Braid Bakery Opens Its First Shop in Berkeley on Nov. 13
New owners Alex Kaytes and Roy Wang bought the bakery in December 2025.
By the Bay Area Brief staff · Edited by Seamus McKenna · · 3 min read
Eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge at night. Photo: Daniel L. Lu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped, resized and color-graded). Archive photo of the area; not a photo of the events in this story.
Braid Bakery, known for babka and challah sold at farmers markets and pop-ups, is opening its first permanent storefront and kitchen on University Avenue near Grant Street in Berkeley on Nov. 13, Berkeleyside Nosh reported.
French-born pastry chef Valentine Erman started Braid in San Francisco in April 2023 as a cottage food business, blending Jewish baking with French and Mediterranean flavors. After she moved to Europe, she sold the business to Alex Kaytes and Roy Wang in December 2025, and they expanded the menu.
The bakery's site describes it as an artisan bakery specializing in babka and challah with rotating seasonal flavors, sold through pre-orders and pop-ups.
Sources
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