The High Price of Handcrafted Baklava in Silicon Valley

Karabulut invested $300,000 to launch his bakery in 2022, betting that a single-product model focusing on imported Turkish pistachios would find a home in a skeptical market. He oversees a seven-person team, but the labor-intensive nature of his craft keeps expenses high. To support his staff, he prepares daily communal lunches, often stretching the budget with bulk purchases from Costco. Despite the popularity of his product, his personal take-home pay hovered around $40,000 last year, forcing him to live in a shared, rent-controlled apartment in Nob Hill.

While the city experiences an influx of capital from the artificial intelligence sector—where six-figure salaries are common—Karabulut finds himself priced out of the housing market he once hoped to navigate solo. He spends his days in a cycle of constant baking, pushing batches out every 20 minutes to ensure freshness until the 6 p.m. closing time. The financial exhaustion is tempered only by the immediate feedback of his customers, whose enthusiasm for his specific technique for consuming baklava keeps him committed to the labor-intensive dream he brought from Turkey.