Nabolom Bakery & Pizzeria will close permanently on Sunday after a 50-year run in Berkeley's Elmwood neighborhood. Co-owner Sabra Stepak said the decision came down to exhaustion after years of fighting rising costs, staffing struggles and stiff competition. The bakery sold out of pastries entirely on Friday as longtime customers rushed in for one last taste.
Nabolom opened in 1976 as a worker collective founded by Adele Kohl, Nora Chamberlin, Susan Talpers and Lynne McMasters, according to SFGATE. Over five decades it became a neighborhood fixture at 2708 Russell Street, known for fruit danishes, challah, cinnamon twists and, more recently, vegetarian pizzas, the San Francisco Chronicle notes. The closure, reported by the New York Post, ends a story that has weathered at least one previous near-collapse.
A Final Rush Before the Doors Shut
Customers lined up at Nabolom between 8 and 11 a.m. Friday, part of what Stepak described as a wave of customers hoping for one last taste. She said recent sales were running roughly three times the bakery's usual level, describing those as the bakery's most viable days in a decade. The bakery's website indicates its final Friday, Saturday and Sunday hours will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The surge, however, couldn't offset years of mounting pressure. Per the same SFGATE report, Stepak pointed to rising ingredient and utility costs, employee turnover and fierce competition as the forces that finally wore the business down. She put numbers to the squeeze, saying chocolate prices had tripled and her PG&E bill had climbed about 70 percent. “The increase in the cost of ingredients and utilities has added to the longtime challenges,” she said.
From Debt Crisis to a Second Act
This isn't the first time Nabolom has teetered on the edge. The bakery nearly folded in 2004 after owners disclosed about $30,000 in debt and two months of overdue rent, prompting attempts to stay afloat through advance payments for baked goods and forays into gourmet pizza and live events. More than a decade later, the business closed again after several collective members departed — though accounts differ on the exact timing, with SFGATE reporting a July 2015 closure following the exit of four collective members, while Berkeleyside described the shutdown occurring in August 2015 after the business lost four of its 10 collective members within three months. Berkeleyside also reported that rent had climbed to $4,500 a month and that butter and flour prices had doubled in the years before that closure.
Six months after the 2015 shutdown, Sabra Stepak and Julia Elliott stepped in, paid off much of the outstanding debt and reopened the bakery, according to the Chronicle. The pair officially purchased the business and became its sole owners in 2016, transitioning Nabolom from a collective to private ownership. They also refurbished the space and introduced sourdough pizzas topped with seasonal, rotating ingredients — the addition that would define the bakery's second act.
Owners Hope Someone Else Will Carry It Forward
Stepak said she and her co-owner are open to selling the bakery to someone willing to keep it running, rather than see the Nabolom name disappear entirely. Still, she made clear the toll the business had taken on her and Elliott. “We've agonized over it and we just can't do it anymore. We're exhausted,” Stepak said.
Nabolom's struggles echo broader pressures facing small bakeries. A Bureau of Labor Statistics summary has attributed rising bakery-product prices to supply-chain disruptions, a tight post-COVID labor market and materials shortages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The East Bay has seen other long-running bakeries shutter in recent years, including Taste of Denmark in Oakland, which closed in 2022 after nearly a century in business, as reported by Eater SF.
For now, Berkeley residents have until Sunday to stop by the Elmwood neighborhood shop for one more danish or slice of sourdough pizza before Nabolom's ovens go cold for good.
