Reem’s Middle-Eastern bakery reinvests in Oakland in a big way

A Middle Eastern bakery with a hit following is coming back to its homeland of Oakland Reem s run by Palestinian-Syrian chef Reem Assil is set to debut a large new location in Jack London Square this fall The -square-foot space will open at Webster St in the former spot of Timeless Coffee It will be part production center supplying Assil s wholesale operations as well as the San Francisco restaurant Reem s California Mission and part cafe with a menu of favorites like the spice-showered flatbreads called mana eesh The news was first disclosed by the San Francisco Chronicle Assil is a former labor organizer who quit her job to open an Arabic street-corner bakery in Oakland s Fruitvale neighborhood in The concept in fact began several years earlier Assil recalls on her website during an epiphany at a street bakery in Lebanon The scent of za atar yeasted bread and sweet orange-blossom syrup right out of the oven and the sounds of laughter and chatter in Arabic all around me conjured up memories of my childhood and my yearning to create home and district in the United States Reem s in Fruitvale became a district fixture adored by locals and critics alike In Reem s was honored in Food Wine s Restaurants of the Year and in the James Beard Foundation picked Assil as a finalist for Outstanding Chef The Fruitvale location closed in Reem Assil's original mana'eesh the starring dish at Reem's California in San Francisco is also a quintessential street food of the Levant Alanna Hale Assil notified the Chronicle that she envisions the Jack London Square facility as a supply post for Reem s outlets throughout the Bay Area The additional cafe will mainly be geared toward take-out orders There are also plans to have the new Reem s be worker-owned by the time it opens According to a post on the bakery s Instagram seeking to raise funds Countless of us have experienced the overwhelm and despair of existing in a accident capitalist society the past two years being careful not to spend our dollars in techniques that contribute to these oppressive systems With this campaign Reem s invites everyone to proactively invest their dollars into a project that truly uplifts our communities expanding our threshold to create worker-owned spaces spread the warmth of Palestinian food and build generational wealth and resilience for our communities