Logo printed kraft bags for Bay Area bakeries.

Bread is the Bay's oldest takeout

San Francisco has been baking sourdough since the Gold Rush, and the habit never left. On any weekday morning there's a line at a neighborhood bakery somewhere in the city, people waiting for the first loaves to come out of the oven.

It's not only sourdough. Panaderías in the Mission, Fruitvale and East San Jose hand you a tray and tongs and let you pick your own conchas, orejas and cuernos. Chinese bakeries in Chinatown and along Clement Street sell pineapple buns and sponge cake by the bagful. Peninsula and South Bay shops send out croissants and morning buns by the dozen before the offices open.

Every one of those customers walks out holding a bag. If you want the whole picture on how our bags work, start with logo printed takeout bags in the Bay Area.

A loaf in a bag is a sign people carry for you

Think about where a bakery bag goes after it leaves your counter. Onto Muni. Into a BART car. Under someone's arm into the office kitchen, where coworkers ask, "Where's that from?" A baguette poking out of the top only makes people look harder.

A plain brown bag wastes all of that. A bag with your name printed across the front turns every customer into a sign that walks through the neighborhood for free.

So print it big. The front of our bag gives you up to 12 × 14 in on the front. Use most of it for the shop name, keep the letters thick, and skip the tiny tagline nobody can read from the sidewalk. The test above shows you how far your name reads before you order.

The best bakery ad in the Bay is a warm loaf in a bag with your name on it, riding the train past a whole car full of people.

Pan dulce trays, pastry boxes and the office order

The hardest bakery order isn't one loaf. It's the Friday office order: two pastry boxes, a dozen conchas, a sliced loaf and a bag of cookies, all going up an elevator together. Or the Sunday family run to a panadería, where the tray gets piled high and everything has to fit.

Our bag is 12″ × 7″ × 14″ with a flat square bottom, so a pastry box sits level instead of tipping into a corner. It carries 22 lb by the paper handles, which is more than a big pan dulce order will ever weigh. The 3.5″ gussets on each side leave room for a loaf to stand up next to the boxes.

If your bakery sits in the Mission, our Mission District page talks about that neighborhood's food scene. For Chinese bakeries, the Chinatown page and our dim sum page cover the steamed and baked side of the counter.

Crust likes paper, and so does your logo

Bakers already know this: a crusty loaf wants to breathe. Kraft paper lets a little moisture out, so the crust you worked hard on stays crisp on the walk home. Give a loaf straight from the oven a few minutes on the rack before it goes in, and it holds its shape better too.

Your logo choice depends on your colors. Our bags come in brown kraft and bright white. Deep reds, oranges, browns and black look warm and rich on brown kraft. Pastel pinks, mint and light blue look better on the bright white bag. Setup is $0 with us, where many printers charge $150+, and you see your logo on the bag before you pay.

Do catering trays or app delivery? Every full box comes with 100 food tamper-evident stickers, 2″ × 6″ each, so the bag shows it was closed at your counter. Want to try before you commit? The low minimum page explains how to start with 50 bags.