Nearly 25 years later, the most comfortable place for Bacher is still in the kitchen.  A good thing, since Bacher spends most of his time these days whippng up pastries and breads for his Rancho Swiss Bakery.  In the coming weeks, Bacher intends to change the name of his business, which he recently purchased, to Springer Street Bakery. 

Bacher keeps grueling hourse tending to his baking ovens, starting his workday at 3 a.m. and ending after the bakery’s 6 p.m. closing time.  Not surprisingly, he has, on more than one occasion, fallen asleep at the dinner table. 

“That’s a baker’s lifestyle.  It’s a very time-consuming, labor-intensive business,” says Bacher, who has an energetic demeanor even in the late afternoon. 

A third-generation baker--both his grandfather and his great-grandfather were in the business--Bacher is a stickler for perfection, priding himself on the freshness and high quality of his products.  There are no shortcuts in this French/Italian bakery, where everything is made from scratch except a line of jams. 

When the bakery first opened in late November, Bacher sold only danishes, croissants, and brioches. He now sells about six types of breads and a variety of cakes and pastries, and he’ll soon be expanding his line of cookies. 

Bacher intends to set his store apart from the competition by selling specialty items for various holidays.  Until March 3, he will be selling hamantashen (triangular shaped cookies with a variety of fillings) in honor of the Jewish festival of Purim.  For Easter, the bakery will feature a pane pasquele, an Italian panetonne (a sweet citron studded bread) baked in a dove-shaped paper.  Streudels will be on the store’s menu for Oktoberfest. 

The bakery also prepares special orders and hard-to-find items.  Bacher recently designed cookies for an art school class, with each tasty treat shaped as a palette and adorned with three primary colors. 

“I’ll do whatever I can, if it’s within reason,” the Sunnyvale resident says. 

To accomodate his Jewish customers--who make up 40 percent of his clientele--Bacher is currently working with a rabbi to make his store kosher.  He will soon offer a variety of pareve (non-dairy) desserts, in addition to the challahs and Jewish ryes that are already available. 

It did not take that long for the twentysomething baker to realize the dream of owning his own business.  After graduating from Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, Bacher enrolled in the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, where he trained under “the last of the old-school chefs”--instructors who struck the fear of God in people if you screwed up, he says. 

Bacher’s CCA training led to a five-year stint at Draeger’s Bakery in Los Altos, followed by a job at Il Fornaio in San Jose.  There, he learned about business, accumulating comparative sales of 200 percent.  Bacher then spent two years at Whole Foods in Cupertino, where his responsibilities included both baking and management. 

That experience spurred Bacher to open his own business.  After scouting around for an existing bakery, Bacher finally settled on the Rancho Swiss Bakery in Los Altos.  Despite a bid from Andronico’s, the store’s neighbor, owners Paul and Elsbeth Johannes decided to sell the 2,000-square-foot store to the young upstart. 

Bacher now continues the 30-year-long bakery tradition in the Rancho Shopping Center.  He has two full-time staff, including one assistant baker and one counter person.  However, Bacher’s tasks run the gamut, including baking, customer service, washing dishes, mopping floors and paperwork. 

“I will never ask them to do something that I’m not prepared to do myself,” Bacher says of his team. 

Response to the new ownership has been positive.  A lot of Bacher’s customers are European, and tell him that this brioches resemble those found in the south of France--quite a compliment for a baker who’s never been to Europe. 

However, Bacher is constantly striving to improve his creations, with very few formulas--his term for recipes--permanently developed.  From the time he opened, he spent every week adjusting the formula for his challah, until customers seemed satisfied with the braided bread.  He is still tinkering with his croissants, trying to make them as flaky as possible.  

“I set the bar high for myself,” says Bacher, who spends Sundays with his wife Marie, a fifth-grade teacher, and 18-month-old daughter, Katerina. 

When asked about the scarcity of bakeries in the Mountain View area, Bacher points to the city’s evening flow as a disadvantage.  That kind of nocturnal traffic does not bode well, he says, since bakeries are notoriously a morning business.  However, that could change, he says, since the city’s population, as well as its income, have gone up. 

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be ripe for a bakery,” Bacher says.