HOT FROM THE OVEN
Look at these beauties - hot from the oven and straight to you. Because we bake in smaller batches throughout the morning, everything we serve here at IZOLA is coming hot from our ovens so that we can provide the tastiest, most mouthwatering experience possible. If you've ever wondered about how we started baking hot-from-the-oven, or why IZOLA is located in the absolutely most difficult to find space possible, hop on over to San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour Podcast to hear our origin story. You'll learn about the big "problem" Jenny thinks I have and how I ended up in trouble with the Mexican authorities! We had so much fun chatting with host Troy Johnson, he was able to pull all the secrets out of us.
And because you subscribe to our newsletter, you already know the secret pro tip we provide at the very end of the podcast - to place a pre-order! Pre-orders for Thursday-Saturday open every Sunday morning, and Sunday pre-orders open first thing the Monday prior.
Pre-orders for this week are open now! Have a pre-order? Can't find a parking spot? No problem. Double park downstairs and call us at (619) 289-8358, we'll run your order down to you. We call it IZOLA DRIVE-BY.
THE COUPLE BEHIND
SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE
When Jenny first moved from the Bay Area to San Diego, she loved reading San Diego Magazine to learn more about her new community and in search for a new favorite restaurant. And I've photographed a story or two for them way back in my photojournalist days. But to be honest, it's been a long time since either one of us picked up a copy, frankly the mag had lost touch with us. STOP THE PRESSES!!! That's all changed now because of this inspiring couple right here - Claire and Troy Johnson who recently bought the magazine and are pouring their heart and soul into it.
It wasn't until after we taped our podcast with Troy that we learned about the evolution that the magazine is going through right now. Many people have told me how crazy I was to start a bakery in the midst of COVID, well Troy and Claire are the same kind of crazy - in 2021 they become majority owners in San Diego Magazine. To top it off, Claire was 9 months pregnant the day they signed the papers.
There are only two reasons someone would purchase a magazine during a pandemic: they're crazy, or they're passionate. Or perhaps both. Turns out, it is their passion for community that drove Claire and Troy's decision. They are on a mission to amplify the voices of the diverse San Diego community we live in, and we're stoked for the efforts they've made and that are to come.
We love supporting businesses that are striving for real change in our world. We've subscribed to the mag and you'll start seeing it at the bakeshop once our first issue arrives! And we ask you to do the same to help build the stronger, more vibrant, more equitable community that we all love. And we'll give away a free croissant to the first 50 people who subscribe - just forward your receipt to jenny@izolabakery.com and we'll send ya a promo code.
LOVE IZOLA? BECOME AN OWNER!
Part 3 of our equity raise just launched! You can learn more and invest right here at our Mainvest portal.
IZOLA Main is picking up steam. The design is locked (Great job Heleo Architecture team), we're traveling around the world testing our recipes on production equipment, Jenny and I are leading a team of Architects, Engineers, Programmers, Builders, Bakers and Dreamers. In short, building the IZOLA of the future: it's productive, efficient and just. Creating 20 careers in City Heights, removing 25,000 pounds of paper from the waste stream, increasing our croissant production 10x, and many, many other benefits to our community.
And that my friends takes capital, lots of it, almost 7.5 million in total. In this equity offering, we endeavor to raise 3.9 million. And like any big task we do, we're going to break it up into doable sections. 4 of them to be exact. So we will "rolling close" on June 1, Sept 1, Dec 1, and March 1, 2024. With a goal of $975,000 on each rolling close date.
If you have questions or are interested in learning more about becoming an owner in IZOLA, Jenny and I will continue to host monthly online events where we'll share with you our plans for the next several years. Register below to join us via Google Meet in the comfort of your own home. We're ecstatic that we've already raised over $1M to date, but it's not enough. Find out why!
IZOLA MUSIC SATURDAY
Every Saturday IZOLA hosts live music - come see how diverse and talented our San Diego community is! Here are just a few of the folks that will be by. We publish the full schedule every Friday night in our Instagram Story. Head on over there and follow us now!
