Nama’s Kitchen brings sourdough and wine bar to Hughson

Jamie Ellak is taking Nama’s Kitchen from porch pickup and market tables into a downtown café and wine bar at 6943 Hughson Avenue, a move that turns a home sourdough brand into a small business built for everyday foot traffic. The project keeps Ellak rooted in Hughson, where she has lived since 2004 and, by her own decision, would not open anywhere else.

The name behind the business comes from family. Ellak first created Angelic Wines LLC in 2022, then adopted the Nama’s Kitchen name for the home business after her 3-year-old grandson Kade started calling her “Nama.” Her website describes the brand as a place to enjoy homemade sourdough without preservatives or additives, and it lists a home-kitchen permit ID of CFO B-383. The site’s contact page shows the business was still active in 2026, thanking customers for support in 2025 and listing fresh baked sourdough, more baked goods, gourmet popcorn, wines and gifts.

The new café is intentionally tiny, at less than 400 square feet, so Ellak planned to keep much of the baking in her approved home kitchen. That is the cottage food model she has already been working under, and California’s rules allow certain non-potentially hazardous foods to be prepared and packaged in a private home kitchen. Class B cottage food operations are locally permitted and can make indirect sales as well as direct sales, which gives Ellak room to keep serving the breads that built her following while shifting the customer experience into a storefront.

At the café itself, Ellak planned to use a ventless convection speed oven for items made on-site and keep the menu small, with breakfast and signature sandwiches served in a space with seating for about 16 to 22 people. The Bee reported the café would be ADA compliant, and Ellak said she would not make items that other Hughson restaurants already serve. That meant passing on things like flatbreads if another nearby kitchen already had them, a choice that makes the menu feel less like duplication and more like a deliberate fit for town.

Hughson’s restaurant scene is not large, with Tripadvisor listing 14 restaurants in town, so a sourdough café that can open in the morning and reopen later as a wine bar could stand out fast. For Ellak, the gamble is clear: keep the baking small, keep the menu focused, and turn a home brand into a place where neighbors can drop in for bread, breakfast or a glass of wine without losing the local feel that made Nama’s Kitchen work in the first place.