Juniper, the Polk Gulch bakery that swept the 2024 Best Croissant San Francisco competition, plans to open a second shop at 1 North B Street in downtown San Mateo in early 2027. The location will be the bakery’s first outside San Francisco and will give it room to make baguettes and sourdough, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The address is inside The Brickline, a mixed-use development near Caltrain. Project materials describe 65,000 square feet of office space, 64 apartments and 19,000 square feet of retail; Prometheus Real Estate Group lists Colliers, DFJ Growth Management and Hercules Capital among the development’s major tenants. The planned bakery will join a site combining workplaces, homes and retail rather than open as a stand-alone destination.
A station-area location, in a city planning for growth
The setting reflects a broader pattern in San Mateo’s adopted housing policy. The City of San Mateo’s General Plan 2040 Housing Element says major development is concentrated primarily near the city’s three Caltrain stations and along El Camino Real. That describes where development is focused; it does not mean every planned project is complete or underway.
Rail service has also changed since Juniper opened in 2023. Caltrain says electrified service began Sept. 21, 2024, with faster travel times, 20% more weekday service to stations and trains every 30 minutes during off-peak periods, according to its FY2025 annual ridership report. The report lists average mid-week ridership across San Mateo County at 10,682 in FY2025, up from 7,893 in FY2024. Those are countywide totals, not counts for downtown San Mateo station, and they do not show how many riders might visit a bakery.
Room for a larger baking operation
Juniper’s current Polk and Pine shop has a basement baking kitchen, which partner-baker Amy Chen told the Chronicle was not designed for the bakery’s present volume of laminated pastries. The San Mateo shop is planned with a larger, single-floor kitchen. The Chronicle reports that the new location will add baguettes and naturally leavened sourdough, including baguettes baked in multiple batches during the day.
Juniper opened in 2023. In May 2024, it won the Grand Prix, People’s Choice and Best Original Creation awards at the Best Croissant San Francisco competition, organized by French Morning and Frenchly, according to SFGATE. The planned expansion pairs that existing pastry business with a bread program the current kitchen cannot accommodate, while its location places the new shop within downtown San Mateo’s transit-oriented development pattern.
