Gemaro Bakery on Main Street thrilled to be back open and providing its loyal customers with gluten-free and allergen-free foods

Gemaro Bakery on Main Street in the Upper Beach is back.

Run by Robert and Margaret Mayer, the bakery’s name reflects the first two letters of the their son Gero’s name, and the first two letters of Margaret’s and Robert’s names.

The couple first opened their gluten and allergen-free bakery on the Danforth in 2016 but then quickly moved to a location on Main Street. They then closed that Main Street location in early 2023 as Robert had to get a hip replacement.

The Danforth store remained but was not open to the public for in-store shopping but operates as centre for wholesale distribution and online orders of baked goods.

Gemaro on Main Street was closed down for 10 months while Robert recovered from his hip surgery. He’s back and doing great now and the bakery has been open a couple of doors south from their original location since this summer.

The bakery is now located in what was the former site of the Fade In Café on the east side of Main Street, south of Gerrard Street East.

Margaret said that after they closed and Robert was well on the way to recovery after his hip replacement, they decided to reopen their bricks and mortar store in the Upper Beach neighbourhood.

“We were getting emails every day asking us and encouraging us to come back,” she said. “We are getting hugs from customers when they come in. They are so happy that we are here for them.”

“We really had no choice to close,” said Robert. “But now I have a replacement (hip) that is titanium and ceramic coated and we are good to go.”

They have been a part of the community since 2007, living just a few streets over from the bakery.

Robert is originally from Austria and Margaret is originally from Singapore. They met in Switzerland when Robert was there as a chef for Four Seasons Hotels and Margaret was a student studying Hotel Management.

They made the move to Canada after Robert was “head-hunted” and he was the chef at the Movenpick Marche downtown for a number of years.

While working internationally as a chef with Four Seasons, he became very aware of all the food allergies and sensitivities that customers had to deal with.

When working for the hotel, and especially when it was hosting large events such as weddings or celebrations, he noted that there were many food allergies the chefs had to be aware of.

“The food allergies and sensitivities were overwhelming in a sense,” said Robert.

“It was becoming very difficult. You’d be doing a party for 600 people and there’d be a list two pages long of modifications” due to allergies, gluten or dairy intolerances and other digestive concerns.

“I thought we should open a business that factored in for all these sensitivities and eliminated the top eight allergens from the food we were making,” he said.

Those top eight ingredients that make food intolerable for some people are gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, sesame, peanuts, tree nuts and shell fish.

So he and Margaret decided, why don’t we just make food without those ingredients.

And they prepared it so that it tasted good, and the bread, pastries and other baked goods that the Gemaro made “flew off the shelves.”

“The neighbours were so excited to have us when we opened,” said Margaret. “The bread really was flying off the shelves.”

When it come to ingredients, Gemaro’s mantra is “If you can’t read it, you can’t eat it.”

And that’s the issue with a lot of large-scale commercial bakeries and the items they use to make their products, pointed out Margaret.

“These chemicals are not good for your body,” she said.

“A lot of people are just oblivious and desensitized to it, and when you were growing up you had no choice,” said Robert. “There were also very limited options back then. There are more choices now but too many companies don’t pay attention to what people need.”

As mentioned, the bread at Gemaro’s is extremely popular with the bakery’s customers.

“I drilled down into this and what do people want. Bread is a huge thing and if you can’t have it, you really miss it,” said Robert.

So making tasty bread became one of Gemaro’s key goals.

“I found out how to make a really good loaf that people enjoy eating,” said Robert. “People love our bread.”

He said there are 11 to 12 ingredients in most commercially made gluten-free bread, but his bread has only four.

But the ingredients are only one part of the equation. How does it does it taste is critical, said Robert. If a gluten-free bread tastes like cardboard, no one will want to eat it.

“Does it taste good? That was the key for us,” said Robert.

“The thing about bread is it has to be good. It has to have a good texture, good taste and good mouth-feel. If it does not have that, then why bother,” said Robert.

And they don’t make just one loaf, they make a different one for every day of the week so their customers have choice. They have expanded from bread loaves to also make bagels, waffles and a variety of other baked goods.

“Our older customers are so happy that they can have a real loaf of bread again,” said Robert.

Gemaro’s has customers who do not have allergies or food sensitivities but buy the bread because of its “clean” ingredients and that it’s the bread that “everyone in the house can eat.”

Margaret pointed out Gemaro’s ships its products to customers as far away as Hamilton and Ottawa.

“It’s important to us that our customers can get what they need from our bakery,” she said.

The customers have also returned that level of care and loyalty back to Gemaro’s.

“We already had so many loyal customers, so when we came back were not starting from zero,” said Robert.

He said the loyalty and need of the customers was one of the deciding factors in reopening the bakery.

Robert said they love the location in old Fade In site as it is a bit bigger than the former Main Street store and gives them a larger front area for customers to come in see the displays of the food.

The neighbourhood is great and Robert and Margaret said the food and beverage businesses along Main Street and around the corner on Gerrard Street East are supportive of each other and there’s a good vibe going on.

“We don’t view the other places as our competition as we are different from them,” he said.

The businesses also work to help each other out as people can buy something at one of the other options along the street and then join their friends buying gluten-free or allergy-free foods at Gemaro.

Anima Romana Italian Bakery, which is two doors north on the same side of Main Street, will refer customers looking for gluten-free to Gemaro and Gemaro refers those seeking sourdough to Amina Romana.

“Everybody can have something nice together and we give and get referrals. We help each other,” said Margaret.

The co-operative attitude of the local businesses, and the support of loyal customers, is why Robert and Margaret are so happy to have re-opened Gemaro on Main Street.

“We love the neighbourhood, said Margaret.

And with Thanksgiving fast approaching, Gemaro Bakery has a wide variety of baked goods including pies that can be ordered in advance for the holiday long weekend.

For more information, and to order in advance, please go to https://gemarobakery.com/