Found Treasure: Sunny Bakery Cafe

September 23, 2022 – Plenty of words tumble to mind when considering how to sum up the Sunny Bakery Cafe experience. 

Thoughtful. Comforting. Comprehensive.

If forced to settle on one word, though, I would go with bright. 

Bright as in colorful, bright as in smart, bright as in flavor-forward.

The decor, the juices, the coffee, the vibe, the foodstuffs all exude brightness.

Suddenly Carmel Valley has something it perhaps didn’t know it was missing. 

Sunny opened this summer to enthusiastic local response, but it’s been a lot longer in the making and baking. 

Chef-owner-operator Analuisa Béjar has worked in kitchens and advocated for great food for decades, mostly 2,151 miles away, in her native Mexico City. 

Her resume unleashes an avalanche of culinary experience, from work as a food critic and columnist to cookbook editing and recipe development to multiple food magazine editor gigs. 

In fact, she helped author a definitive book on pastries, which bodes well for the pound cakes and cinnamon rolls she’s rocking. (To be clear, these are French-inspired, in line with Bejar’s training, not Mexican-leaning sweet breads, though she’s planning a Day of the Dead special selection that will deploy tastes born South of the Border.) 

After Béjar’s brother talked her into relocating not far from his second home in deep Carmel Valley, she took over the former Wild Goose Cafe in June.

Visitors need not know her bio to come away impressed by the sweet and savory options.

My colleague and I tried the iced coffee with Santa Cruz-based Pacific Espresso beans, the BLT, the lox bagel and, yes, The Cookie Monster.

Each was excellent.

The BLT—which Béjar delivered to our outdoor table herself—sits on a soft brioche bun with a quadruple stack of chewy bacon. I normally seek crisper pork protein, but this sandwich had me questioning that preference, stealing my affections with its assembly of harmonious textures and the maple-soy-honey glaze on the smoked bacon. 

The lox, which rides cream cheese and (yes) bright red tomatoes on a choice of house-made bagels—I went for everything—presents something I could eat at any given moment.

The lumpy and luscious Cookie Monster, meanwhile, can compete with any chocolate chip cookie on the Monterey Peninsula, something I have been tracking for years because chocolate chip cookies are a family tradition. 

Plenty of other offerings will have me stopping by when I’m next in the valley, namely the lemon butter shortbread, croissant sandwiches, cheese buns, bagel rolls, quiche of the day and the breakfast burrito another customer spontaneously recommended, unprovoked. 

Béjar acknowledges it’s been difficult converting a place dominated by trash into a thriving hub, but audibly enjoys what Sunny has become in a short amount of time. She also sounds mesmerized at how much CV neighbors have helped out, crafting the tile sign out front, bringing by produce from their farms, donating the stylish door design, and gifting bells to ring when someone enters.

“The most important thing is a feeling of community,” she says. “Everybody has been so generous—I’m in awe.”

Her happiest moments on the job come not long after dawn. 

“I love when the locals come here every morning,” she says. “Sometimes they’re having philosophical conversations, other times they’re just joking with one another. To feel that community is really nice.”

In other words, the Sunny is already shining bright. 

More at Sunny Bakery Cafe’s Instagram page.