Eat, Drink, Savor: Suncoast Organic opens up patio and bar to the community

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In a welcome addition to the San Benito County food scene, Suncoast Organic Farm owners Lisa and David Jensen now offer a biweekly opportunity for an enthusiastic community to join them for sandwiches, beer and dessert on their redesigned patio in addition to their weekly baked goods pickups on Saturdays.

“We’ve had people from as far away as Sacramento,” Lisa said. “I was making sandwiches non-stop, and we sold out of everything. The people didn’t care. They still sat here and drank beer. They just wanted to be here.” 

Suncoast has grown from humble origins, selling bread and olive oil at the Mountain View Farmers’ Market to opening this destination bakery and the Nuthouse Brewery at the south end of Hollister. It’s a story of the Jensens overcoming occasional stumbling blocks and using them to their advantage to create something unique for the community. 

The almost accidental circumstances that molded the business made it all the more unlikely, starting with Lisa returning to Hollister in 2008 and helping her stepfather, Gary Miller, sell his olive oil in Mountain View. 

“I talked to him about what we could add to complement the oil,” she said. “I researched what seemed the most profitable, and it was either bread or coffee. I didn’t know anything about baking and nobody told me how hard it was!”   

She began touring bakeries to get ideas and, impressed by Miller’s Bake House in Chico, she used it as a model for Suncoast. 

“Dave Miller had a stone mill,” Lisa said, “so he milled his flour. He made pasta, cookies, and bread. He only sold his bread at the farmers’ market, which was also my plan. So I just emulated him.” 

She discussed her plans with the health department and was advised to build a full commercial kitchen rather than a prep kitchen, because “you can never go backwards: it’s too hard to reinvent the space.”

With her stepfather’s help, Lisa began renovating an old barn on the property. The task took three years to complete. 

“I was working at the police academy in San Jose,” she said, “and then I would come home and tear off roofing shingles. The barn was barely standing, and we were working off a blueprint we’d drawn on graph paper.”

Marrying David in 2009 was a fortunate match. Born in Haiti, when his diplomat father was assigned to Kathmandu, he used his spare time to learn to bake, a skill the burgeoning Suncoast needed. He also has a knack for keeping things running, like the 80-quart mixer salvaged from a 1940s US Navy ship.

For Lisa, it was a slower process. She did not try baking bread until the barn’s kitchen was completed in 2011, and her first attempts were… unfortunate. 

“I was burning loaves and throwing them over the fence,” she said. “My neighbor called and asked what all those charcoal loaves were.  And I didn’t even know you couldn’t have the fire in the oven while you baked the bread.”

David also thrived on hard work, and there was plenty of it. They returned to the basics, using organic grains they milled themselves and refusing to cut any corners. 

“I always had a motto: ‘No one can outwork me,’” Lisa said. “You could put that same motto to everything that I’ve done. But in David, I met my match. He works twice as hard as I do.”

They began selling at the Farmers Market in July 2011 and quickly built a following. The customers were so loyal that, later that year, when the market was rained out, a Facebook post drew enough customers to the barn to sell out that week’s inventory. Encouraged, they started selling at both places and quickly became overwhelmed.

“One day we were so exhausted we couldn’t even stay awake on the way home,” Lisa said. “We had to pull over and take a nap. We worked all the time and still ended up not having enough product.”

They notified the market manager they were leaving and were warned that there was a five-year waiting list of vendors interested in taking their place: “Once you divorce us,” they were told, “we don’t remarry you.”

“I told them, ‘Consider us divorced and peace out,’ Lisa said.

For the next few years, selling from the barn allowed the Jensens to expand the operation. Previously held to four hours of selling at the market for one day a week, they were able to open Saturdays and Sundays with seven employees. They also expanded into more varieties of bread, and added sandwiches, desserts, pizzas, ice cream, and breakfast burritos.

They were in the process of expanding the business, creating the patio and building the Nuthouse brewery when the Covid pandemic hit and all plans were halted. Scaling down to a once-a-week drive-through operation, the entire business was run just by the Jensens.

“We had to pivot the operation,” Lisa said. “People ordered online, and we did things like meals to go. It was very successful.” 

One downside of the drive-through business was the inability to visit with customers, which the Jensens are determined to change.  

“We’ve had a lot of support whenever we started something new,” David said. “One of the biggest things that gives me satisfaction is seeing people come out and have a good time. You see how much they like it here, and you get direct input from them.” 

Lisa said their goal is to introduce the barn and patio as an event area where people are welcomed as friends and family.

“Hollister is known for farming and bringing the community together,” she said. “The other day, we had kids on the swings, and everything was perfect. We don’t have a band here, because then you can’t have a conversation. You can’t hear the birds sing.”

The core of the business has always been the bread, which is made with a sourdough base.

“We do an extended fermentation,” David said. “I start my doughs Friday evening and won’t bake them out until Saturday morning. It just helps to do a better fermentation. Then we take that and can add things like cranberries and walnuts or our Nuthouse Ale with cheese.”

Other variations include a “super seed” version with an organic seed mix, a country rye made with a blend of whole grain rye and wheat berries, and a five-cheese bread with provolone, yellow cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey Jack and parmesan cheeses. 

The biweekly openings will allow even more delights, like cookies, pies and gelato, to accompany the tri-tip and turkey sandwiches. And, as an off-the-grid business, the Jensens can offer their product at a lower price than other markets. They use water from their wells, mill their own flour, and grow many of the other ingredients including fruit. Power comes from 65 solar panels. 

“We went to other bakeries just like ours: artisan and organic,” Lisa said. “And their prices are astronomical. They’re charging $12 to $14 a loaf.  We just don’t feel that it is feasible for our community. We want people to enjoy everything we do.”

Suncoast Organic Farm
6310 Southside Rd, Hollister 
(831) 801-0085

Upcoming menus and events are posted to Instagram and Facebook as well as the events page on their website. Pickups are on Saturdays from 9 – 11 a.m.

Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.

BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping to expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and give our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (two stores in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.

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