Reem Assil, chef and co-founder of her eponymous Arab Californian bakery, had ambitious goals when she rolled her first flatbreads at Bay Area farmers markets in 2015. The activist and labor organizer imagined one day running a thriving, worker-owned café where staff shared all responsibilities, from prep work to making financial decisions.
Now, that vision is coming to fruition as Reem’s makes its highly anticipated return to the city where it started.
A new Reem’s will open on June 26 at 85 Webster St. in Oakland’s Jack London Square. The 3,000-square-foot, takeout-oriented space will be home to Reem’s first worker-owned location, run by three longtime employees.
It’s a homecoming for Assil and co-founder Zaynah Hindi, who in 2017 opened their first restaurant in Oakland’s Fruitvale, which earned national recognition before closing in 2021. They later expanded Reem’s – ranked No. 81 in the Chronicle’s 2026 Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area – to the Mission District, where diners enjoy California-influenced Arab wraps and flatbreads with fresh vegetables or braised goat. An outpost at the Ferry Building closed after two years in 2024. The Reem’s brand has also grown into a wholesale operation that sells flatbreads and pastries at grocery stores and coffee shops.
The new Reem’s in Oakland is the bakery’s first worker-owned location: from left, owners Zaynah Hindi, Diana Aguirre, Rebecca Caddelerado and Reem Assil. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The Oakland location’s menu will be smaller than the one in San Francisco. It will consist of customer favorite wraps such as the Pali Cali, with braised sumac-marinated chicken, caramelized onion sauce and pickled onions, as well as “the gringa,” a wrap filled with braised lamb, Oaxaca cheese, pickled onions and served with a side of consomme. The latter is Assil’s riff on enduringly popular quesabirria – griddled tacos filled with cheese and beef birria. More traditional offerings include its classic wrap, with a mix of tomato and lettuce drizzled with olive oil then dusted with za’atar, along with wraps featuring falafel and tahini.
Wraps at Reem’s in the Mission are made with a baked flatbread similar to a pita. In Oakland they will be made with saj, a thinner, unyeasted flatbread more akin to a flour tortilla. Kitchen staff stretch out the dough then throw it on top of a dome-shaped griddle to cook it through without any flipping, “so you have this crisp, kind of pizza-like crispy crust on the bottom surface with a pillowy top,” Assil said.
A pastry case will carry Reem’s popular sesame-studded halawa chocolate chip cookies – crowned the best chocolate chip cookie in the Bay Area in a Chronicle blind taste test – along with other treats, such as za’atar croissants and buns flavored with orange blossom. Items in a refrigerated case will include fattoush salads and spreads such as hummus and muhammara, an earthy dip made with roasted red peppers, aleppo peppers and cumin. Coffee drinks will be made with beans from Oakland roaster Grand Coffee.
Zaynah Hindi, right, co-founded Reem’s, which started out in farmers markets in 2015 before opening its first location in Fruitvale in 2017. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Local artist Cece Carpio created a mural that depicts red poppies, the national flower of Palestine, intertwined with golden poppies, California’s state flower. The seating spans indoors and outdoors, with patio tables and a couple of benches that previous tenant Timeless Coffee left behind, re-painted in a bright blue and orange tones.
The menu and other offerings will change as the worker-owners decide how to manage the location. Assil and Hindi said they will not be involved in managing the Oakland café but have offered to assist with administrative tasks as needed. “We’ll try to be like an incubator in a way,” Assil said.
Assil has been in the process of converting Reem’s to worker ownership since 2021, when she began an apprenticeship program for employees to learn business practices, leadership skills and ethics, among other topics. The program has had 12 graduates, including the three Oakland worker-owners. Two other alumni went on to open their own restaurant in Oakland, the James Beard award-winning Understory.
“We hope that this is a successful case study so that our workers in the Mission can convert into worker-owners, then our future locations can open on the worker-owned model,” Hindi said.
Reem’s Oakland will serve customer favorites such as the cardamom pistachio sticky bun, za’atar bread and spinach pie. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The large bakery behind the café will be Reem’s central commissary kitchen, where staff will prepare its signature supremely airy sourdough pita, pastries, and the hit halawa chocolate chip cookies for current and future Reem’s locations. Large windows will allow pedestrians along the Embarcadero to get glimpses of flatbread production, which involves a 72-hour dough fermentation process and shaping by hand.
The first Reem’s operated a few miles down the road from Jack London Square. Assil also operated her Arab fine dining restaurant, Dyafa, just steps away from the new Reem’s.
When Assil announced last year that an Oakland location was in the works, the show of support was overwhelming, she said.
“We have been waiting to come back to this community and we know many have been waiting for us,” Assil said.
Reem’s. 85 Webster St., Oakland. Opens June 26. reemscalifornia.com
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This article originally published at Celebrated Arab Californian bakery returns to Oakland after five years away.