States Coffee and Bread is opening a new location at 2101 San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley. Owner Keith Gehrke told What Now San Francisco in a telephone conversation that they are shooting for an August debut, end of summer at the latest. Gehrke said the pandemic played a huge role in slowing down development and construction.
The new location will be run by Gehrke and business partner, Brett Benzer.
States Coffee was started six years ago almost to the date, July 4th, 2015. Gehrke had been in the coffee business since 2003 and began roasting in 2005. After he left a different coffee business in Portland in 2010, Gehrke moved back to his roots in the Bay Area and had no intention of getting back into the retail coffee business.
Gehrke started creating coffee products and rented a warehouse near Martinez, CA to ship them and even started a showroom and served some coffee. After people started coming in and loving the atmosphere and products, the community asked for them to start their own business!
The Martinez location was the first of States Coffee, the name comes from the fact that the building was a former post office and their products were all-American made goods. Benzer had a baking company called Farm and Flour and they decided to merge business and create States Coffee and Bread.
Due to the strong and loyal following that was born from the showroom and Martinez location, they were able to open another two locations, with Berkeley being the fourth in total.
“We’re only here because of their excitement for us to be here, they created what States is today. We owe it all to the Martinez community,” said Gehrke.
Gehrke saw the Berkeley location on Loopnet and the available building spoke to him, so he went for it!
States is quickly gaining momentum and gaining popularity quickly, they continue to be small and community oriented. Benzer still runs the baking department, only the two partners run the business and Gehrke’s mom even does the book keeping!
So although the humbled coffee wants to remain smaller and focused on its values, it seems that States Coffee and Bread is very much on the rise.
[Editors Note: An earlier version of this article said that the name of the new shop would be Berkeley Cafe and Baking. It will actually be called States Coffee and Bread.]
