Home baker buys Round River Baking, carries sourdough tradition downtown

The biggest change at Round River Baking was the move from a home kitchen to 250 N. Main St. in downtown Pocatello. The sourdough itself, the ingredient standards and much of the process were deliberately kept intact when Alisha Christopher-Czopek bought the bakery after roughly two years of running a micro-bakery at home with her husband.

The opportunity came together quickly. Christopher-Czopek was already working a full-time job and baking from home when she decided she wanted to devote more time to bread. Her parents were in town, the family started talking through expansion options, and a friend pushed her to look at the bakery space. Once she saw it, the path to a purchase agreement with former owner Matt Stanger moved fast.

That handoff mattered because sourdough businesses run on more than a logo and a lease. Stanger taught Christopher-Czopek most of what he knew and passed along recipes, giving Round River a sense of continuity instead of forcing a reset. For loyal customers, that means the bread leaving the oven is still tied to the same technical knowledge that built the business in the first place.

Christopher-Czopek also kept the ingredient philosophy front and center. Round River says it uses flour from Central Milling in Logan, Utah, and features local and organic ingredients whenever possible. She has pointed to the way the flour behaves in dough, and to how she feels after eating the bread and pastries, as part of the reason those standards matter. In a sourdough market crowded with convenience loaves, that kind of flour discipline is part of the brand.

The bakery’s schedule shows the same small-batch logic. Round River Baking says it is open for live sales of very fresh bread and pastries on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., or until sold out. Christopher-Czopek also adjusted hours to fit downtown traffic patterns, linking the bakery more closely to Revive@5 and the Saturday farmers market.

That local rhythm makes sense in Pocatello, where the Portneuf Valley Farmers Market dates to 1990, has grown to more than 100 vendors, and runs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. from the first Saturday in May through the last Saturday in October. The Pocatello-Chubbuck Chamber of Commerce lists Round River Baking as a bakery and catering business, a sign that the shop is settling into a broader role downtown while still leaning on the small-batch sourdough model that brought customers in the door.