Nece’s Gluten-Free Bakery Opens in Monterey

May 24, 2022 – The feedback sounded positive enough—“It’s good for gluten-free,” he said—but to Sharque “Nece” Starr those words from her husband Jordan were tantamount to rejection. 

“For me, that’s a fail,” she says, “So it was back to the drawing board.”

At this point she was four long years into a sacred mission to create a delicious cinnamon roll without gluten. Her own celiac diagnosis more than a decade ago helped inspire the effort, and she refused to accept something that tasted anything less than outstanding. 

More specifically, she sought something her omnivorous husband and three boys/official tasters would enjoy every bit as much as her.

“I want my husband and kids to say, ‘It’s tasty,’ not ‘It’s mom’s gluten-free food!’ I want to take what I make to parties [whose guests] aren’t gluten-free and it’s not, ‘Is that gluten-free?’ but more like “‘Sharque made that,’” she says.

Fortunately, a happy accident was on the way. Away from her home kitchen longer than she anticipated, Starr left a batch of cinnamon roll dough proofing longer than she intended. But instead of being over-fermented—and not puffing up enough—it proved to be a breakthrough. Combined with a seltzer-water tip from a wheat-free friend, that longer proof time flipped a flavor switch.

“I was jumping up and down, I screamed,” Sharque says. “I probably ate all 12 rolls that day, one after the other. I hadn’t had a decent cinnamon roll in 10 or 12 years.”

The rolls became a starting point for a hobby that’s turned into the new Starr family business. 

“They’re really hard to execute in a way that holds texture, but is still fluffy and not too cakey or doughy, just ooey gooey delicious,” she says. “They sparked my love of—and desire to create—baked goods.“

She figured she could eventually move into other items, and now she has. As of last week, the Starrs have opened Nece’s Gluten-Free Bakery at 25 Soledad Drive in Monterey, a few doors down from Elroy’s Fine Foods. 

The cinnamon rolls are the headliner, and the coffeecake and blueberry muffins rank among the best sellers but Nece’s nuclear crew also preps gluten-free scones, cookies and cupcakes. Waffles are made to order in the morning, and build-your-own grilled sandwiches and wraps (also to order) appear at lunchtime. 

Specialty cakes present another popular draw, as do specialty coffee drinks. (To start, hours are 9am-3pm Monday-Wednesday, Friday-Saturday, closed Thursday and Sunday.)

Before they could really get cooking, though, a few key events had to happen, including a global pandemic and an answered prayer. 

The earliest turning point was the evolution of cottage food laws in California circa 2013, when it became legal for certain items to be made in private homes and sold publicly. Sharque started sharing her cinnamon rolls at Old Monterey Farmers Market in 2019. 

She figured when COVID shutdowns descended that they’d take a break form the business, but the opposite happened. 

Her farmers markets customers sought her out, and the baking and delivering accelerated. Jordan, a restaurant professional on furlough, used his newfound down time to help redesign the home bakery’s website and make it easier to place orders. (Today he’s working his final days for Pebble Beach Company as he prepares to move deeper into handling sales and marketing for Nece’s Bakery.) 

Standout local bakeries, coffee shops and restaurants—starting with Carmel Belle and growing to include spots like The Power Plant in Moss Landing and Captain and Stoker in Monterey—enlisted Nece’s for wholesale inventory.  

The boom time inspired the Starrs to enter the Startup Challenge organized by the Institute for Innovation and Economic Development at CSU Monterey Bay, also known as “The Otter Tank.”

Part of what made their story compelling was what lengths the family went to in order to eat functionally, without triggering painful stomach problems for their matriarch—compromising recipes, braving cross-contamination, confronting mislabeled products and conducting endless (and at times futile) shopping missions for the right ingredients.

“Basically the love and joy of food was gone,” Jordan says in their Otter Tank video pitch.

“I felt like I was alone and suffering,” Sharque adds. “I was the one left out.”

They go on to describe a vision for a place where guests can have full confidence in what they’re getting and find both the community and the information to better navigate a diet practiced by more than one in 12 Americans. 

“This is not a fad,” Jordan says. “For gluten-sensitive and celiac individuals, they will have to eat like this for the rest of their lives.”

They won first place in the competitive Main Street category, pulling in $5,000 (which went toward a new website), a trophy that now lives at the bakery, and managing consultation from the IECD’s Brad Barbeau.

So now their vision is a reality, but only after what Sharque describes as an act of faith. 

As Nece’s added wholesale accounts and continued custom orders, they hit their capacity, literally and emotionally. 

“It was pretty intense,” Sharque says. “I didn’t know if I could keep going, to keep coming downstairs to keep baking in these walls. I was thinking, ‘I’m a mom with 3 boys, I should be able to have a place of relaxation and peace. Not a place of constant work.’” 

They needed a bigger space with water credits, which proved very hard to come by. A mobile kitchen was cost-prohibitive and they lacked the place to park it. Shared kitchens threatened to cross-contaminate. 

“We went through plan A, B,C, D and E,” Sharque says.

Feeling spent, she turned to prayer.

“‘God, tell me what I’m supposed to be doing,’” she remembers asking. God’s message: Skip the function you have today and go to Morning Dove, now. 

It just so happens that the owner-operator of Morning Dove, the previous occupant of Nece’s Bakery, which was also a GF destination, had been praying herself, and was ready for a change.

So as each party’s prayer was answered, so are those of often-underserved gluten-free eaters in the area.

Which makes the cinnamon rolls that much more heaven sent.

More at Nece’s Bakery website and Instagram page.