PET
Sat 8-9a
Frequent collaborators, Galia Shakked & Ali Mehraban Ramírez play stripped down versions of songs from their 4-piece band, Pet.
IAN MCNAIR
Sat 9-10a
From classical piano and choir roots, to more recently playing folk covers at local venues and in the San Diego open mic circuit, Ian is now working on releasing his own music and collaborating with local artists on original work. His music is influenced by soulful 70s ballads, his past relationships, self-help books, and the color orange.
RANDALL HILD
11a-12p
We are super stoked to have Randall performing this weekend! A former IZOLA team member, Randall is a talented keyboardist, singer, and songwriter residing in San Diego, CA. He most loves sharing his passion for music and art to the world, and with an eclectic range of influences there is something for everyone in his performances.
IZOLA EQUITY RAISE NOW OPEN!
Thank you for signing up for our investor interest list. You're the first to hear - our equity investment is back open!
You can learn more and invest right here at our Mainvest portal.
IZOLA Main is picking up steam. The design is locked (see above), we're traveling around the world testing our recipes on production equipment (see above), we're leading teams of Architects, Engineers, Printers, Builders, Bakers and Dreamers. In short, building the IZOLA of the future: it's productive, efficient and just. Creating 20 careers in City Heights, removing 25,000 pounds of paper from the waste stream, increasing our croissant production 10x, and many, many other benefits to our community.
And that my friends takes capital, lots of it, almost 7.5 million in total. In this equity offering, we endeavor to raise 3.9 million. And like any big task we do, we're going to break it up into sections. 4 of them to be exact. So we will "rolling close" on June 1, Sept 1, Dec 1, and March 1, 2024. With a goal of $975,000 on each rolling close date.
If you have questions or are interested in learning more about becoming an owner in IZOLA, Jenny and I will continue to host monthly online events where we'll share with you our plans for the next several years - from increasing production so it's easier for you to grab a croissant or place a pre-order, to moving to a space on the ground floor WITH parking or when we might be opening up an IZOLA Bread Cafe in your neighborhood.
Sit back in the comfort of your own home as we share, answer questions, and have a conversation with you and other interested members of the IZOLA community.
We're ecstatic that we've already raised over $1M to date, but it's not enough. Find out why!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR GRACE
Hey guys - it's been super busy this week...We apologize for the inconvenience any of you may have experienced and thank you for your grace. We hope to be opening our new facility in a year which will allow us to vastly increase production. In fact, we're in Irvine on a Sunday afternoon as we type this, running tests on production equipment.
If you want to help us make this happen, increasing production isn't for the faint of heart - the equipment cost alone is in the millions. We'll be re-opening our equity raise soon! More details on that below.
We highly recommend a pre-order and they're open for this week NOW! Have a pre-order? Can't find a parking spot? No problem. Double park downstairs and call us at (619) 289-8358, we'll run your order down to you. We call it IZOLA DRIVE-BY.
PS - We want to extend our gratitude to the IZOLA front of house team and our Assistant General Manager Jeff. They are on the front lines when we get hit hard like this and the IZOLA team has pulled out all the stops this week. Particularly on Friday when we had one of our biggest Fridays ever and the team was down by a third, running on a skeleton crew that worked overtime to bring joy to the IZOLA community. Then it extended into Saturday....then again on Sunday....and they kept going strong. I imagine they are absolutely exhausted - we hope you rest up, charge power. Thank you for your passion, hard work, and perseverance.
PARKING AT IZOLA
We know parking downtown can get tricky. If you have a pre-order, and can't find a parking spot? No problem. Double park downstairs and call us at (619) 289-8358, we'll run your order down to you. We call it IZOLA DRIVE-BY.
If you'd like to head upstairs and join us in the bakeshop (we'd love to see ya!!), please make sure to feed the meter, and do not park in the yellow zone (unless it's Sunday!). You will get a ticket. The yellow loading zone is for commercial vehicles only.
