Seven-Year Sourdough Starter Finds a Home at Levant Bakery

Abeer Jari’s sourdough starter has outlived international moves, family milestones and even an ocean crossing, and now it is set to anchor a bakery of its own in Mission. After more than seven years of being fed, carried and protected, the starter will help define Levant Bakery when it opens in Mission West at 6518 Martway St. with a mid-July launch planned.

Jari will run the bakery with her sister, Areej Jari, and the business is being built around Middle Eastern flavors, oven-centric baking and recipes shaped by years of travel and experimentation. Jari said she began baking in elementary school, with some of her earliest memories coming from sneaking into the kitchen as a fourth grader while her mother napped so she could bake cakes and clean up before getting caught.

That early discipline has turned into a more ambitious storefront concept. Levant Bakery is expected to open early in the morning and serve through mid-afternoon, roughly from 6 or 7 a.m. until 3 p.m., giving the shop a place in the daily rhythm of Mission West. The menu is expected to include breads and pastries tied to broader regional traditions, including items connected to kolaches and fatayer-style pastries, along with loaves built on the mature starter that has followed Jari through years of change.

The bakery is moving into a center that already has momentum behind it. Block & Co. Inc. Realtors said on April 16 that Mission West Shopping Center had reached full occupancy, with Levant Bakery among the recent tenants. The retail center sits at 6500-6620 Martway Street in Mission, and the city’s current projects show the wider Martway redevelopment includes a 264-stall parking garage, an 82-stall surface lot and seven on-street stalls for retail use.

Mission itself, incorporated in 1951, sits in a county that continues to grow and diversify. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates Johnson County’s population at 636,906 as of July 1, 2025, with 9.8% of residents identifying as Hispanic or Latino and 9.2% born outside the United States. Johnson County also recorded $2.08 billion in accommodation and food services sales in 2022, a sign of the market Levant Bakery is entering.

That matters for sourdough, too. KCToday reported in April 2025 that sourdough had surged in popularity in Kansas City, and Jari’s starter gives that trend a deeply personal twist. In Levant Bakery, the culture carried in one jar of flour and water is becoming the foundation for a neighborhood bakery with memory built into every loaf.