Daves' Bakery

3:30 AM

The lights go on before the town wakes up.

Every baking day starts around 3:30 in the morning, so that everything in the racks at nine is as fresh as it gets. That has been the routine since David Placek and Dave Williams took over the bakery in 2013.

Thirty years of a Willow Point bakery.

There has been a bakery on this corner for more than thirty years. The two Daves, as Campbell River has come to know them, have run it since 2013, and kept it what it always was: a small, busy shop where the chalkboard is the menu of record.

David came to baking after a long first career as a pharmacist. The precision carried over. Every loaf on the bread page lists exactly what goes into it, and the sourdoughs run with no dairy and no yeast.

The chalkboard menus and bread racks behind the Daves' Bakery counter

The Czech shelf is the giveaway.

David is Czech, and the bakery says so without a word of it on a sign. Rohlík on Thursdays. A fully spiced Czech rye on Tuesdays. Vénečky, koblihy and poppy seed strudel in the case, next to the Nanaimo bars.

A visiting countryman once wrote that the greeting from behind the counter was 'Dobrý den', and that the vénečky sent him straight back to his childhood. That article still hangs on the bakery's press page.

Poppy seed strudel dusted with icing sugar in the bakery case

A small crew, named on the door.

Behind the counter with the Daves: Alysha, Anna, Autumn, Brenna, Diane, Gabby, Lucy, MJ and Mya. Lunches go out to office buildings, bread goes out to other local businesses, and the line moves fast.

David and Dave in their aprons, holding a stand of soft pretzels and a fresh loaf

The neighbours

Collaboration over competition.

In 2017 the City of Campbell River wrote up the supply loop these businesses built together. It still describes how the bakery works: everything moves in a circle, and everyone is better for it.

  • Daves' Bakery Beach Fire Brewing

    pretzels & sandwich bread

  • Beach Fire Brewing Daves' Bakery

    brewer's yeast for the beer bread

  • Daves' Bakery The Island Grind

    baked treats & bread

  • The Island Grind Daves' Bakery

    coffee for the housemade tiramisu

  • Stonehouse Teas Daves' Bakery

    the tea shelf, hot & iced

  • Flurer Smokery Daves' Bakery

    locally smoked wild sockeye

“Dave W. loves beer, so a collaboration with Beach Fire Brewing was natural. It's a small town, they are young owners; it was very natural.”
Dave Placek, in the City's 2017 feature

Source: City of Campbell River Economic Development, In the Spotlight, August 2017.

On the record

The press shelf.

City of Campbell River Economic Development · August 2017

The Value of a Local Supply Chain

The supply-loop feature: thirty years of the bakery, the 3:30am starts, and the collaboration with Beach Fire, The Island Grind and Stonehouse.

Read it

Martin Jurek, Campbell River Hearing Clinic · September 2014

Why we wish our clinic was more like a bakery

“Put David and Dave together in their bakery and the aromas alone are far too irresistible for a mere mortal such as myself.”

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Compass Magazine, Issue 31 · February 2021

Love In Every Bite

The Flurer Smokery feature naming Daves' Bakery among the smokery's Campbell River stockists.

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TripAdvisor · 2016 & 2017

TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence

Including #1 of 134 places to eat in Campbell River, 2017. Today: 4.7 of 5 across 288 reviews, #1 of 5 bakeries.

Read it

Come see it at nine sharp.

Hours, the map, parking and every way to order ahead.

Visit the bakery