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Sunday Family Group’s East Bay ‘Bakeshop’ concept
BY Jeffrey Edalatpour
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUNDAY BAKESHOP
T
he special at Sunday Bakeshop on National Donut Day is a banana milk donut. Chef Elaine Lau created it together with Deuki Hong, who she says loves banana milk. Lau tried the Korean drink, packaged in a juice box, because he had talked about it. She decided to combine her love of donuts with one of his favorite drinks. “It’s literally just bananas ground into milk,” Lau says. “Only it tastes more artificial. We roast real bananas in our version.” Hong is also a chef, but both he and Lau describe his present occupation as someone who “finds people who are passionate about food and then provides them with their own platform.” Sunday Bakeshop is just one culinary wing or “concept” from the Sunday Family group. But the hospitality group initially formed when
Hong moved to the Bay Area from New York. Hong's first endeavor here, Sunday Bird, was a fried chicken pop-up in the Boba Guys Fillmore location. Its success led to an expanded partnership with the Boba Guys. They started Sundays, a food and beverage program at the Asian Art Museum (AAM). Now that public spaces are opening up again, Hong, with Chef Elena Yamamoto, will be at the AAM serving up sandos that are as big a hit as his fried chicken was on Fillmore. Another concept, called Sunday Gather, in partnership with The Way Ministry, serves Hawaiian barbecue. Located in the Bayview on Third Street, items range from loco moco to a chicken katsu sandwich. In addition to their food service, Gather provides job training for people who have been incarcerated or are in recovery, and for people without housing.
Sunday Bakeshop, though, is the first East Bay venture. Hong says it’s “an homage to the Asian bakeries we grew up eating [in] and loving.” Chef Yamamoto contributes packaged snacks usually found in Asian convenience stores, such as pandan coconut caramel corn. But the pastries, which decorate the glass cases at the Bakeshop, are primarily Lau’s creations. Lau began to work with Hong, and his established partnership with the Boba Guys, to develop a pastry program. The plan was to sell pastries wholesale and at the Boba Guys storefronts. In the second year, her baked goods sold well enough that the Sunday group decided to provide Lau with the opportunity to run her own shop. The Boba Guys were in the process of renovating the closed-down Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream space on
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