Produces Good Bread, Loyal Employees – Kensington-born Semifreddi's

Business:

Employee: Dan Holzer, 40, interim retail manager

When we went to interview Holzer at the tiny flagship Semifreddi’s café in Kensington, employees behind the counter were helping a customer purchase from a selection of fresh baked goods and coffee while another customer sat outside enjoying a pastry.

What’s your job description at Semifreddi’s? I’m the interim retail manager. I do other things at the bakery, but the current retail manager is out on maternity leave.

What’s your normal role when you’re not covering for your coworker? I was recently rehired. I worked for Semifreddi’s from 1998 to 2006. I started my own business. I sold my own business and I went back to them three months ago—they just happened to need an interim retail manager. After that, we’re not sure yet, but I’ll remain employed. I came back for a reason.

What was the business you started? I printed T-shirts. The company is still going in Oakland. It was a success, (but) there was a divorce between me and my business partner—and the stress of owning my own business.

My big thing was, do I want to forge out on my own again or do I enjoy the security of a good job. I decided for now, security.

What is your job entail? We have two locations—there’s one over on Claremont in Berkeley. It’s a little bit bigger, although it does less volume. This (Kensington location) is the original bakery. Twenty to 25 years ago, everything they baked was out of here. But now , they’ve got around 123 employees and the owners are involved every day.

My job involves bouncing back and forth between the two retail stores and going to Alameda to meet with other managers and the owners, to figure out how to manage these stores from afar—basically just smooth operation, watching the numbers, making sure the employees are coming to work on time and the customers are happy—all the little details of running a café.

You also have direct store delivery where you sell through other stores? Yes. That’s a huge part of it. The retail stores are a pretty small part of it, but we like to maintain them just because it’s a good face to the company. Plus there’s a lot attached to this one—a lot of sentiment.

Kensington locals seem to love Semifreddi’s. The locals love it and the owners love being here. The owners have pictures of them baking in the store when they were putting out 50 baguettes a day instead of 5,000.

Is there anything else I should know about Semifreddi’s? The bakery in Alameda is working towards going all green. Mostly in the bakery right now, but it’s bleeding out into the retail stores–the more we can do there, the better. One of their goals is to be the highest wage offering bakery in the area. They’re really into being supportive of their employees. I’m very pro-Semifreddi’s.

Here’s an interesting thing. When I left in 2006, there was no turnover in management—I was the turnover. The person they hired to replace me is still there, and when I came back they added one employee. I think that says a lot about the company. They’ve got hourly bakery people that have been there for 22 years. 

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