New Morning Bakery

Ann and Joel Weinstein walk in and seat themselves in the back corner. Ann holds a folder carrying various newspaper articles, magazines, and pictures that all date back to long before the world wide web. Ann removes a newspaper article and recalls just how much things have changed since becoming owner of New Morning Bakery in downtown Corvallis. 

In 1982 Ann Weinstein took a chance and moved from Portland, Oregon to Corvallis, Oregon. Weinstein had previously worked at Elephant's Delicatessen in Northwest Portland as a back of the house manager. . Now Weinstein looked to build a business of her own. 

“Once you have that experience of doing it for somebody else, it seems possible. Like if you’re down there on the weekends unplugging the toilets and you’re having to show up when people don’t show up,” Ann Weinstein said

Throughout the 1970’s “New Morning Bakery” went through multiple name changes as different owners came and went. In 1979 the owner had finally settled on New Morning Bakery. 

“He settled on New Morning Bakery because it’s the name of a Bob Dylan song…It’s a very terrible Bob Dylan song,” Ann Weinstein jokingly said. “...because they had clientele, we kept the name,” Weinstein added. 

New Morning Bakery, now sits on 219 SW 2nd St, but prior to that the original location sat next door to what is now an extension to Grass Roots Book store. The original location wasn’t even half the size of the current location now. That’s where Ann and Joel Weinstien started to build their own clientele. Ann Weinstein knew that she wasn’t starting from scratch and that the previous owner had built up a clientele, but not even Ann knew how well they would do. 

“We did so well, it was lines out the door…it was crazy because we were in such a tiny space.”  Weinstein said. 

 Weinstein would go on to run the bakery until January of 2012. After over 30 years of owning New Morning Bakery, Weinstein knew it was time for a younger youth to take over. In stepped a familiar face to the business, Tristian James. 

 James moved to Oregon from Texas in June of 2001 right out of high school. For two years James worked as the swiss army knife for New Morning Bakery. From dishwashing to baking, delivering, and maintenance. 

After two years James returned back to Texas to attend business school, but on a visit back to Oregon in 2005, New Morning Bakery recruited James to be their General Manager. 

In 2012 James bought the bakery from the Weinstein family and now found himself the owner of the business had not only worked at for 12 years, but also the place where he met his future wife, Keara James. Today Keara and Tristian now have two kids Althea and Ambrose.