City officials, the chamber of commerce and hundreds of community members attended the grand opening of Abby's Millstone Baking Company on Sunday.
Councilmembers Harry Schwarz, William Koehler and Illece Buckley Weber assisted the bakery's Abby Franke in cutting the white ribbon, and Lisa Oliver, local ambassador for the Greater Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce, presented Franke with an official proclamation.
According to Franke, over 600 people celebrated the new business as they sampled cookies, macaroons and sour dough soup bowls.
Denise Burns came in from Thousand Oaks. "We heard about the bread. Everything is wonderful and so is the bread," she said.
Carol and Darryl Lieberstein from Calabasas are long-time customers of Abby's. "We're here because we used to come to the Stoneground Bakery and missed it desperately," said Carol. "The honey bran muffins are the best."
The challah-eating contest challenged five young men to eat the fresh baked bread in the fastest time. The winner was Kevin Sloane from Westlake Village.
When asked why he competed, Sloane said it was because of the grand prize: free challah and baked goods deliveries for a year.
"I had to keep that in the back of my mind," he said, feeling a bit woozy from the carb overload.
In a newsletter which went out to subscribers Sunday evening, Franke wrote:
"When we closed our doors today, at about 4 pm, we had nearly no more baked goodies in our store..."
Abby's Millstone Baking Company is located at 5005 Kanan Road.
