Andreii and Alyona Kotsiubynskyi are no strangers to the hospitality business — albeit half a world away from where they live now. Andreii owned a brewery and distillery while Alyona ran restaurants, coffee and patisserie shops back in their hometown of Lviv, a city in western Ukraine near the Poland border.
But when they and their young daughter found themselves experiencing strike alarms and power outages due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, they decided to leave their home country.
A cousin offered to sponsor them in the U.S. and they moved to the Bay Area in 2022.
Since arriving in the U.S., however, they’ve faced a new challenge: starting over in one of the world’s more expensive regions.
“We survived the war, and now we must survive the economic situation here,” Andreii says.
With their background in the food and drink space, they’ve decided to dig into what they know and start a new business, ruling out craft breweries after seeing their dramatic, post-pandemic decline around the Bay Area. Instead, they launched a bakery in October, starting with a stall at the Burlingame Farmers Market, where they’ve been doing market research to see what their customers like best. They produce meticulously-crafted eclairs, macarons and handmade European candies, which are available for pickup from their San Mateo kitchen space.
Details: Find the pop-up stall at the Burlingame Farmers Market from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sundays at 1300 Burlingame Ave., Burlingame, or order online for pickup by arrangement at 1007 Howard Ave., San Mateo; desseebakery.com.