Sandwichland

Bakesale Betty Talks About Putting Family Before Sandwiches; Also, They’ll Be Opening a Bit Earlier

The tyranny of a sandwich...
The tyranny of a sandwich… Photo: Samin Nosrat

“We are not the same people we were when we opened the first shop,” says Alison Barakat, a.k.a. Bakesale Betty, in a new interview with Oakland North about the recent decision to close the second location of the shop on Broadway and West Grand and concentrate on the original Temescal location. “It’s not always about sales or money. It’s about quality of life. We have three kids and we are not going to be young for long and we will never get these years back.”

All along, as she and husband Michael Camp opened the Uptown location and ultimately truncated its hours to just Tuesday afternoon, they have maintained that the town’s love for the famed fried chicken sandwich has showed no signs of waning, and they could sell as many sandwiches as they made on any given day. At one point last year, it was upwards of 1,000 a day. Now they’re now doing about 600 a day and Barakat says they’re better able to control the quality of the product by just concentrating on the single location, at which people line up an hour before they open at noon. But there’s good new on that front: They’re going to start opening at 11 or 11:30 a.m. in the next couple of weeks!

After closing Uptown shop, Bakesale Betty talks business and family [Oakland North]
Earlier: Bakesale Betty Shutters Second Location After Two Years
Worn Out By Their Own Popularity, Bakesale Betty Scales Back Hours
Animal’s Vinny Dotolo Goes Bananas for Bakesale Betty’s Fried Chicken Sandwich

Bakesale Betty Talks About Putting Family Before Sandwiches; Also, They’ll Be