In Freeport Bakery's early days, Marlene Goetzeler walked samples out to drivers stopped at the nearby railroad crossing while they waited for the freight train to pass. That's how the Sacramento Bee retold the story she shared on the bakery's 30th anniversary. She was building a customer base one stalled car at a time on Freeport Boulevard, for a bakery she and her husband Walter did not found.
They bought it. When Abridged by PBS KVIE reported in August that the Goetzelers were selling to Lisa Calk, the owner of Ettore's Bakery & Café, it corrected its story the next day to say the couple bought Freeport in 1987. They hadn't founded it. That correction explains the sale now underway at 2966 Freeport Blvd. Freeport Bakery is changing hands for at least the second time, and both times the new owner agreed to keep what was already there.
The bakery the Goetzelers walked into
Abridged reported that Marlene was working at a San Diego bookstore when she met Walter, who grew up working in his family's Bavarian bakery in Germany. The two moved north hoping to open a bakery somewhere less expensive. Instead of building one from scratch, they bought a small cake bakery that was already running.
According to the bakery's own history page, the shop came with seven employees. The Bee's 2017 anniversary piece reported that the couple kept the name the previous owners had given it. Over almost four decades, Abridged wrote, they made Freeport a first choice for birthday parties, office celebrations and weddings, known for everything from fresh fruit tarts to chocolate-dipped shortbread.
The Freeport Bakery name on the building today is the same one the shop carried before 1987.
The same terms, 39 years later
The Goetzelers planned to retire on Sept. 7, and Marlene told Abridged they began working out the sale with Calk in June. The Sacramento Business Journal later reported that the whole deal took about nine months and that the sale price was not disclosed. Here are the two handoffs side by side:
| 1987 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Buyers | Walter and Marlene Goetzeler | Lisa Calk, running it with her daughter Veronica |
| Coming from | A move from San Diego | Ettore's Bakery & Café on Fair Oaks Boulevard |
| Name | Kept the name the previous owners gave it | "It's going to stay Freeport" |
| Staff | Kept the seven employees already there | Same staff, according to Calk |
| Recipes | Built over the following decades | Same recipes, according to Calk |
Calk told the Business Journal she will keep the same staff, the same recipes and the same atmosphere, and that she is not turning Freeport into an Ettore's location. She told Abridged the two bakeries will stay separate, each keeping its own recipes.
"We plan to run it as Freeport and cultivate the community that they did as they pass the baton on." Lisa Calk to Abridged by PBS KVIE
The Goetzelers also said goodbye in public. In a Sept. 8 Facebook post quoted by the Business Journal, they wrote that they had "almost 40 years of wonderful memories" and asked customers to "welcome and support the new owner, Lisa."
The buyer was already a regular
The sale went to someone who was a familiar face long before she owned the place. Abridged reported that Calk and her daughter Veronica, Ettore's general manager, had been Freeport customers for years. The two bakeries had also been helping each other out of jams for a long time.
"Our bakeries may seem like they compete but behind the scenes, we borrow flour, he borrows nuts," Calk told the Business Journal. "He's my first call when my equipment breaks." The same report says Walter was the one who first floated the idea, during one of their conversations about running a business. A few weeks later, Calk checked whether the couple meant it.
Calk has done this before. The Business Journal reported that she started at Ettore's in 2009 as a wedding-cake coordinator, worked in whatever role was needed, and bought the business with her husband, Armando Vaca, in 2018. Vaca is now Ettore's executive chef. Ettore Ravazzolo founded that bakery in 1985 along the stretch of Fair Oaks Boulevard known as the "Gourmet Gulch." Calk told the Business Journal she still meets him for coffee at least once a month. Freeport is the second long-running bakery she has taken over from its longtime owner.
Walter told the Business Journal what made him comfortable with the choice: "I knew (Calk) is going to value my employees. And she said 'you can walk in and out of this place like you own it.'" He and Marlene plan to stay in Land Park.
What's different at the counter
So far, the hours are the change regulars will notice. The Business Journal reported that longer hours were the only change Calk and her daughter had made since taking over. In August, the Bee listed the bakery as open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Here's what the bakery's hours page shows now:
- Tuesday through Saturday: 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., so an hour earlier in the morning and two and a half hours later in the afternoon
- Sunday: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Monday: closed
- Payment: contactless only, meaning credit, debit, Apple Pay or a Freeport Bakery gift card. No cash.
The later weekday closing makes room for an after-work stop, which the old 3 p.m. close didn't allow. The case still holds what the bakery's site describes as its daily selection of cakes, cupcakes, cookies, sweet and savory pastries, and seasonal specials, plus espresso, drip coffee, iced coffees, teas and lemonade. Calk told Abridged she is considering adding soups, salads and sandwiches but otherwise plans to keep the bakery as it is. As of Abridged's Sept. 1 newsletter, salads and sandwiches were the only additions under discussion. The bakery's current pages don't list them yet.
The first holiday season under Calk
Abridged called the holidays the bakery's busiest season, and that's when Walter plans to come back and help. He told the Business Journal that he and Marlene will always be one call away. So the couple who ran Freeport for almost four decades will still be close at hand for the first holiday season under its new owner.
Freeport's hours page and its Thanksgiving ordering page list this schedule:
- Nov. 20, 3 p.m.: the listed cutoff for online preorders
- Tuesday, Nov. 24: pickup and in-store shopping, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
- Wednesday, Nov. 25: pickup and in-store shopping, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Thursday and Friday, Nov. 26 and 27: closed
The ordering page doesn't print a year, and it currently shows both an open preorder window and a note that preorders have ended. Call the bakery or check its site before planning around that Nov. 20 cutoff. The page also says the bakery will bake plenty of holiday items for walk-in customers who didn't preorder. The listed Thanksgiving menu includes apple, peach berry, mixed berry, pecan, pumpkin and Dutch apple pies, along with seasonal cakes such as an acorn cake, an autumn caramel chocolate cake, a ginger harvest cake and a pumpkin cheesecake. The ordering page doesn't show a Christmas menu yet.
If you're thinking about the history of a place you love on Freeport Boulevard, or about what changes and what stays when a home on a familiar Land Park street changes hands, Pierre is happy to talk it through. Caviard Realty Associates follows these neighborhood stories because they're part of how Land Park keeps its character from one owner to the next. Work with Pierre: request a neighborhood consultation.
