After Nabolom, Who Keeps the Elmwood's Oldest Shops Going?

"We still hope a young energetic, experienced food lover who can afford it wants to take Nabolom to the next level and save this treasure for future generations and our still amazing community."

Sabra Stepak and Julia Elliott, co-owners of Nabolom Bakery & Pizzeria, wrote those words as they prepared to close the shop. The San Francisco Chronicle reported them. The bakery at 2708 Russell St. served its last day on Sunday, Oct. 18, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to a sign in the window reported by Berkeleyside's Nosh. Two days later the East Bay Times ran a farewell column about the crowd on that final day.

The owners were asking for a successor. On College Avenue and the blocks around it, that is how the oldest names have usually lasted. A founder steps back, and someone else picks up the keys, the recipes and the customers. Nabolom has done this once already. The rest of this post follows how those handoffs have gone and where the morning bread run goes now.

Nabolom Has Already Been Handed Down Once

Nabolom opened in 1976 as a workers' collective and became known for challah, fruit Danishes and cinnamon twists. The original collective closed the business in 2015. Elliott and Stepak bought it and reopened about six months later. Berkeleyside dated the reopening to February 2016.

Elliott had spent years at Berkeley's Cheese Board Collective. The new Nabolom added rotating vegetarian sourdough pizzas made with seasonal ingredients, and those pizzas became a signature of the business. So the Nabolom that closed this October was already a second-generation shop. It kept the collective-era pastry case and added pizza alongside it.

The pressures that ended this chapter were mostly about running a bakery. The owners told the Chronicle that Nabolom's business model depended on volume. Meanwhile the cost of ingredients, utilities, labor and capital improvements kept climbing. In recent weeks the bakery's website showed reduced hours, citing short staffing. That leaves the shop's future at 2708 Russell St. in the hands of whoever answers the owners' note.

Elements Found Its Successor

A few blocks south, the same story played out, and this time a buyer turned up.

In March, Berkeleyside's Shop Talk reported that the owners of Elements, the family-run apparel shop at 2937 College Ave., were retiring after more than 30 years and wanted someone to take over. Co-owner Jason Wayman described the store as a "mini department store." He stressed that business had stayed "buoyant." He also said they were in no hurry to sell to just anyone.

"If they're not capable of doing the kind of business we've been doing, we probably won't take their offer," Wayman told Berkeleyside. "We want to keep this business alive for the community."

The shop's own site now says Elements is under new ownership. It is also merging with another long-running College Avenue business. Cotton Basics, founded in 1982 and known for locally made clothing in 100% cotton and 100% linen, now shares the 2937 College Ave. storefront with Elements, which dates to 1995. So one handoff kept two Elmwood names on the street, under one roof.

That is the model the Nabolom owners are hoping for: a buyer who keeps the name and the customers, and keeps the shop where it is.

When the Room Stays and the Shop Changes

Not every long-running Elmwood room passes to a successor. Some get a new tenant with its own name, and the block still holds its shape.

Book Society opened at 2945 College Ave. in the space that had been Bill's Trading Post & Gem Gallery, Berkeleyside reported in January 2025. More recently, Elmwood Subs opened at 2992 College Ave. at Webster Street, according to Nosh. It serves breakfast bagels, avocado toast, and subs ranging from a meatball melt to pastrami, buffalo chicken and falafel.

All three addresses sit within a short walk of one another. One of those rooms got a new tenant, one got a brand-new business, and one passed to a new owner who kept the old name.

Where the Morning Bread Run Goes Now

For anyone whose weekend started with a Nabolom challah or cinnamon twist, there are still several places to buy baked goods near College Avenue. The list below shows which shops bake on site and which serve pastries from outside bakeries.

• Baker & Commons, 2900 College Ave. Bakes in-house, and its listing with the Elmwood business district describes an expanded bakery. A September 2026 7x7 guide to the Elmwood names its house-made baked goods.
• Fournée Bakery, 2912 Domingo Ave. Up by the Claremont. Fournée's site posts a Thanksgiving-week schedule, with normal hours resuming Saturday, Nov. 28.
• Boichik Bagels, 3170 College Ave. The 7x7 guide describes weekend lines at this end of College Avenue.
• Cafenated Coffee Company, 2960 College Ave. A coffee bar that serves pastries from Starter Bakery.
• Souvenir Coffee, 2701 College Ave. Serves pastries from Midwife and The Baker, close to where Russell St. meets College.

Two of those five counters sell pastries baked somewhere else. Of the shops in the Elmwood itself, Baker & Commons is the one listed here as baking on site, so a Danish from the neighborhood's own ovens is harder to find than it was before Oct. 18.

December on the Block Belongs to Two Long-Running Shops

The College Avenue holiday calendar runs through two businesses that have long anchored the strip. Neither is part of this year's handoff story. Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore is at 2904 College Ave., just past Baker & Commons. Rialto Cinemas Elmwood sits at 2966 College Ave. at Ashby. Here is what they have scheduled from publish day through mid-December.

Current times are on the Rialto Elmwood schedule and the Mrs. Dalloway's events page. The Sunday, Dec. 6 morning pairs well with a stop at Baker & Commons: the free A Christmas Story matinee at 10 a.m., then the noon Nutcracker, with the two venues about half a block apart.

The Open Question at 2708 Russell St.

The Elmwood addresses that have changed recently show three outcomes: a successor who kept the name, a new tenant, and a new business. Elements went the first way. Nabolom's owners wrote publicly that they wanted a buyer who would carry the bakery forward, the same way they did when they bought it from the collective. SFGATE reported that Stepak was open to selling the bakery, so the Nabolom name and its recipes at 2708 Russell St. are waiting on a buyer.

The questions about any Elmwood block, from who has run a storefront for decades to which rooms changed hands quietly, are the ones Diana Sweet follows block by block. If you're thinking about how the shops near your home have changed and what that means for you, we'd be glad to share what we're seeing. Start Your Home Search with us whenever you're ready.