One of the Bay Area's defining Asian American bakeries is opening soon in Alameda
The new Alameda location of Bake Sum will offer cakes as a regular item for the first time. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
In Alameda, the East Bay suburb on a man-made island, locals often talk about not having to leave their cozy island, unless they have to visit specific shops or restaurants. Soon, locals looking to get their fix of the top-tier pastries from Oakland's Bake Sum, known for mixing Asian flavors and ingredients into its treats, will be able to score these without leaving town.
Bake Sum will open its second location at 1650 Park St., inside the Alameda Marketplace, on May 9. The pastry case will stock some of the bakery's popular treats, such as milk buns filled with seasonal flavored creams, including ube and mango; jars of matcha tiramisu; and the signature okonomiyaki Danish topped with nori, bonito flakes and Kewpie mayo. (The opening date was first reported by Coyote.)
Bake Sum took over the former home of Feel Good Bakery, which closed in October after 22 years. It's arriving as Alameda is in the middle of a bakery boom: Local farmers market vendor Night Heron Bakery, best known for its sourdough seed loaves, will be moving into the other Feel Good Bakery space, on Encinal Avenue, while Ones Café & Bakery of Castro Valley is taking over the former Coffee Cultures space, just a few blocks away from the Marketplace.
Bake Sum's new location inside Alameda Marketplace opens on May 9. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
There has also been a recent bump in restaurant openings in town - such as breakfast spot Dandelion Kaffé, beer garden Park Station and Mexican restaurant Leña - which gave Tang, an Oakland resident, confidence that an Alameda location would work out. Bake Sum is also steps away from the nationally acclaimed Indonesian-Texan barbecue spot Fikscue, ranked No. 41 on the Chronicle's 2026 list of the Top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area.
Tang, who quit her tech industry job to go to culinary school in 2015, began working with local chef Deuki Hong's Sunday Group in 2019 before selling Asian-inspired pastries at popups and wholesale to local cafés during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. "I genuinely wanted more Asian pastries, and I didn't think there was enough representation," she said.
Bake Sum is now part of an established core of Asian-influenced bakeries around the Bay Area, including San Francisco's Breadbelly, Jina Bakes and popup Tano, along with Grand Opening in Oakland, among others.
Joyce Tang, owner of Asian American bakery Bake Sum, quit her job in the tech industry to go to culinary school in 2015. She opened Bake Sum in Oakland in 2021. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
In 2021, Tang opened Bake Sum in Oakland's Grand Lake neighborhood, regularly drawing lines into its snug space. It earned local and national acclaim, including a spot on the Chronicle critics' top Bay Area bakeries list. Its croissant is also among the five best in the Bay Area, according to Chronicle restaurant critic Cesar Hernandez. In 2024, the New York Times named Tang's croissubi, a laminated riff on Hawaii's popular Spam musubi, as one of the best dishes that its writers ate that year.
Tang said that she was drawn to Alameda for Bake Sum's second location because she is there regularly to visit friends and family and noticed how many of her customers are from the area. "We're happy to oblige our new customers on the island," Tang said.
The plan is to start slowly, possibly opening just three days a week as Tang and her team figure out how to best scale up production without affecting quality. The new 1,100-square-foot location will produce dough for both bakeries. She installed a proof retarder, which keeps dough at a set temperature to control its fermentation rate, and she plans to add a temperature-controlled dough preparation area, where staff will carry out the three-day process to make Bake Sum's laminated pastries.
Bake Sum croissants - dough for one is being rolled out above - are among the five best in the Bay Area, according to Chronicle restaurant critic Cesar Hernandez. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
Bake Sum Oakland currently offers cakes as pre-order items. In Alameda, they'll be available regularly, from ispahan, a lychee-rose water layer cake, to fruit tarts topped with lilikoi or yuzu curd.
Other new items may include egg salad sandwiches and breakfast sandwiches on biscuits, which Tang and her staff recently tested as special menu items in Oakland. She is considering having some location-exclusive items on the menu. "If someone might want to visit both the Oakland and Alameda locations in one day, there would still be something fun for them in each spot," she said.
Just like at the Oakland bakery, drinks will come courtesy of local purveyors: Coffee will be made with beans from West Oakland roaster Grand Coffee, matcha lattes made with green tea from Berkeley's Asha Tea House and loose-leaf teas from Teance in Berkeley.
"I genuinely wanted more Asian pastries, and I didn't think there was enough representation," Tang said of her motivations for starting Bake Sum. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
Bake Sum will share the Alameda Marketplace's indoor and outdoor seating with neighboring tenants, which include Mediterranean restaurant Tahina, rotisserie bar Greens & Grains and sushi counter Sushi King.
The new location is not the only project Tang is unveiling this year. Her Bake Sum cookbook, written with former Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho, comes out in September.
