Acme Bread Company - Origin of Acme

Origin of Acme

Founder Steve Sullivan grew up in Los Gatos, California, and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley in 1975, intending to major in rhetoric. He earned money as a busboy at Chez Panisse. While riding his bike through England during a summer trip to Europe he bought English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David's 1977 book on breadmaking and bread history. Excited by the book, and wanting to recreate the bread he had enjoyed in Paris, he began experimenting with baking for himself. In 1979, when Chez Panisse's then-supplier, the Cheese Board Collective, could not keep up with its demands, Sullivan became the restaurant's in-house breadmaker. However, his breadmaking and the restaurant's food preparation were both competing for the restaurant's limited physical space. In 1983 he left, with the restaurant's encouragement, to open his own company, Acme. Jeremiah Tower, then head chef, encouraged Sullivan to study breadmaking at Narsai David's bakery. He and wife Susan launched Acme with approximately $180,000 of seed capital, half funded by Doobie Brothers guitarist Patrick Simmons through a leaseback arrangement.

Steve and Susan Sullivan took a honeymoon in France the year before starting the business. During their visit to a winery in Bandol, the son of the owners suggested they make their mother starter from the natural yeast of wine grapes. On returning home, he made the starter Acme continues to use in all of its bakeries by collecting unsulfered Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel grapes from a vineyard his father owned, and adding them to a flour and water mixture.