From left to right, Zane Darbonne, 12, Ben Steele, 9, and Mel Steele smile for a photo at her microbakery in the Mendenhall Valley on Friday, July 24, 2026. (Photo by Clarise Larson/KTOO)
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A Juneau mom turned her passion for baking sourdough goods into a small business this summer, and it’s quickly risen in popularity.
Each weekend, dozens of people line up to try her goods at her small microbakery stand at the end of her driveway in the Mendenhall Valley.
Mel Steele pulled a wagon down her driveway on Friday afternoon. It was packed full of sourdough loaves and bagels she freshly baked earlier in the week. At the end of her driveway on East Valley Court in the Mendenhall Valley is a wooden stand painted white and teal. She stocks it with the bread just before 3 p.m. And if you blink, you might miss them. Steele said the entire stand can run out in less than an hour after stocking it.
“I think like everybody wanted to see what the buzz was about. Like, ‘What is this bake stand?’ Like, you can like go to a stand and it’s actually in our town,” she said.
Steele opened her micro-sourdough bakery stand, Rise of the Kraken, in June, and it’s quickly become a hit in town. In the same vein as farm stands, micro bakeries have grown in popularity on social media across the Lower 48 and Alaska. But instead of buying corn, peaches, or pumpkins, people can grab freshly baked goods like bagels, bread, or cookies.
“The community has been very supportive,” she said. “I have specific customers that come every single time. They know it. They’re on it.”
Like clockwork, Gabby Ely pulls up to the driveway and quickly steps out of her car to secure a $10 loaf and a $15 bag of bagels — her favorite.
Loaves of sourdough bread sit ready for customers at Rise of the Kraken microbakery in the Mendenhall Valley on Friday, July 24, 2026. (Photo by Clarise Larson/KTOO)
“They’re really good to make into homemade bagel chips because they’re so fresh,” Ely said. “You can cut them and then you can like toast them yourself to the perfect toast.”
Ely is a longtime friend of Steele’s, and said she was excited to hear Steele was finally opening the stand after years of people pleading for her to share her baking skills with the community.
“Before she got the stand up and running, I was messaging her and buying them off her beforehand,” Ely said.
Born and raised in Juneau, Steele said she wasn’t always a baker — though her mom was always trying to get her into it growing up. It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that she discovered her love for sourdough. She said despite using just three simple ingredients — water, organic flour and salt — creating the perfect sourdough is no simple task.
“It’s kind of like having another baby,” she said. “You really have to care for it and nurture it and feed it and if you’re not, when you go to make that loaf it’s gonna be flat as a pancake. It’s not going to work.”
Alongside her baked goods, Steele’s also stocks her stand with local art and pickled goods from other small businesses in town. She hopes her stand inspires others in town to get creative.
“I just think Juneau needs to have those things come here. Like we don’t need to wait 10 years for us to catch up to the rest of the time,” she said. “To be able to bring things that we haven’t had here to share with the locals, it’s just really fun.”
Steele is a mom of three and works full time at the school district, so she said she’s still figuring out the best way to run her new small business without getting too overwhelmed. As summer quickly comes to a close, she plans to continue stocking the stand for a few more weeks until school starts again.
“Once school starts again, I’m gonna have like pre-orders like Cinnamon Roll Saturdays,” she said. “I’ll still have the stand open, but like on a pre-order basis.”
But for now, her baked goods are available starting on Fridays at 3 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 a.m.
