Café — located in Arden Arcade — out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018 after 14 years working there, and she and her general manager, Veronica Calk, have been customers of Freeport Bakery for years. The article notes that Lisa Calk and Marlene and Walter Goetzeler began working out the sale in June.

Keeping the Recipes, and the Name

Calk has said Freeport Bakery will remain Freeport, staying separate from Ettore's rather than being absorbed into it. Both bakeries will continue using their existing recipes, though Freeport and Ettore's will share ingredients and equipment when needed, the outlet reports. Calk is considering introducing soups, salads and sandwiches to Freeport's menu, but otherwise the shop is expected to remain the same aside from those potential savory additions.

Freeport Bakery has long been a fixture for birthday parties, office celebrations and weddings across the region, selling cakes and cookies from its shop alongside neighborhood staples in Land Park's food scene. The bakery even landed international attention in 2016 after fulfilling a custom order for a cake topped with a Ken doll wearing a ball gown and tiara, a request the owners later said was for a friendly dice game rather than any political statement.

Two Sacramento Bakery Legacies Converge

Ettore's has its own decades-long history in Sacramento, founded in 1985 by Swiss pastry chef Ettore Ravazzolo on Fair Oaks Boulevard. Ravazzolo briefly expanded the business into Folsom and Roseville before those locations closed amid the financial strain that led to the 2018 bankruptcy filing. Since Calk's acquisition, Ettore's has grown into a larger operation offering European desserts and savory items, expanding into a 5,000-square-foot commercial kitchen in Natomas and securing a contract to bake cakes for Nugget Market.

Walter Goetzeler plans to help out at Freeport Bakery around the holidays even after stepping back from day-to-day ownership, giving the shop a bridge between its founding family and its new owner. Calk has said she intends to run Freeport as Freeport and cultivate the community that's built up around it over nearly four decades, while the Goetzelers look forward to enjoying retirement after a run that reshaped a small neighborhood shop into a Sacramento institution.