As huge lines form in front of shiny new Korean bakeries around the Bay Area in recent years, a low-key Korean grocery store in Daly City quietly opened a new bakery after more than 35 years in business.
Kukje Bakery opened at 2368 Junipero Serra Blvd. in Daly City this week, across the street from Kukje Supermarket. Owner Haesoo Park, who founded the original Kukje in San Francisco in 1990 before moving it to Daly City in 2002, has wanted to open a bakery for many years, his niece and the company’s social media manager, Annie Kim, previously told the Chronicle.
Kukje Supermarket didn’t have enough room to make its own baked goods and previously sold pastries from a San Jose bakery. With the new Daly City café, it joins a wave of new bakeries specializing in Korean or Korean-inspired baked goods, such as those that specialize in salt bread — the buttery, crispy rolls that got their start in Japan but grew into a social media frenzy in Korea and, more recently, in the Bay Area…