Making bread is ancient magic. Sure, there’s a fair bit of science involved, but the best bakers are more magicians than chemists, leaning more toward alchemy than biology.
But even the strongest protection spells can’t stave off capitalism—a lesson that Wildwood Flour owner and baker Lauren Silver knows as well as anyone. She closed her popular Pacific Beach bakery in late 2024, when a lease dispute forced her to vacate after two years in the space.
“We had a wildly fun and successful time on Garnet, with a customer base that made us feel as though we had long been part of a more intimate and nostalgic Pacific Beach,” says Silver. “But under the circumstances… it was time to move on.”
Born and raised in San Diego, Silver traveled the world, working in catering, regenerative agriculture, and helping open a few cafes in San José del Cabo in Baja California Sur. Her family had traveled up and down Baja her entire life, in search of surf breaks and the type of escapism rapidly dwindling in the age of social media’s constant surveillance. She wanted to know more about regenerative farming in desert climates, so she did what many people dream of but few have the cojones to pursue—she bought a bunch of chickens, planted a garden, and started baking and recipe testing sourdough bread for a couple of bucks an hour.
In 2021, Silver came back to San Diego for a quick visit with family—or so she thought. She picked up some shifts at Pannikin and Wildwood Flour, then a cottage food business that Noah Orloff started in 2019. Orloff brought her on as an equal partner later that year before opening a brick-and-mortar bakery on Garnet Avenue. A few months later, Silver became sole owner and still is.
When she had to close Wildwood in PB, she drove all over California seeking a sign. She spotted one off Old Highway 80 north of Campo. At the end of a winding, dusty road lay a ranch nestled in a lush valley filled with oak trees. It wasn’t perfect (“the property has less acreage and needs plenty of work, for more reasons than I could list,” she laughs), but its proximity to family, friends, San Diego, and access to well water—not to mention absolutely beautiful views of the southern portion of Cleveland National Forest—sealed the deal.
“It just felt right,” she explains. “First and foremost, this ranch is my home that I hope to make a living on. And while there are no concrete plans as to what that looks like in the long run, I unfortunately want to do it all.”
Silver plans to use the property to re-launch Wildwood Flour, where she’ll maintain its focus on milling California-grown grains in a New American stone mill, baking bread and other items like bagels and pastries in both stone and wood ovens, and create a functioning farm with chickens, sheep, bees, and maybe even a mini donkey or two. One day, she hopes to host dinners, private gatherings, and other educational community events—maybe even introducing a bed-and-breakfast element one day. Overall, Silver says it’s the idea of once more living off the land and creating a space in nature that drew her to reimagine Wildwood’s future.
“The food world can only benefit from more small bakers, millers, and farmers contributing to food culture, cultivating local economies, and educating by example (and through tasty food),” she explains. “None of this is new stuff—just returning to a simpler, kinder way of life that is closer to the soil and one another.”
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