San Francisco restaurateur opens Cloverdale bakery

The first phase of Trading Post Market and Bakery has opened at 102 S. Cloverdale Blvd., and the rustic bakery, market and restaurant is already garnering almost as much attention as its owner, San Francisco restaurateur Matthew Semmelhack.

While it will be a few more months before the restaurant is ready, the bakery is now open noon-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, serving freshly baked specialty breads created by baker Aaron Arabian. It’s part of a larger plan for Semmelhack, a 32-year old entrepreneur who wanted a farm and wound up with more than he bargained for in Cloverdale.

While still a student at Princeton University, Semmelhack said he was encouraged by his anthropology professor to pursue his interest in the food and hospitality industry. His culinary dreams moved to the back burner after graduation, however. He worked as a real estate consultant in Manhattan and then relocated to San Francisco in 2006 to work with a boutique development firm.

While at this job, he met his future wife, Robin, a principal dancer at Smuin Ballet and his boss’ sister.

“One day, while re-evaluating my career priorities,” he said, “I realized all the things on the bottom half of my resume - design, food, wine, entertaining, travel - did not align with the top half.”

Semmelhack took a leap of faith, left his job and founded Mercer Restaurant Group in October 2008. He then begged everyone he knew in the restaurant business to give him a job so he could learn from the ground up. For nine months, Semmelhack worked various positions, including server, host, operations manager and floor manager.

In 2011, he opened his first property, AQ Restaurant and Bar on Mission Street in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. It was a 2012 semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s best new restaurants in San Francisco award, won two Eater Awards and was listed among Bon Appetit’s top new restaurants.

Semmelhack and his partners went on to develop Mélange Market on 17th Street; TBD Restaurant on Mission Street; and Bon Marché Brasserie, scheduled to open in August on the ground floor of the Twitter building.

Even before the first restaurant, however, Semmelhack had been looking for a farm. He likes to forage he said, “because I like to know where my food comes from.”

Working with a real estate agent, he looked at properties in Marin County and Petaluma, but none were quite what he envisioned. After visiting dozens of properties, the agent said he might have found the perfect place, on Pine Mountain in Cloverdale.

Semmelhack said it was just what he had envisioned and, in 2012, he and a couple of friends bought the 32-acre parcel. Their plans call for building an expansive garden and agriculture retreat, turning the newly-coined Long View Ranch into a destination for chefs, high-end food events and education.

As a bonus, Semmelhack found a 4,000-square-foot building in the center of Cloverdale that was suitable for a restaurant and bakery, with a community garden for growing his own produce located right across the street.

“We fell in love with Cloverdale and the small-town sentiment,” Semmelhack said. “Everyone has already made us feel so welcome.

“For example, when we needed a forklift to offload a delivery of flooring and discovered there are no forklifts available during harvest, Will Jopson at Ace Hardware came to our rescue. When we asked how much it would cost, he said he wasn’t charging us. He was doing us a favor.”

Even before the bakery opened in June, Semmelhack started making himself at home in Cloverdale, first by taking over management of the community garden and then by serving on the Alexander Valley Film Society’s board of directors.

Semmelhack said he believes his new ventures will be a good thing for the town, adding that he is a firm believer in the old adage, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

“The more reasons people have to come to Cloverdale, the better it will be for all of the businesses,” he said.

Since welcoming baby Lily to the family 18 months ago, Semmelhack said he and has wife have begun to steer their lives more towards the country. Whether they will take yet another big leap of faith and move out of the city remains to be seen.