La Brea Bakery is coming to Downtown Disney

La Brea Bakery and Disneyland Team Up for "Downtown Disney" Development

America's Premier Artisan Bakery Will Become one of the Prominent Tenants Involved with Disney's Latest Southern California Attraction

LOS ANGELES, Calif., (April 15, 1999) -- Often credited as the leader and pioneer of America's current bread boom, La Brea Bakery has agreed to participate in the latest venture being developed by the Walt Disney Company. As a mix of exciting entertainment, high quality dining and signature retail experiences, Downtown Disney will be a magnet for local tourism as well as a key ingredient in Disney's vision to transform the current resort area into a multi-day visitor destination. La Brea Bakery's truly unique product selection and southern California heritage fit perfectly into Disney's development model. Both companies are the best at what they do and both have tremendous brand recognition in Southern California. La Brea Bakery will contribute·a bakery cafe concept focusing on bread products and compatible accompaniments. The Downtown Disney development is scheduled to be completed in 2001. "We're very excited to team up with Disney," said Manfred Krankl, CEO and co-founder of La Brea Bakery. "Downtown Disney gives us a great opportunity to expand our product offerings in a bakery cafe format. With Nancy's creativity and expertise in restaurant and menu development, and La Brea Bakery's great bread products, our cafe customers will be in for a real treat."

Krankl is referring to Nancy Silverton, Executive Vice President of Product Development and the other co-founder of La Brea Bakery. Ms. Silverton is famous throughout the world for more than just exceptional bread. She is also an award winning pastry chef and co-owner of the famed Campanile Restaurant in Los Angeles.

"The cafe will offer a casual atmosphere where baked items, using fresh ingredients, are served throughout the day," says Silverton.

The La Brea Bakery cafe concept will have two options for seating and service: full service dining or self serve grab-and-go, which will also have seating available. Four primary components will comprise La Brea Bakery's cafe:

(1) A full coffee and espresso bar with a variety of coffee and espresso drinks, fresh juices, blended iced juice drinks, waters and soft drinks.

(2) A grab-and-go area that includes breads, pastries, sandwiches, soups and salads. This area will also have a retail bakery bread presentation.

(3) An active, on-counter food preparation station will have various items available, depending on the time of day. Freshly grilled panini sandwiches will certainly be a part of this station. A crostini bar, serving open faced appetizer sized sandwiches using fresh grilled breads will also be available to cafe customers.

(4) A wine` bar will serve an interesting and unusual assortment of wines by the glass, as well as micro brew beers.

We want our cafe to be one of the reasons people go to the Downtown Disney location," says Krankl.

If the company's track record is an indication of the cafe's future success, then this rapidly growing artisan bakery should have another home run on its hands. Celebrating its 10th anniversary in January, La Brea Bakery has blossomed into the industry's example of how to do baking right. Its usage of natural sour starters, fresh ingredients and unique flavor combinations have made its breads the standard of excellence in the artisan bread world. In fact, Nancy Silverton has recently been named by Nation's Restaurant News as one of the 50 "New Taste Makers" defining the future of the food service industry.