Michi Michi isn’t the first baking collective in San Diego (that honor belongs to Pan y Paz in Barrio Logan). But owner/founder Vanessa Corrales hopes they won’t be the last.
Standing on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Olive Street in Bankers Hill, I watch as dogs yip, kids laugh, and a line of guests in search of croissants, danishes, babkas, and biscuits patiently wait for their turn at the small but packed display case. Corrales identifies which items were made by Michi’s in-house baker Arely Chavez (Born & Raised, Ironside) and are from a rotating roster of guest bakers that changes weekly.
Guest bakers include professional pastry chefs who want to flex their own creative muscles outside the restrictions of a restaurant, or passionate home cooks who want to get some feedback on their specialties. By offering advice on recipes and pricing, a shared kitchen space to prep, access to volume ingredients, and a built-in customer base, Corrales says Michi Michi has helped launch new careers and side gigs for a number of aspiring bakers.
“Some of those people have amazing businesses,” she says. “[I thought] ‘How many of them don’t have the platform or are scared to put their product out there? And if I can help them a little bit by providing a small space in our shelf to do that without the cost of build out and labor and all the things, why not?’”
Corrales isn’t a baker herself, but she has an established hospitality background, helping open concepts like Fairmont Grand Del Mar, Alma San Diego (then Hotel Palomar), and Stone Brewing in Terminal 2 at the airport. In 2018, she was opening a coffee shop for the now-defunct Patio Restaurant Group and saw a business opportunity.
“I realized that there weren’t a lot of pastry options,” she explains, nothing Bread & Cie’s rustic, European-style bakery was the star of the scene at the time. “Which is great! But I’m like, we need more pizzazz. We need more flair. We need the fun [and] creativity.” She decided to open her own bakery, handling the business end and bringing on a pastry chef to create the products. They called it Split Bakehouse, offering a half vegan, half non-vegan menu.
Working on a shoestring budget, her partner only lasted six months. “I kind of just had to go with it, because I had everything—all my savings, everything—in it,” she explains. “[But] I believed that it was gonna work, because there was nothing like this in San Diego.” It took everything she had to keep the business alive, including learning how to bake by reading everything she could and watching YouTube tutorials. It worked until the pandemic.
“Everyone became a baker,” she laughs. Rather than see the flood as a competition, she saw opportunity. If people tapped into a passion for baking, but lacked the resources to share their wares with the public, she could use Split as the foundation for a collective. It wasn’t to make a ton of money (Michi Michi splits profits with guest bakers 30/70, with the bulk going to the baker). A collective could be the way she could make starting a business a little easier for those who came after her, so they wouldn’t have to struggle the way she did. Even the name Michi Michi (informally) means “to share.”
@mishcritiques NEW BAKERY in #sandiego 📍Michi Michi (Bankers Hill). See my IG reel for more info! #bakery #pastries ♬ GASLIGHT – INJI
“The name came because we wanted to share the space with people,” explains Corrales. “We all help each other rise.” The collective opened a year ago, and after going viral on TikTok two months after opening, its guest baker waitlist is now several months long. One employee is in charge of the calendar, making sure the rotating pastries are high-quality, priced appropriately, and spread out so as not to have, say, a bunch of sourdough bread bakers at the same time.
Changing the menu weekly keeps people coming in, but Corrales says they do keep some fan favorites on hand, like Chavez’s guava cream cheese danish and lemon poppyseed morning buns. She also brings in the same bakers every once in a while, especially if they offer something no one else does. For instance, Mon Chourie makes the only Korean cream puffs in the city that she’s seen.
Corrales says business has exceeded her wildest expectations, and hopes others take the spirit of community to launch their own versions of the collective.
“I honestly didn’t think that it was going to be this busy, this fast,” she laughs. “It’s just awesome to see that I wasn’t crazy and that this worked!” She’s already got her sights set on what’s next, including one day adding a grab-and-go window for sandwiches and some more prepared food, as well as new locations elsewhere.
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“Michi Michi will keep growing as long as the community allows it,” she promises. “Something like this was needed in San Diego.”
Michi Michi is open Thursday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. or until sold out, at 2800 Fifth Avenue in Bankers Hill.
