Sunny Bajwa recently purchased the famous Basque Boulangerie Café in Sonoma. Sunny started his food service career working at a Taco Bell, then owned a String’s Italian Franchise in Milpitas for several years, then worked for Einstein’s Noah’s Bagels for 13 years where he was an area manager overseeing between 14 to 28 units and was most recently a General Manager at a Chevy’s Restaurant.
The Basque Boulangerie Cafe opened on the historic square of Sonoma in 1994. The owners have been involved in the bakery and restaurant business since 1956. The “Basque”, as it is affectionately known by locals and return customers, specializes in light crumb, crisp sourdough breads and assorted other sweet French, or Parisian style breads, as well as many Danish pastries, morning rolls, cookies and cakes, in its lively retail store, as well as delivering these fresh products daily to its wholesale customers. The Basque’s retail store offers an extended Cafe style menu available all day, from 7 AM to 6 PM.
Sunny plans to leave the operation as is, as it is extremely successful and has a staff of long term dedicated employees many who have been there for 15 to 20 years. The sellers are very passionate people that were dedicated to taking care of their employees and providing a high quality product. Within a couple of years Sunny plans to open a second unit and would eventually like to convert this concept into a multi-unit operation. Sunny’s strengths are accountability and taking care of people. Sunny follows Dan Marino’s (formerly the quarterback of the Miami Dolphins) philosophy of “take care of the hands that take care of you.” Sunny believes that If you take care of your employees and customers you can be successful in selling anything.
Restaurant Realty had the opportunity of putting together this transaction and wish Sunny much success in his future business endeavors.