Like peanut butter meeting chocolate, two of Sonoma County’s yummiest businesses are joining forces to create a perfectly delicious collaboration. Miracle Plum, a natural wine bar and market in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square, is permanently pairing up with Marla Bakery at their Davis Street location in early October, according to Sallie Miller, co-owner of Miracle Plum.
“Wine has been really great for us, and we want to continue to focus on that,” Miller said. Recently, she and business partner Gwen Gunheim decided to move away from their perishable grab-and-go salads and lunch items to focus on their burgeoning wine bar and bottle shop, selling small-production wines made with little intervention.
Longtime friends of Miller and Gunheim, Marla’s Chef Amy Brown and partner Joe Wolf were looking for a place to have a retail presence in Santa Rosa. Their production bakery, opened in 2020, is housed in a Windsor industrial park, so they have little visibility for would-be walk-in customers, according to Wolf. The couple had a thriving bakery and cafe in San Francisco until 2019, when they decided to move their young family to Sonoma County.
“When we left (and) were thinking about where to move to after San Francisco, one of the biggest factors were Gwen and Sallie. This is just an opportunity we’ve been waiting for,” Wolf said.
“It’s just a really nice marriage,” he said. Marla will maintain its production facility in Windsor and use the Miracle Plum location to sell coffee and pastries, light breakfast and lunch fare and baked items for online ordering and in-store pickup.
“We might even do a bagel day on Sunday,” Wolf said. The couple is known for their Jewish-style bagels and is one of the few places in Sonoma County where you can get Rosh Hashana dinners and desserts.
Marla Bakery hosted several pop-up events in recent months, including breakfasts at Santa Rosa’s Spinster Sisters and two wine dinners with Miracle Plum, where Miller and Gunheim maintain a commissary kitchen and event space.
The Miracle Plum team will continue to offer events, CSA pickups and workshops in addition to selling pantry staples and wines.
“Amy is such a talented chef, and the people they surround themselves with are just wonderful. She just has a way with flavor,” Miller said.
Watch for more details in the coming weeks at miracleplum.com. The shop, at 208 Davis St., is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Marla Bakery is at 399 Business Park Court in Windsor (go to marlabakery.com to order online and pick up). Watch for weekly “roll-up” events at the bakery space, with breakfast sandwiches, pastries, bagels and — if you’re lucky — fried chicken sandwiches.