If you'd love for us to have a parking lot one day - read on! Our new facility in City Heights will have our very own parking lot. WOOT WOOT! Help make IZOLA Main happen and join us for an upcoming investor conversation to learn more.
PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT TEST #2
Many of you read about our recent adventures in the Netherlands as we traveled to the headquarters of Rademaker to test our sourdough and croissants on their Radini line. This weekend we are back at Rheon, at their domestic headquarters in Irvine to do the same.
We tested two different methods on our sourdough and will be baking them out tomorrow. Below is our sourdough being shaped using a punch rounder. The other method we tested was rolling our dough, similar to how we roll a croissant. Currently of the final shaping is done by hand by our lean and mean 2 person sourdough team.
Today we've been on the production line at Orange Bakery - a full production facility in Irvine. We are here to test our croissant recipe on their equipment. Below you can see our Beurre D'Isigny butter being enveloped by our croissant dough. The machine pipes the butter directly onto the dough, then two arm help to fold the dough over. This is the first step to the laminating process.
The current process to prep for this first lamination step starts with the Dojo team unwrapping each 1 kilo block of butter and sandwiching them between parchment, just like the leaning tower of butter you see below. Then each pack goes on our sheeter to be flattened into the exact dimensions of a full sheet size pan.
The team then hand wraps each sheet for use later in the week. This entire process takes about 5 minutes per kilo of butter and at well over 100 kilos needed each week, that's over a full shift of labor. With a butter extruder, we unwrap 10 kilo blocks of butter, place them on a conveyer belt, and we're done - from 5 minutes to literally seconds!
That's a full shift of labor that the team can then focus their energies on tasks requiring a human touch. And with zero risk to quality, in fact, we will actually be able to achieve a more consistent lamination with this mechanized process.
We'll have more to report on next week after we finish out our visit here at Rheon and head home. Test bakes happen tomorrow! In the meantime, I'm trying to sneak in a few minutes of rest here and there, these test days are long!
IZOLA INVESTOR CONVERSATIONS
Our equity raise will be re-opening soon! If you've been curious about our equity raise and why over 200 of the IZOLA community have joined us to become part owners in IZOLA, join us online this Tuesday March 14.
Jenny and I will share with you our plans for the next several years - from increasing production so it's easier for you to grab a croissant or place a pre-order, to moving to a space on the ground floor WITH parking, when we'll be opening up an IZOLA Bread Cafe in your neighborhood, and how we plan on bringing 20 new jobs to City Heights.
Sit back in the comfort of your own home as we share, answer questions and have a conversation with you and other interested members of the IZOLA community.
We're ecstatic that we've already raised over $1M to date, but it's not enough. Find out why!
Register below, or sign up to get added to our Investor Interest list to be the first to hear when we re-open our equity raise (coming soon!).
GRATITUDE
Many of you have seen the Gratitude Journal that lives at the IZOLA bakeshop. We love reading the warm, loving, sometimes heart-wrenching messages that the IZOLA family leaves. It's on the toughest days that a practice of gratitude helps carry us through our day - gratitude for each other, for this beautiful city we live in, for the passionate folks that surround us.
The gratitude journal is provided by Grateful Peoples, a non-profit, that with the community's help, has donated over 20,000 journals since 2017. With their Gratitude in the Classroom program, they are also sharing the practice of gratitude to the next generation. Want to brig Grateful Peoples to your school? Reach out to them today.
If you'd like to help Grateful Peoples spread gratitude, please donate below.
IZOLA MUSIC SATURDAY
Every Saturday IZOLA hosts live music - come see how diverse and talented our San Diego community is! Our line up is still coming together, but we publish the full schedule every Friday night in our Instagram Story. Head on over there and follow us now!
If you're a performer - a poet, a singer, a musician, and anything in between - and are interested in joining us on a Saturday morning, reach out to Jenny and she'll put you in contact with our musical directors! They'll be happy to provide more info, answer any questions you might have and perhaps book you for an upcoming Saturday!