Azikiwee “Z” Anderson launched Rize Up after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
Published Aug. 27, 2026at6:00am
San Francisco’s first Black-owned sourdough bakery is opening to the public.
Since moving into a SoMa warehouse in 2022, Rize Up Bakery has been selling its breads wholesale and at farmers markets. But owner Azikiwee “Z” Anderson always wanted to welcome people to the front of the space. Starting Sept. 10, customers will be able to order tricked-out toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, and fresh pastries, while getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the bakers at work. “I’m really proud of what we do,” Anderson says. “So to invite people in to peer over and see us doing our thing, it’s really special.”
It took four years because of a couple of difficult delays. In 2023, burglars broke in (opens in new tab) overnight and stole cash and equipment; in 2024, a fire broke out (opens in new tab) next door, resulting in flooding into the bakery. Anderson estimates that each incident cost him more than $100,000 in lost labor, ingredients, and sales. But the silver lining was how the community rallied (opens in new tab). “It was like, ‘We got you,’” he says. Since the beginning, he has bootstrapped the business without investors, and donations helped the team get back on track with construction.
Anderson, a former pro skater, attended SF Cooking School.
Diners haven’t set foot inside the warehouse for six years — not since Vive la Tarte used it to bake viral croissant-tacos before the pandemic. The cavernous, 5,000-square-foot space is mostly dedicated to production. Levy Art + Architecture has pushed back the existing cafe space to make it a slightly cozier 1,000 square feet. Anderson, a former pro skater, was inspired by a half-pipe, so there’s a curving wooden ramp flipped upside down and built into the ceiling. Shades of golden brown on terra-cotta tiles and the granite counter evoke freshly baked bread. There’s a glass pastry case and 22 seats total, at a communal table, smaller tables, and a window counter, crafted from reclaimed cypress by woodworker Joel Passovoy. Uplighting makes it glow, so it “kind of feels like the oven,” Anderson says.
Rize Up is perhaps best known for folding sourdough with creative flavors. Loaves come in 10 styles, including the curry-spiced Masala, gochujang-seasoned K-Pop, and wild purple Ube. Limited-edition loaves include the Gumbo, made with everything but the crawfish, and Chanterelle Miso with wild mushrooms foraged and fermented by Shared Cultures in SF. For the cafe, all will be sliced into toasts and paired with savory toppings like hot-smoked trout, caper labneh, and pickled onions, or sweet ones like ube mascarpone, toasted coconut, and pepitas. Grilled cheese sandwiches will be stuffed with spicy kimchi and apricot jam — with even more inventive riffs to come. For those short on time, baguette sandwiches will be ready to grab and go.
The team, which was already baking a few pies and cookies for the farmers markets, will be adding a fresh lineup of pastries at the cafe. A purple, triple ube cinnamon roll swirls around soft pandesal, and a jammy bearclaw folds flaky puff pastry around raspberry and cream. A couple of Southern-inspired cakes, red velvet and spiced banana, stack triple layers with cream-cheese frosting. For breakfast, there’ll be a quiche tartlet. The team is still working on croissants and kouign-amann, which will roll out after the cafe debuts. Drinks will include Ritual Coffee and Song Tea, and Anderson plans to host pop-ups, with a focus on those that are BIPOC-owned.
Whipped feta tartine.
An ube and coconut tartine.
Anderson was born in New Orleans and arrived in San Francisco on a Greyhound bus in 1980 at 5 years old, with his single mom and two siblings. They were homeless for a month, then lived in a women’s shelter before finding housing — an experience that inspired how he runs his business. Rize Up donates bread to Glide Memorial Church and other organizations where Anderson ate as a kid and accepts donations through a “Pay It Forward (opens in new tab)” program. As a teenager, Anderson, who was by then 6 feet and 3 inches tall with long dreads, careened into skate parks. He had a first career as an inline skater — he was sponsored by Rollerblade and judged the X Games — and appeared in the 1997 film “Batman & Robin.”
After a stretch as a stay-at-home dad, he went to SF Cooking School, externed at Locanda, and worked as a private chef. But it wasn’t until the murder of George Floyd in 2020 that he started baking in his backyard — using a starter he’d been gifted by Outerlands, the sourdough legend of the Outer Sunset — and selling loaves in brown paper bags decorated with a raised Black fist. Rize Up exploded in popularity, moving into a commissary kitchen in Fisherman’s Wharf in 2021 and the SoMa warehouse a year later.
Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
A prosciutto and brie grilled cheese. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
Today, Rize Up is one of the city’s biggest bakeries. Anderson has more than 70 wholesale accounts, including grocery stores Bi-Rite, Rainbow, and Berkeley Bowl, and popular restaurants, including Palm City, Flour + Water, and Señor Sisig. The bakery also serves 10 farmers markets around the Bay, from the Ferry Building to Marin and Oakland.
Given how the bakery has always celebrated community, Anderson can’t wait to welcome people into its warehouse home. “The only way that we got here was with everyone’s respect and support. This is really a love letter for all that support,” he says. “We finally got to a place where I feel like this is the beginning of what I always dreamed we could be.”
Rize Up BakeryDate and timeOpening Thursday, Sept. 10