Claire Elaine from Wooden Petal Bake Shop in Santa Rosa, joins Harry Duke and Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha today. Brew Ha Ha is a double show and podcast today. Also in the studio is Raena Jones-Metzger from Rio Nido Roadhouse. Occasionally, if we have two guests on one radio show, we make two podcasts from the live show, so that each guest can have their own podcast audio and a sharable (and indexable) web page of their own episode. The Rio Nido Roadhouse podcast episode page is over here.

Claire describes her day in the bake shop which begins at 3:30 or 4:00 making dough and then sandwiches from her pretzel buns. Wooden Petal is a name that Claire came up with, based on her grandmother’s catering company Wooden Spoon. Also, she was “an English granny” and used to call Elaine Petal, hence Wooden Petal.

She and her partner built their shop a couple of years ago, from scratch. They had to re-permit the location to serve food. Moonlight Brewing Co. is where she did her first pop-up selling pretzels. Wooden Petal is at 4984 Sonoma Hwy. near Middle Rincon Rd. They are open 7am to 1 pm.

Wooden Petal’s pretzel buns make great sandwiches. Turkey or Salami with chive butter, with cheddar is called the You Betcha. The East Coaster is a classic deli sandwich with mayo mustard and cheddar, and the Valencia has fresh mozzarella, pesto and house tapenade.

Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.

Tomorrow, Friday Sept. 27, (as we are live on Thursday Sept. 26) Wooden Petal debuts the Meatball Grinder, which is meatballs, ricotta and parmesan, on a pretzel bun.

Claire and Wooden Petal Bake Shop were featured in the Press Democrat recently, here is the article.

See our sponsor Victory House at Poppy Bank Epicenter online, for their latest viewing and menu options.

Claire suggests ordering ahead online, or by phone. Her original idea was that pretzels would be popular in Beer City. At first, she started by doing pop-ups, and the response was always great because her pretzels always fit into the events where she appears. She is very proud of having a lot of loyal local customers.