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Blackmarket Bakery hopes Costa Mesans can’t resist

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Rachel Klemek is coming to Costa Mesa to make bread. Lots of it.

The Irvine resident’s Blackmarket Bakery is expanding her business to a second location at the Camp.

Unlike the original Blackmarket — “hidden away” for nearly eight years on Sky Park Circle in Irvine, near John Wayne Airport — this one off Bristol Street is going to have a rotating rack bread oven. With it, Klemek and her team plan to be going “heavy duty” on rolls and buns as well as selling Kéan coffee, items from the Marché Noir line, Blackmarket favorites and some new desserts.

Patrons can expect to see products like Dutch crunch bread, onion brioche and burger buns stuffed with barley — or, as Klemek puts it, “whole-grain grandma stuff.”

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“I’ve wanted to do bread the whole time,” she said. “That’s why I got involved in baking in the first place.”

“Retro-tisnal” is the word they’re using, especially for the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that will have freshly ground peanut butter.

When she was shown the Camp, Klemek said she knew it would be perfect for her brand, perfect for “the cool retail.”

As of Tuesday, workers were busy readying the store, which Klemek hopes to open by late November. She plans to employ five to eight more workers for the 1,800-square-foot bakery. It will showcase an open kitchen so patrons can watch the baking process unfold.

“There will be that bakery smell and stuff coming out of the oven,” she said.

Though the inside was still a construction zone, the outside walls were more finished, with the bakery’s logo of a cake and crossed swords. UFOs shaped like cakes hover above mountains and skyscrapers. Beams from the celestial cakes pick up some humans below, “Fire in the Sky”-style. Bold lettering spells out “Resistance Will Be Futile.”

Klemek has also started a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter.com — dubbed “Blackmarket Bakery Kneads Dough” — for the bread oven.

“If we meet our goal, [donors] get actually charged,” Klemek said. “Otherwise, if we don’t meet our goal, nothing happens.”

In return for their money, donors will get items like a T-shirt or an apron with the Blackmarket logo, a private class or bread.

“We’re doing that to build a certain level of momentum,” she said. “It gives people a reason to get emotionally involved in the business.”

bradley.zint@latimes.com

Twitter: @bradleyzint

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