Gray-and-white factory buildings line the languid stretch of Corsair Boulevard in Hayward as commuters speed down nearby Interstate 880. The East Bay corridor seems unremarkable with its cookie-cutter factories, but just behind the walls of one building is a family bakery that has sold millions of morning pastries throughout the country.  

It’s a busy day at the Sugar Bowl Bakery plant, where thousands of flaky palmier cookies and dense duet bites, a madeleine-brownie hybrid, shimmy down conveyor belts by the second. The factory hums as the pastries move along an assembly line of mixed batter, baking, cooling, labeling and packaging en route to Costco, Safeway and Bi-Rite Market. After an eight-hour shift, a single conveyor belt line will yield more than 350,000 baked goods.

Sugar Bowl Bakery’s top-selling item happens to be the buttery madeleine cookie, which was added to production around 2008. Mark Ly, regional sales manager at Sugar Bowl Bakery, which has been in his family for two generations, told SFGATE that the Hayward factory can produce 30 million madeleine cookies annually.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

“We also have a much larger plant in Tucker, Georgia, which has two production lines that produce madeleines,” Mark said.

Freshly baked palmiers move on a conveyor belt at Sugar Bowl Bakery in Hayward, Calif., on Dec. 17, 2025.

Employees make sure packages of palmiers are the correct weight at Sugar Bowl Bakery in Hayward, Calif., on Dec. 17, 2025.

Whether you’ve realized it or not, you’ve probably had a pastry from Sugar Bowl Bakery. Baked goods from the Bay Area-born bakery are found at several grocery stores, like Lunardi's and Nugget Markets, and that doesn’t even include the private-label goods it makes. At Safeway, customers will find dense sugar cookies and other sweets by Overjoyed — a co-branded product by Sugar Bowl Bakery. 

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

When you take a bite of a Sugar Bowl palmier or madeleine, it represents much more than a sweet treat — it’s a family legacy. Sugar Bowl Bakery is deeply rooted in local history, having started as a humble doughnut shop in San Francisco’s Richmond District. In 1984, five brothers combined their savings to purchase what began as a piece of the American dream and later blossomed into one of Northern California’s largest family-owned bakeries.

Long before Andrew Ly, the former CEO of Sugar Bowl Bakery, and his four brothers — Tom, Binh, Sam, and Paul — founded the Bay Area company, the Lys were making a living in Vietnam. Mark’s father, Tom, worked at a textile company in Saigon while his uncle Binh worked in a

© SFGate