Victoria’s first certified Kosher bakery is changing hands

Photo: Facebook/The Bikery

The Bikery—one of Vancouver Island’s first and most cherished certified kosher bakeries—announced it will be changing ownership after the current owners expressed they will be moving to focus on private family matters via its website. The Victoria Public Market bakery will carry on with business as usual until Dec. 23, and by January, new owners will take over.

“I know this may come as a surprise to some of you, honestly I’m still processing it myself,” owner Markus Spodzieja wrote on The Bikery’s website.“This has been many months of decision making and planning, but with so many unknown variables we waited to announce this until we were sure that all of the pieces fit.”

In 2017, Spodzieja—a UVic theatre school graduate—used crowdfunding and the City of Victoria’s Mobile Bike Vending permit to support the purchase of a bike, materials to build a cart attachment, and supplies to start his bakery on wheels. He biked around and delivered baked goods all around the city, and it took off. It turned out, The Bikery was the first certified kosher bakery on Vancouver Island, and the humble bakery was especially popular among Victoria’s Jewish community. Within five years, Spodzieja went from delivering pretzels on his bike to cultivating a reputation as the go-to kosher bakery in Victoria.

Spodzieja wrote that he had a simple message when he opened The Bikery: “Serve unique products to the community, and do so with minimal impact on the environment.”

Luckily, the kosher bakery tradition will continue at 1701 Douglas St. with My Way Bikery, wrote Spodzieja.

“Moshe and Lois will be taking over operations and building up the bakery as a family-run operation,” he said. “They have also been kind enough to honour unused gift cards going forward.”

You can check out The Bikery until Dec. 23 at 1701 Douglas St. from Monday to Friday, 10am-5pm.