The morning Nabolom announced it was done, customers formed a line out the door by 8 a.m. Pastries were gone by 11. Sales hit roughly three times the usual Friday volume, according to co-owner Sabra Stepak. The loyalty was always there. The economics weren’t. Stepak confirmed the final day of service is Sunday, October 18, 2026, closing for good after 50 years at 2708 Russell Street in Berkeley‘s Elmwood neighborhood.
A Place That Refused to Die – Until Now
From a founding debt crisis to a 2015 shutdown and a full ownership transition, Nabolom survived repeated near-endings before rising costs and exhaustion finally won.
Adele Kohl, Nora Chamberlin, Susan Talpers, and Lynne McMasters founded Nabolom as a worker collective in 1976. By 2004, the bakery carried roughly $30,000 in debt and sat two months behind on rent — customers bought advance pastry certificates to help keep it open. It closed again in 2015 when collective members departed.
Stepak and Julia Elliott became the private owners in 2016, paid off much of the debt, refurbished the space, and built a pizza program around seasonal vegetarian sourdough. Elliott brought experience from Berkeley’s Cheese Board Collective to that menu. The original lineup — fruit danishes, challah, cinnamon twists, cheese danishes, multigrain breads, cookies — stayed on, the kind of Beloved Treats that kept regulars coming back decade after decade.
Key facts about the closure:
- Final day: Sunday, October 18, 2026
- Chocolate costs have tripled; PG&E utility expenses are up approximately 70%, per Stepak
- Closure announcement triggered a Friday sellout — pastries gone by 11 a.m., sales roughly three times normal
- Owners remain open to selling the business to a successor operator
- Instagram account removal preceded a reported 20% drop in sales, according to the owners
More Than Rising Costs
Ingredient prices and exhaustion drove the closure decision — but the owners say political backlash and a lost Instagram account added significant pressure.
Thin pastry margins don’t absorb tripled chocolate costs. They don’t absorb a 70% utility spike, chronic staffing turnover, or intensifying competition. The pressures compound. “We’ve agonized over it and we just can’t do it anymore. We’re exhausted,” Stepak told SFGate.
The owners also described political headwinds — a “Defund the Police” mural, a “Teach Palestine” poster, and what they say was a resulting boycott. They reported a 20% sales decline after their Instagram account was removed. These are the owners’ accounts and have not been independently verified as causes of the closure.
Stepak and Elliott say they remain open to selling Nabolom to an operator willing to keep it running. The bakery has come back before. If you’ve been meaning to make the trip to Russell Street, October 18 is your last guaranteed chance — and for those seeking an active neighborhood bakery in the meantime, Levain Bakery is worth the visit — and, depending on what comes next, possibly not the final chapter.
