Bakery to move to San Bernardino

A family-owned bakeshop that specializes in breads and sweets is moving from Rancho Cucamonga to San Bernardino.

Old Town Baking Company, whose products are sold at restaurants, grocery stores and farmers markets, will relocate during the fourth quarter of this year, said Keith Klinger, sales manager for the company.

Old Town Baking will move from a 4,400-square-foot facility to one that covers about 20,000 square feet, bringing with it approximately 50 employees.

Company officials paid $1.2 million for the building, a former furniture store at 999 S. E St. It has leased its Rancho Cucamonga location, at 8631 Baseline Road, since the business was founded in 1999.

The San Bernardino building will include a retail store – a requirement for locating in that part of the city – but will be used primarily for manufacturing.

After nearly 20 years of leasing, Old Town Baking officials were anxious to own their own operation.

“It was absolutely huge,” Klinger said of ownership vs. leasing. “It will cost us about one-third as much to own as it did to lease. Also, the larger building means we can manufacture more, so we can go after larger customers.”

Old Town Baking has a manufacturing facility in Rialto that will be folded into the San Bernardino operation.

The retail store at Rancho Cucamonga will be closed, and the rest of that operation will be used to manufacture the company’s farmers market products, Klinger said.

Eventually, Old Town Baking would like to do business outside of California, maybe in five years of so.

“We’re intrastate now, but we would like to be interstate,” Klinger said. “This is kind of phase one of our expansion.”

Coldwell Banker Commercial in Redlands represented both sides in the transaction, which closed escrow last week. Senior Vice President Spencer Hull was the lead broker.