Praise the Lord and pass the croissants. Dolly Parton may have passed on and gas prices are stratospheric, but there’s one thing Bay Area folks can still count on: The delectable baked goods at Benicia’s One House Bakery.
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Since 2018, the popular family-run shop headed up by baker Hannalee Pervan has offered everything from fresh breads and sweet pastries to sandwiches and house-made soups, all made by hand with flour milled on the premises, more soothing than Zoloft or a shot of Jack (assuming that’s possible).
Pervan, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu who baked for the Bay Area’s storied French Laundry, whips up standards like BLTs and ham sandwiches as well as original concoctions. And when we say original, we mean original.
The bakery’s latest creation, “LeVanVan,” a 7-foot-tall, 300-pound Labubu made of bread in 2025, just made Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, Pervan shared on social media this week. (Labubu is a popular art toy, a collector’s item sporting a somewhat crazed toothy grin and a widespread cult following.)
LeVanVan is just one in a succession of massive bread statues from One House. The bakery went viral in 2022 with a life-size “Pan Solo,” a rendering of “Star Wars” hero Han Solo. It’s a startlingly realistic replica of a moment in the 1980 “Star Wars” movie, “The Empire Strikes Back,” when Harrison Ford gets frozen in the mythic substance carbonite. Even “Star Wars” costar Mark Hamill was impressed, posting about it on X.
Hannalee and her mom, Catherine Pervan, create these monstrosities and set them up on the sidewalk for Benicia’s Downtown Scarecrow Contest, which encourages local businesses to display creative Halloween scarecrows. (Peter Pervan, Hannalee’s dad, is the chief administrative officer and fix-it guy for the bakery and oversaw the venue’s buildout.)
Customers didn’t get a chance to nibble on Labubu or, may the Force be with us, Pan Solo, a somewhat less than appetizing image that seems to fall into the category of headless Easter chocolate bunnies.
“The first time, raccoons got them,” Catherine explained in an interview at the bakery Thursday. “Dogs would come up and take a bite. Now we shellac them.” In keeping with their all-fresh, all-natural practices, once their shelf life, or rather sidewalk life, has passed, “we put them in the compost.”
The family literally built the business from the ground up. Catherine and Peter ran a construction company in Ontario, Canada, for 30 years. They used those skills to build out One House, a former movie theater and then antiques mall, with their daughter in 2018.
Not content with bringing that particular cliché to life, the three of them also raised the roof to create more vertical space for adding rooms above the bakery’s ground floor. Visitors can watch the bustling array of workers doing their magic below from the room.
“When I became a construction worker years ago, I was often the only woman on a jobsite,” Catherine said. “The men would try to send me to get coffee, and I would have to explain to them, ‘I’m a journeyman.’
“We taught our daughters and our sons that women can do anything. Now Hannalee owns this amazing business,” Catherine said with a nod to her daughter as the two chatted with the Times-Herald at the bakery Thursday.
“We employ 65 people and 80 percent of them are women,” Catherine said.
Catherine is the bakery’s head chocolatier, among myriad other duties. In 2025, the year of the Labubu statue, “Mom made maybe 4,000 Labubu chocolates,” Hannalee said as her mother rolled her eyes at the memory.
It was clear that the experience was not one Catherine looks back at fondly.
“My granddaughter came in, and she was so small, she could barely speak. But she could say, ‘Labubu,’” Catherine said.
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Hannalee said, “I told her, ‘Don’t say that to Nana.’”
Catherine and Peter have four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Catherine looks to have married and multiplied at the age of seven or eight, given her youthful appearance.
As the interview progressed near the bakery counter, line after line of customers stretching out the door was quickly processed, an exceptional number of baked goods junkies in attendance, especially given the day and time – around 11 a.m. on a weekday.
“I love the sausage rolls. They’re frickin’ delicious. I’m from Scotland, and this is the closest I can get to home,” said Paula Jones of Benicia, who was at the venue with her daughter Ashley. The rolls are made with breakfast sausage rolled with spiced puff pastry.
“The staff is great,” Ashley said. “They’re really nice, and they never hurry you.”
Customers seemed equally divided between sweet and savory preferences. Lili Lee, who traveled from Oakland with her husband, her son and her son’s dog, the aptly named Macchiato, said her favorite is the veggie scone (seasonal roasted vegetables, white cheddar and chives).
Another customer who gave her name as Ruby A., also a Benicia resident, said she preferred tiramisu. Other goodies include puff pastry wrapped moussaka and sticky toffee pudding. The latter is the bakery’s best-selling offering.
Susan Sachs, a regular at the bakery who lives in Benicia, said, “I’ve been coming since they opened in 2018. This place has put Benicia on the map. We love it.”
Lois Requist said she, too, has been coming since the bakery opened.
“It’s an asset to Benicia,” said Requist, who has lived in the city since 2000. She is the author of the book “Leaving the Faith of our Fathers.”
“Sales at Bookshop Benicia (the independent bookstore nearby on First Street) increased 20 to 30 percent after the bakery opened because of the foot traffic,” Requist said.
Her favorite thing to order is the breakfast sandwich, she said. Requist was sitting with a friend on the back deck, which is presided over by a wide-limbed tree and dappled with shadows from its leaves. Almost every one of the 10 tables was occupied.
The mood on the sunny deck was animated but deeply peaceful, a reflection of the family vibe of the bakery; all three of the owners seem to love working together. The competitive energy that sometimes develops between relatives was nowhere to be found.
Despite having helped build the place, given birth to her daughter in the first place, and recently made 4,000 Labubu chocolates, proud mom Catherine said of her daughter, “She is the head chef and the genius behind it all.” In these parlous times and in the wake of Dolly’s loss, it’s great to have a refuge like One House.
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