food& drink
Rising & Shining While You’re Up Bakery & Bread Co. delivers delectable creations crafted with heartfelt dedication By Leah B erry Photography by J ohn Mi cha el Sim ps on
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“While you’re up, can you get me some bread?” It was a phrase that Oona O’Toole and her husband, Matthew Johnson, often uttered to each other at home. And now, it’s the physical embodiment of a dream come true. Oona’s always loved baking, a passion she developed from her father, Frederick O’Toole – he frequented sourdough baking classes and even built a wood-fired brick oven in the front yard of their home in San Luis Obispo, California, when she was around 8. “I just grew up around a lot of bread-making,” Oona says. “I also liked making weird concoctions in my mom’s KitchenAid mixer and playing around in the kitchen. … That was one of the things that stuck with me through high school. But then I went to school for journalism and forgot about baking. I left it in the rearview window for a little bit.” After college (she attended Santa Barbara City College for two years then transferred with her nowhusband to Columbia College Chicago), Oona moved to Los Angeles, where she worked a desk job. “It was so tedious. … I found myself spending my whole weekend baking and doing things that I like to do,” Oona says. And the hobby came to the forefront even more when she and a coworker took a sourdough bread class at The King’s Roost in LA. “I kind of got obsessed with it,” she says. When Oona got laid off at the start of COVID-19, she took it as a sign to pursue her passions. She filed for a permit to bake in her LA home kitchen in 2020 and founded While You’re Up Bakery & Bread Co. – borrowing the name of the Instagram account Oona 70
chapelhillmagazine.com
September/October 2024
started the previous year where she often posted her sourdough loaves for fun. But soon, she started selling sourdough country loaves, sourdough focaccia and salted chocolate chip cookies. “It was so much fun,” Oona says. The baker and her husband moved to Chapel Hill for work in 2021, buying a house in Southbridge. And with the move, While You’re Up grew, too. Oona started making baguettes for The Cheese Shop on Saturdays, expanding her reach of customers and menu items.