Gulf Coast Sourdough, a beloved local bakery, is splitting its business. Bavaro’s Hospitality is purchasing its wholesale baking operation, which has been supplying bread and pizza dough to over 40 area restaurants, grocery stores, and farmers’ markets since 2015. Under Bavaro’s ownership, the wholesale operation will be renamed Sunshine Sourdough and will include Gulf Coast Sourdough’s baking facility in Sulphur Springs along with its associated assets.
Meanwhile, Gulf Coast Sourdough Sandwich House will remain an independent entity, continuing to serve customers from its current location at 6703 N. Florida Ave in Seminole Heights.
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Incorporating tasty sourdough recipes into the Bavaro Family
“Gulf Coast Sourdough has built a strong wholesale business over the past nine years, and we’re excited to incorporate it into the Bavaro family,” said Dan Bavaro, founder of Bavaro’s Hospitality. “We share similar origins and food philosophies, and it’s a natural fit with our plans for further growing our presence in the region as the newest chapter of Bavaro’s Sunshine Sourdough.”
The Gulf Coast Sourdough Sandwich House will continue to bake all its bread in-house, adding a fresh twist to the customer experience at its Seminole Heights location.
Maintaining a strong prescence in Tampa Bay
“Customers will be able to see the process from start to finish,” said Samantha Facciola, General Manager of Gulf Coast Sourdough Sandwich House. “We’ll be able to develop new recipes much more quickly as well as try out new sourdough creations.”
The wholesale business will continue serving existing restaurants, grocery stores, and farmers’ markets under the new label, “Sunshine Sourdough by Bavaro’s,” starting in late September 2024.
“As our wholesale business and our retail sandwich shop have grown, running both together has grown increasingly complex,” said Christina Cann, co-founder and CEO of Gulf Coast Sourdough. “The wholesale bakery and the sandwich shop have different needs and splitting them will allow for each to optimize what they do and grow even more.”
Baking thousands of loaves each week
Christina Cann and Brett Wiewiora founded Gulf Coast Sourdough in 2015 after moving to Tampa Bay from Pittsburgh, PA. They started by selling at local farmers’ markets and teaching baking classes. In 2019, they opened their popular storefront in Seminole Heights, and by 2020, they expanded into a large-scale baking facility in Sulphur Springs. This growth enabled them to bake thousands of loaves each week for local restaurants, grocery stores, and their Sandwich House.
“We’re excited for this new chapter for what we started back in 2015,” said Brett Wiewiora, co-founder and COO of Gulf Coast Sourdough. “The Tampa sourdough scene is on the rise – stay tuned for more exciting news to come!”
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