Double Duty: SunOven Bakery Retail Store Serves Up Gluten-Free Goodies in Ojai
Sitting in the SunOven shop filled with the warmth and sweet smells of a bakery, it’s easy to see how Alexis Davis of Ojai has solved one of the more vexing problems in gluten-free baking: how to make good breads and treats without using wheat.
Bags of buckwheat, brown rice, sorghum, potato and tapioca flours bags are stacked throughout, all part of her carefully researched foray into the basic understanding of baked goods. And judging by the excited customers trickling through the door to pick up their treats, Davis’s breads and other baked goods are the successful results.
It’s a good thing Davis is determined and creative because after she and her son were diagnosed as gluten and dairy intolerant, she needed to change the diet of her family of five. All of them loved baked goods—like bread and doughnuts—that are made with traditional wheat flour.
While Davis and her son aren’t among those unfortunate souls who suffer with extreme reactions to gluten because of diseases like Celiac and Crohn’s, they do experience a physiological reaction after eating even small amounts of wheat gluten. Large amounts are seriously discomforting.
A stay-at-home mother of two sons and one daughter, and a licensed family and marriage therapist, Davis started exploring her options by researching various grains that could be used to create baked goods everyone in the family could enjoy. Her secret weapon has turned out to be buckwheat, which despite its name, doesn’t have any actual wheat in it.
“I wanted a healthy bread with lots of fiber that doesn’t need to be kept in the refrigerator,” she says. “After trial and error—we ate a lot of loaves of bread—I was successful. Eventually I was able to work out the exact amounts [of ingredients] needed for excellent loaves to rise and bake.”
She started selling her products wholesale in 2014 and has garnered quite a following. The name reflects the bakery’s offerings: Simple Unique Nutritious and then “oven” because it informs customers. Right now, SunOven is available all over Ventura County, including at JOI Café, Harvest Café and the Farmer and the Cook in Ojai, which was the first to carry the vegan, gluten-free baked goods. Olivia Chase—the “cook” in Farmer and the Cook—says she’s often the first to try new things. Especially if they’re local.
“I’m really grateful for what she does,” says Chase. “We use her pizza crusts and bread. But I didn’t know it was really important. We do tend to say yes to people. Sometimes it’s a fault that gets us in trouble.”
Just last November, Davis opened the first retail SunOven Gluten Free Bakery on North Ventura Avenue in Meiners Oaks to have one place to offer both direct to the public and increase the capacity of her wholesale production. In fact, the retail hours reflect when someone is already in working on wholesale, which makes the new space smart business. As a bonus, it is already popular. “People are driving from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara for doughnuts,” says Davis.
“I’m focused on growing the wholesale side of the business,” she says. “We would like to be tapping schools and hospitals. We eliminate 10 of 11 known food allergies. We are nut-free, which means that we don’t process nuts at this facility,” she says, adding that serving nonreactive food would solve a lot of issues for institutions that serve people with differing dietary needs.
But the main thing Davis wants is to be able for her family to live normally with their allergic restrictions. “I want it so my family can all sit down and have the same food or go to a birthday party with a cake everyone can eat,” says Davis. .
SunOven Gluten Free Bakery
11420 N. Ventura Ave., Suite 107
Ojai
Open to the public: 8am–4pm Monday–Saturday; closed Sunday
www.SunOvenGF.com
