Walk into Ramona Country Bakery this time of year and you are likely to breathe in the rich aroma of baking brioche rolls or cranberry walnut bread.
Other specialties of the quaint French country shop are loaves of naturally leavened and fermented sourdough bread, cinnamon rolls and cherry pie.
For the holidays, owners Leo and Carrie Badescu are planning to make a German stollen with marzipan in the center.
“For the Christmas Tree Lighting we opened here and had a table outside,” Carrie Badescu said. “We sold fudge, snowball cookies and sugar cookie cutouts.”
The Ramona couple are busy baking roughly 300 loaves per day three days a week for the grocery stores. They’re ramping that number up during the holidays as stores increase their orders, especially for sourdough bread. And they’re filling more orders of pies, quiches, cupcakes and other delights for holiday parties.
They manage it with the help of two other team and by baking long hours, they said.
The Badescus have been baking bread professionally since 2017. Their entrée into the field was selling their goods at Ramona Family Naturals Market, and from there they added Jimbo’s…Naturally in Carlsbad, Carmel Valley and Escondido. They continued expanding with sales to Seaside Market in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Cream of the Crop in Oceanside, Major Market in Escondido, Happy Hens in Ramona, European Market in Poway and Farmstand 67 in Ramona, to name a few.
By opening the Ramona Country Bakery retail shop at 733 Main St. on Nov. 1, the Badescus hope to expand even further.
“Retail is a great addition, and it will probably help us add more to our team,” Carrie Badescu said. “We can make other flavors of bread and sweets here and we can offer coffee and a place where people can connect with each other.”
Leo Badescu honed his baking skills by working at a bakery restaurant in Böblingen, for several years about 25 years ago.
“The Germans love their bakeries,” he said. “They make a lot of strudels, rolls and Christmas treats.”
Baking has also been a family tradition. Carrie Badescu’s grandmother on her father’s side, Jan Stephens, was famous among her Colorado neighbors for making pizza and cream pies.
“She was the hub of the neighborhood for that,” she said. “She made really good cakes and pies and her pizza was a winner.”
Her great-grandfather on her mother’s side in Denmark was also a baking enthusiast. So when Leo and Carrie met in Europe 20 years ago they naturally shared a love of good coffee, food and bread, she said.
“We love the idea of community and people coming together for whatever reason,” Badescu said. “Breaking your bread and meeting your friend at the local bakery is kind of cool.”
The Badescus got their start in business by making a hard-to-find bread for Vanessa Gunesch, their niece in . That launched their idea to get a cottage permit that allowed them to sell bread at different wineries during the weekends. Early on, the couple sold bread at the Ramona Art & Wine Festival. Then they sold bread at a Christmas event at Vineyard Grant James in Ramona where they met Kim Spero of Cheeses From the Cave. The trio soon formed an informal partnership and began selling their cheese and bread together at different venues.
They got their first big break by being introduced to Victoria Bradley, co-owner of Ramona Family Naturals Market.
“Victoria tasted a snack pack by Kim and I and asked me if I wanted to sell at her store,” Carrie Badescu said. “During COVID it was super helpful to have the grocery store s. Everyone was shopping at the stores and we gained more customers. That was a positive thing.”
Ramona Family Naturals Market has been selling Ramona Country Bakery’s breads since 2017, said Robert Bradley, who co-owns the grocery store with his wife, Victoria.
They stock six to eight varieties such as cranberry walnut, chocolate, sourdough and jalapeno cheddar breads in addition to banana bread, lemon cake and strawberry cake. The breads are displayed at the store’s entrance and the sweets and specialty pastries are available at the store’s coffee bar, Bradley said.
From the beginning, Bradley said they wanted to sell Ramona Country Bakery items because they liked their products and wanted to a local business. Having businesses that employ people locally is better for the economics of the Ramona community, he said.
“We’ve watched them grow from a seedling into a tree and now they’re producing fruit,” Bradley said. “ It’s awesome.”
He said Ramona Country Bakery’s trajectory reminds him of his company’s expansion from a fledgling business in 2009 to doubling its store size from 642 Main St. to its current location at 325 Sixth St. in 2017.
“It’s exciting that Ramona Country Bakery is delivering all the way to the coast now,” he said, noting that he hears good from the bakery’s strong customer base. “They’re delivering to other stores in the county and they’ve really grown.”
The Badescus introduced the Ramona Country Bakery retail shop to the community on Halloween night when they gave out samples of their baked goods instead of candy. The next day they opened for business and lined their shelves with some seasonal favorites such as pumpkin bread and lemon loaves.
The bakery’s signature bread is a sourdough, which is fermented at least 18 hours to help break down the gluten so it is more easily digested than a bread that rises in a few hours, Carrie Badescu said. While their wholesale distribution is generally limited to a half-dozen types of bread, she said the retail shop will allow them to experiment with a variety of breads and treats because they are not limited by shelf space.
The bakery also fills custom orders for cookies, pies, pastries and quiche with a few days advance notice. Deliveries are available through DoorDash, and during select hours deliveries of pizza, quiche, desserts, charcuterie boards and soups are available to Pamo Valley Winery across the street.
For more information, visit Ramona Country Bakery’s website at ramonabakery.com/.
