Former teacher's sourdough bakery prepares to open in Philadelphia

Brass Monkey Bread Co. was moving from a home kitchen to the corner of South 20th Street and Dickinson Street in Point Breeze, and the leap was bigger than a new sign on the door. For Zach Posnan, the first brick-and-mortar shop had grown out of a baking routine that depended on repetition, long fermentation, and enough discipline to turn sourdough from a personal project into a daily production schedule.

Posnan’s bread story started in the January before the pandemic, when he was still figuring out how to bake at all. Once classrooms went online, he kept experimenting from home while working as a 5th- and 6th-grade math and science teacher at Russell Conwell Middle Magnet School in Kensington. Bread became part of his lessons on ratios, and he even brought loaves, plus a toaster, into class so students could share a weekly breakfast. That background matters because Brass Monkey did not arrive as a trend-chasing side hustle. It came out of teaching, practice, and a habit of making bread useful to other people.

The shop’s menu showed how far that home project had come. Brass Monkey planned to center its offerings on homemade sourdough breads, focaccia, bagels, and breakfast-and-lunch sandwiches, with the whole operation built on sourdough rather than commercial yeast. Posnan said each item typically went through a 36- to 48-hour fermentation, with baking soda and baking powder used only where needed. He also said the bakery milled 30% of its flour for its loaves, a detail that pointed to a more ingredient-driven approach and a tighter grip on flavor, texture, and timing than a quick-rise bakery setup would allow.

Before the storefront, Brass Monkey had already been operating through pop-ups, collaborations, and direct-to-consumer sales, and its footprint in South Philly was tied to more than bread sales. Posnan’s fundraising described the bakery as having grown over four years from a tiny home project into part of the neighborhood’s food and mutual aid network. The business had donated to South Philly Community Fridge and Everybody Eats Philadelphia, and its online donation history also included contributions to Russell H. Conwell Middle School and pantry and fridge efforts around Broad and Dickinson and Mifflin Square Park. That community orientation fit a city where the bakery landscape is crowded and getting stronger, with Visit Philadelphia highlighting 30 bakeries across the city and Eater Philly describing the bread scene as on the rise.

For bakers watching the move, Brass Monkey’s opening made the transition legible: a sourdough business can leave the home counter behind without losing its identity, as long as the fermentation, the flour, and the neighborhood all stay part of the recipe.