Apt 2. Bread
A New Kind of Bakery in Brooklyn, NY
On April 1st, She Wolf Bakery and Il Buco Alimentari alum Carla Finley sold her first loaf of homemade sourdough bread via Instagram DM. Less than three months later, on July 20th, she made her 500th loaf of what has become Apt. 2 Bread. (You can keep up with Finley and her daily baking adventures via @apt2bread on Instagram).
Brooklynites can get the crunchy-crusted, perfectly-soft-inside loafs personally delivered to their doorsteps, with a friendly hello from Finley – socially distanced of course! You can also pick them up, if you’re looking for an excuse to leave the house.
From the original Sourdough, to experimenting with Sesame-dough, Olive-infused, and Cinnamon-walnut… Finley has spent the last three and half months doing what she’s loved since she started baking at an apple orchard in Medina, Texas in 2006, at the age of 14.
In October 2020, Carla Finley was listed as one out of 20 people shaping a better future for New York City through her work with Apt. 2 Bread.
Every Sunday, Apt. 2 Bread donates $25 to various organizations of relevance, integrity, racial and social justice initiatives, etc. – most recently Woke Foods, Center for Racial Justice in Education, Critical Resistance and The Black Feminist Project. Finley also offered up her Apt. 2 home as a shelter/resting place during the June Black Lives Matter Protest and held a two week-long Cinnamon Roll fundraiser, to raise money for The Okra Project’s Nina Pop and Tony McDade Mental Health Recovery Funds, where she raised almost $300.
ABOUT CARLA FINLEY
As the child of generational restaurant owners, Carla Finley has been involved in the food & beverage industry since before she could comprehend it. Her parents own and operate a 36-year-old barbecue restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, and the original building has been operated by family restaurateurs since 1958. Finley began working at age 14 and many years in the restaurant industry have followed.
Her baking career started on an apple orchard in Medina, Texas in 2006. She later went on to bake in Austin, Texas for a small bakery called Sugarmama’s Bakeshop, from 2008 to 2012. It was here that Finley really learned how to operate a small business.
Upon her arrival to New York City in 2013, Finley transitioned to restaurant operations and private dining management, but bread-making always lingered in her mind. Finally, in early 2019, she made the career shift and joined She Wolf Bakery, where she got to work with some of the best in sourdough production. In the winter of 2019, she was asked to join the bread team at famed Il Buco Alimentari.
In March 2020, Finley began offering sourdough loaves to friends via Instagram. From there, she started Apt. 2 Bread, in her home kitchen in Brooklyn, New York. It began as a way to cope with the economic effects of Covid-19, but also as a way to continue doing what she loved most. In just three months, Finley sold over 500 loaves of bread, numerous cinnamon rolls, and a few sneaky specials.