Why Arizmendi Bakery is a Broke-Ass’ Best Friend

Bread has long been a Broke-Ass’s friend. Yeast, flour, a lil sugar and oil and water, and you’ve got a loaf to last you around seven meals, depending on your appetite, perseverance, and depth of broke-assitude. Tempting, I know.

Luckily for those of us who love a leavened loaf but don’t feel particularly compelled to make our own, there are so many bread vendors around. Who knew? It’s everywhere.

Especially at Arizmendi, a worker-owned bakery with six spots in the Bay Area, two in SF itself. They’ve got some tricked out little rolls, foccaccias, scones, muffins, and cookies in here, but strangely enough, Arizmendi’s English muffins – a criminally underlooked breakfast side dish? – are the real calling card for me. Often still warm from their royal treatment in the huge oven, the slightly sour little bread disks are crunchy on the outside, dense and chewy inside. And 60 cents each. Meaning it’s finally time to throw that brunch party: at three English muffins a person, everyone gets an extra mimosa or two.

Arizmendi
1331 9th Avenue
[Inner Sunset]

1268 Valencia Street
[Mission]

Photo courtesy of Scott F.