It’s not your mother’s Wonder Bread baking at Con Pane Rustic Breads & Café inside Liberty Station. An early-morning visit confirms there’s something special in the ovens. The place is humming and there’s a line of customers from the cash register to the door. Added space is the reason Con Pane moved in 2010 from its original building on Rosecrans Street to the Dewey Road site in Liberty Station. Even now, proprietress and head baker Catherine Perez said the 4,000-square-foot bakery and cafe and its 1,000-square-foot patio are packed until mid-afternoon. The attraction is “artisan” breads, sandwiches and dessert goodies. Though increasingly more eateries are touting “artisan” breads, Perez said hers really are. “The definition depends on who you ask,” Perez said. But she points out that her approach is “more natural, away from processing.” Her bakers follow old European methods, with natural starters, long fermentation and hand-shaping. Ingredients include unbleached wheat flour, whole wheat flour, filtered water, olive oil, cracked whole wheat and flax seed, depending on the particular bread. Then, loaves are baked directly on the stone deck of the oven, not in pans. Daily breads include a variety of baguettes for between $1.15 and $2.35. Also on the daily menu are rosemary olive oil; French country; artisan multi-grain; Point Loma sourdough; raisin and hazelnut; ciabatta; Kalamata olives, and garlic, tomato and cream cheese focaccia. Most loaves cost between $3.45 and $4.25. Then there are the weekly bread specials: German rye with caraway seeds (Mondays); cranberry, orange and walnut, as well as pesto and feta focaccia (Tuesdays); gruyere and chive, whole-wheat walnut and gorgonzola, roasted red onion and walnut focaccia (Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays); challah (Fridays), and pane cioccolatta (chocolate bread) on Saturday and Sunday. For holidays, the café offers seasonal specials, like wild rice and onion bread for Thanksgiving and an Italian panettone for Christmas. Perez said she can’t pick a favorite bread, as “it depends which one goes with the meal — like wine depends on what you’re eating.” If the dinner is very robust, she said, you want a simple bread, like a French baguette or ciabatta. “If it’s a simple meal,” she said. “You want a bread that is a little more robust, such as rosemary and olive oil, Kalamata olive or gruyere and chive.” Specialty sandwiches include the turkey cobb, “which put us on the map,” with roasted turkey breast, applewood smoked bacon, fresh avocado, crumbled gorgonzola cheese and house-roasted Roma tomatoes, $4.75 for a half and $7.65 for a whole. For vegetarians, there’s a veggie cobb with Romaine lettuce, Mung bean sprouts, fresh avocado, house-roasted Roma tomatoes, onions and gorgonzola cheese, $4.45 for half and $7.15 for a whole. Bread plates include a choice of three slices with cream cheese, $3.95, and three slices with house-made basil pesto, goat cheese and olive oil, $4.95. Breads are baked fresh daily, starting at 1 a.m. Any leftovers go to either employees or St. Vincent de Paul. For customers with a real sweet tooth, the brioche cinnamon rolls, with and without raisins, are the favorites at $3. Con Pane also makes its own cookies, including butter toffee peanut butter and dark chocolate chunk for $1.75. Rustic scones go for $2.45 and include pear almond (daily), and apricot cornmeal spice (Tuesdays and Fridays). In addition to the retail business, the bakery has started selling wholesale to a small clientele of top restaurants. “It was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to start my own business,” Perez said. She has a degree in finance from San Diego State University and worked in the field for a decade before deciding it was time to pursue her dream. She studied with a French baker in Minneapolis for six months, then brought him to Point Loma to consult on the bakery set-up and recipes. When Perez opened the original space, she began baking at 4 a.m. and didn’t leave until 10 p.m. “I was surprised how much work it was,” said Perez. “I thought (opening a bakery) was like entertaining your friends at home.” Today, Con Pane bakes 365 days a year with a team of bakers. The café is open daily (except Wednesdays) from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Though it’s closed to customers on Wednesdays, employees still bake for the wholesale customers. Perez said she no longer has to do all the work herself. She trains, coaches and manages her staff of 30. Even so, she’s in by 7 or 8 a.m. and stays until 6 p.m. She said her employees are diverse – “like crayons.” In fact, she has a quote she once copied hanging in her office: “Employees are like a box of crayons … Some are sharp and some are dull, some are pretty and some are interesting, some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.” Like the employees, Perez said, her customers are a cross-section of San Diego, including tourists; military personnel; retired fisherman; college students; Sunday churchgoers; “lady walkers, who incorporate a stop at the bakery in their walks,” and yacht owners, who stock up for weekend regattas. Perez said she kept almost 80 percent of her customers when she moved and new ones are coming daily. She greets many of the old-timers by name. Asked when she has time for a social life, Perez asks, “Social life? What social life?” • Con Pane Rustic Breads &?Cafe 2750 Dewey Road, Suite 105, Liberty Station, (619) 224-4344