One of SF’s best pastry pop-ups is opening a location in NoPa

In a few short months, anyone looking to grab a treat to take to Golden Gate Park will have a new option for scones, cinnamon buns, and fluffy focaccia. Marisa Williams of the pastry pop-up Sol Bakery is opening her first brick-and-mortar shop in the NoPa neighborhood, just one block from the Panhandle. 

Though she’s not ready to announce the address while construction is underway, Williams says she expects to start selling guava tarts and apple rhubarb puffs by early 2026.

Williams wasn’t actively looking for a space when a friend brought the vacant corner location to her attention. But for the San Francisco native, who grew up in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, it was love at first sight. She walked over to check out the space in June, and “it almost felt too good to be true,” she recalls. “Everything kind of fell into place.”

Fans of her seasonally inspired baked goods can expect many of the offerings that have made Sol Bakery one of the city’s best-regarded pop-ups. That means cakes, cookies, tarts, brioche, and “focaccia, for sure.” Down the line, she hopes to add a light option for breakfast (perhaps oats with homemade jam) and lunch (maybe a grain bowl). She plans to serve coffee made with beans from a rotating selection of local companies. 

Williams launched Sol out of Outerlands on the west side in early 2024. She’d just returned to San Francisco after a four-year stint in Copenhagen and then in Berlin, where she helped to open Sofi, a bread-focused bakery that uses local and organic grains. For the past year or so, she’s been doing regular sales at Neighbor Bakehouse in the Dogpatch. 

She has a few more pop-ups planned before the end of the year — fans can find her at Neighbor Bakehouse on Mondays in November, with mid-December dates to be determined — after which she’ll wind down to focus on the new bakery. It’s a dream to be able to bring her business to the neighborhood where she grew up and where her parents still live, she says. 

“For a long time now, I’ve wanted my own shop,” Williams says. “I’m just trying to create a cozy neighborhood bakery.”