Authentic German bakery Mama G’s opens new Manatee location. Take a look
Poppyseed rolls glisten in the front counter display, while an assortment of traditional German and European delicacies is also offered at Mama G’s German Bakery & Coffeehouse’s newest location.
The bakery at 8211 Tourist Center Drive is the fifth for the local company, but the first for the University Town Center area. Founder Beate “Mama G” Goldstein opened her first shop in 2015 near the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.
Armed with a collection of family recipes, Goldstein’s bakery delivers authentic sweet and savory pastries, breads and breakfast dishes.
“Our pastries are sweet, but not sugar sweet,” said Goldstein, whose bakery boasts the slogan “Faith, Food, Family.”
Menu favorites at Mama G’s Bakery
Crowd-pleasers include the strudel, from apple to quark. Quark strudel is a type of cheese pastry traditionally popular in Central Europe. The breads are not made with milk, sugar, eggs, oils or preservatives.
Goldstein said Mama G’s was never intended to be what it is today, a bakery with five locations — three in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
“I started with a KitchenAid (mixer),” she said. “Very small. Rather go and work for somebody else, work for myself and be my own boss.”
Over time, the bakery grew with her children and husband getting involved.
Local bakery opens new UTC location
And now close family friends Alyssa Freniere and Blair Sellers are the owners of Mama G’s newest shop, which opened near University Parkway and Interstate 75 in mid-December.
“As soon as we heard Benderson UTC, we hopped on it,” Freniere said.
The space was previously home to Crop Juice, which closed in August.
Freniere’s best friend is Goldstein’s youngest daughter, Joeline, while Sellers has been baking Mama G’s bread and handling deliveries for about two years.
Shop sells authentic German pastries
Customers can choose between several bread flavors such as the Bavarian multi-grain, black forest, farmer’s rye, rustic sourdough and more.
“You don’t add anything to it, so it’s very simplistic,” Sellers said. “It’s about as barebones and authentic as you can get for a bread. It’s just exactly what you need to make a bread.”
Goldstein said the farmer’s rye bread is 100% organic rye flour with no yeast and is a sourdough base, so it takes 24 hours to make.
“That’s a recipe we brought from Germany when we came 23 years ago,” Goldstein said.
In addition to pastries and bread, the bakery serves frühstück, which is the German word for breakfast.
It’s the most expensive item on the menu at $8.95, and contains two slices of ham, two slices of Swiss cheese, a hard-boiled egg, apricot and strawberry preserves, butter and two rolls.
Most items are in the $4 to $5 range, and the bakery also serves coffee and smoothies.
Mama G’s is open Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit MamaGsBakery.com.
