DENVER — While many small businesses are cutting back, Rebel Bread is bucking the trend - expanding its South Broadway location with a cafe and baking school. Rebel Bread, a wholesale staple for coffee shops and restaurants across the metro, is expanding its South Broadway space to add a cafe and a dedicated teaching kitchen for baking classes.
The expansion, expected to open in the upcoming weeks, will add 4,800-square-feet to its existing space. For founder and CEO Zach Martinucci, instructors like Ellyse Retana, and interior designer Maddie Danielson, the project represents both growth and a renewed commitment to community.
Zach Martinucci’s path to baking started in the classroom. With a background in culinary anthropology, he studied food culture at UCLA and in Bologna, Italy, before training at the San Francisco Baking Institute. In 2017, he moved to Denver determined to turn his academic passion into a career.
“I started Rebel Bread in fall 2018 with just a love of the culture and storytelling and education around food,” Martinucci said. “Bread felt like this perfect canvas for community and storytelling.”
The bakery quickly grew from its Five Points beginnings into a wholesale operation serving businesses across the metro. Since moving into Denver’s Design District in 2020, Martinucci has steadily expanded production while continuing to sell directly to customers at the counter and farmers markets.
The latest expansion marks a turning point for Rebel Bread, opening the doors to a cafe and classroom alongside its wholesale kitchen. The new space will allow the bakery to open its doors even wider - offering a place for people to gather, learn, and connect. “We’re really excited to finally have a dedicated space for community and educational events that we just haven’t been able to do regularly in the past,” Martinucci said.
For instructor Ellyse Retana, the new space will mean more opportunities to share her craft with others. Retana’s background is in urban and sustainable agriculture, but she discovered baking during the pandemic - first experimenting with sourdough, then turning it into a career.
“I think it’s really fun to give that experience to people and give them something they can then take home or take to their own family,” she said.
Retana will be teaching classes focused on tortillas. Students learn through demonstration, then get hands-on practice with professional tools and ingredients. Retana says what excites her most is seeing students connect to the process. “Being in the kitchen and seeing where the bread you buy every week is made - and who’s making it - feels really personal,” she said.
Retana says, with staff now able to have classes at the bakery, the business will reach a new level of community. “We’ve grown exponentially since I started,” she said. “I never imagined we’d have a space like this.”
The new cafe and teaching kitchen wouldn’t be complete without a design that matches the bakery’s spirit. For that, Martinucci turned to interior designer Maddie Danielson of MAD House Interior Design. She embraced Martinucci’s vision of making the space educational, playful, and rooted in history.
“The vision was really creating a space that didn’t feel like your average coffee shop or bakery,” Danielson said. “We wanted to bring in pieces of the history of this as a culinary school, while also paying homage to the practices Rebel Bread uses.”
Danielson incorporated colorful, handcrafted details that highlight both the art and science of baking. Her favorite touches include a mural wall hand-illustrated with the grains used in Rebel Bread’s loaves and pendant chandeliers painted to resemble the cross-section of sourdough.
Related: Earlier this year, Denver7’s On Two Wheels shared that Rebel Bread was a cycling-friendly small business which encouraged riders to visit and check out rewards through the Bike Streets app. Reporter Jeff Anastasio showed you how the Bike Streets app can help cyclists find less stressful routes built by Denver riders to wherever they need to go – including to area businesses. Check out the story below.
Denver7 | On Two Wheels
Find less stressful bike routes in Denver, while supporting local businesses
“I hope people walk in and feel like it’s fun, welcoming, and different - a place they want to tell their friends about,” said Danielson.
Rebel Bread’s expansion comes just in time for one of the bakery’s biggest annual events. Denver Bake Fest is a community baking festival hosted in Rebel Bread’s parking lot. This year’s festival takes place Saturday, October 4. The event will showcase the new cafe and teaching kitchen, along with demonstrations, tastings, and community activities.
For Martinucci, it’s the perfect way to introduce Denver to the next chapter of Rebel Bread.
