GET IN LINE AT THIS OUTER SUNSET POP-UP FOR A TASTE OF SOME OF THE BAY’S FINEST PASTRIES

If you’ve been looking for a reason to step away from the computer on a Monday morning, the perfect excuse has finally arrived. SOL, a bake sale pop-up from pastry chef and bread maker Marisa Williams, takes over Outerlands (just about) every other Monday, perfect for an Outer Sunset walk and snack.

Williams is back in the Bay after a stint at a bakery in Copenhagen and helping to open Sofi as head baker in Berlin, now serving as head pastry chef at Outerlands. “I loved my time over there,” Williams says, “but my roots are here. I grew up in Haight Ashbury. I wanted to come back and build something at home.”

It’s clear that home, both the physical place and the emotionality it can engender, are essential to Williams and are woven into every part of what she’s creating. It’s not uncommon to see her parents pop in and out of the bake sale. Her mother brought bouquets of California poppies and ranunculus one recent Monday. “She likes the color, and I think they’re nice,” Williams’ mother says, nestling them around the vegan granola. Sometimes her dad will bring a keyboard and play a little jazz.

SOL is a family affair in other ways too. Gia Opsahl, a barista at Outerlands, works the register during the bakesale, and Robbi Casnellie, Outerlands’s pastry baker and a former bread maker at Tartine helps Williams behind the counter. The coffee sold at SOL comes from Williams’s friends at Grand Coffee, and Ray, a barista at Sightglass, serves up the robust drift coffee as well as lattes and cappuccinos.

As for the spirit of SOL, Williams hopes people find a slice of home within it as well. “I want a place where people feel comfortable,” she says. Surrounded by tables crowded with people laughing and eating leek, pecorino, and walnut scones or strawberry, rhubarb, and cheese puffs, she’s well on her way to accomplishing that goal. But she also wants to build the kind of place people not only want to go to but can go to — without feeling priced out. “Bakeries are more accessible,” Williams says. “More people can afford a pastry and a cup of coffee than an expensive meal.”

That, in general, is true, but at SOL, it feels especially so. Massive slices of crispy, olive oil-cratered focaccia cost just $3. (“It’s the best in the Bay,” remarked more than one customer diving into their slice at a recent pop-up.) Small cakes and puffs, such as a savory ham and cheese version, go for $6. The tarts are the priciest at $10, and a pistachio cream and strawberry option typically sells out early.

For now, the doors open at 11 a.m. and close at 3 p.m., but lines form right at open and push out the front door, staying that way for over an hour. Friends and fans energetically await making it to the front of the queue and are not shy when they get there. Several times Casnellie could be heard saying, “We’re gonna need to get you a bigger box!” while patrons order half a dozen or more to go, plus one or two to enjoy with a cup of coffee outside in the sun before biking away.

By noon, the ham and cheese puffs are gone, as are the pistachio tarts, with a nettle and leek focaccia making its afternoon debut, much to the delight of people still in line. By 1:25 p.m., only cookies, some savory scones, a couple of tarts, and a single olive oil poppyseed cake remained. A woman at the end of the line had anxious eyes fixed on it, presumably holding it in her psychic grip, willing it to be there when it was finally her turn to order. By luck or by magic, it was. The olive oil cake is a showstopper, with one round setting sun of blood orange baked into the top of what was at the start its bottom.

It comes as no surprise that Williams has an art background, given the attention paid to each pastry’s aesthetic. And while some people might sacrifice substance for style, that is not the case here — she’s adamant about this. “Pastries shouldn’t just be sweet,” she says. “They need acid, color, texture, brightness.” At SOL, they’ve got it all.

About halfway through the April 1 bakesale, a customer walked in and asked if they were selling “the” ice cream sandwiches. They were not. “Good,” she says, “it’ll make my decision much easier.” The ice cream sandwiches are one of the first things Williams started selling almost fifteen years ago, on the street and at underground food markets in the Bay. Before her time at Batter Bakery, Neighbor Bakehouse, Craftsman and Wolves, Tartine, Mr Jiu’s, and Sorrel — the ice cream sandwiches were her thing, which is what she looks forward to doing more of with SOL.

“The dream is to have my own bakery here one day,” she says, “where I’m making my own things, not anyone else’s.” That dream isn’t too far off; grabbing a pastry at SOL now feels like the kind of thing where patrons will soon say, “I ate there when it was just a popup.”

The next SOL bake sale will be at Outerlands (4001 Judah Street) on Monday, April 29 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Check the @sol___bakery Instagram for the most up-to-date information.

2024-04-18T18:05:42Z dg43tfdfdgfd