At Cinnaholic, we’re extremely grateful to each of you who support us, come in to the store, write about us and tell your friends about us. A special ‘Thank You’ goes out to The Oakland Tribune who recently referred to our cinnamon rolls as “the culinary holy grail”. You can read the online version of the whole article here.

Punkrock Icons and Hollywood Stars

Not only were we busy working hard, we played hard too! We were fortunate enough to cater to the boys from Pennywise, Guttermouth and Civil War Rust while they were in town. To quote Sean from Civil War Rust, we had “the sweetest buns at the show!” Haha. You know it!

We are also honored to have been featured as an exclusive celebrity gift at the star-studded ceremony for the 26^th Annual Genesis Awards of The Humane Society of the United States. Oooow!!!

Let’s celebrate Spring together!

If you’re celebrating Easter, Passover or simply the fact that Spring is here, let Cinnaholic be a part of it!

This Sunday, from 10 AM until 3 PM, we’ll be baking up delicious treats so that you can be the awesome family member everyone loves when you show up with a piping hot box. We recommend calling in orders of 6 or more in advance to avoid long waits. Unless, of course, you like hanging out with us.

Need another reason to come into the store?

We’ll be stuffing our faces behind the counter with cruelty-free confections made by Obsessive Confection Disorder. Melodi’s caramels are the shiz! She sent us a big sample box consisting of lollipops, various flavored chewy caramels and crunchy chocolate covered toffee-like bits that lasted all of two days. The balsamic caramel with heirloom tomato salt… Rocked. My. World. Lucky for you, Melodi hooked us up with a basket full of goodies to share! You can find them for sale, exclusively in the shop, ONLY ON SUNDAY! Get em’ while you can!

Hey, remember the recent blog post about the rescued chickens? Sadly, Easter is the worst time of year for these beautiful animals. Often times baby chicks are given as gifts or treated as egg laying machines so that we can uphold silly traditions like dying their eggs and hunting for them in our backyards. “But I like silly traditions!” you say? Then check out this awesome alternative for your next egg hunt! Reuasable, biodegrabable and cruelty-free! Another great idea is instead of buying baby chicks as gifts, try sponsoring a chick or adopt from one of our favorite animal rescue places! Everybody wins!

As always, thanks to each and every one of you who leaves us positive Yelp reviews, follows us on Facebook and Twitter or simply stops by to say hi. We hope we make your days as sweet as you make ours. Thank you for choosing compassion!

Happy Spring-Easter-Passover!

After tense negotiations and media pressure, the hens were released into custody of the rescue organizations. Over the course of the next two days, volunteers flocked from all cities and joined forces to help evacuate as many of the hens as possible. By the end of the day, 3,610 hens were saved and on their way to sanctuaries and other rescue agencies. 250 went to Animal Place’s Grass Valley sanctuary and more than 3,000 to their Vacaville adoption center. Roughly, 400 went to Farm Sanctuary and Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary took on the responsibility of 15 hens who were left to suffocate in the manure pit beneath the farm. As of today, there are still 3,315 hens alive and recovering at the Grass Valley and Vacaville sanctuaries and 370 at Farm Sanctuary. Volunteers and staff are working around the clock to care for the animals.

Unfortunately, the happy ending doesn’t end there. In order to provide adequate, on-going care to get these beautiful birds back to being healthy, a lot more work is required. Animal Place is in desperate need of volunteers over the next few months to help out with physical labor tasks in order to provide a safe, clean environment for the hens. If you don’t live close enough to lend a hand on the farm, financial requirements also need to be met for the massive amount of daily food that needs to be replenished as well as other medical and miscellaneous expenses. ANY and ALL donations are much appreciated. Cinnaholic will be donating $500 (and cinnamon rolls of course!) to Animal Place as well as volunteering on the farm. We’d love to see you there! For more information on volunteering or donating, click here.

Other ways you can help:

Dropping off or mailing a donation to our storefront for Animal Place. We’re located at 2132 Oxford Street Berkeley, CA 94704.

Supporting companies such as Food Fight! Grocery, Herbivore Clothing and our friends from Purrfect Pineapples who will be donating 10-20% of this weekend’s sales.

That’s why Cinnaholic is 100% vegan!

All of this unnecessary cruelty was caused for one reason. Profit for the egg industry. These hens had never seen the sunlight or felt the dirt under their feet. They lived in unspeakable conditions and suffered their entire lives. They were robbed of everything that comes naturally to them. No living being should be denied the right to live a healthy, normal life. No being deserves to be a slave of any kind, for any reason. That is why Cinnaholic has never, and will never use eggs in any of our products.

If you’ve already adopted a vegan diet, that’s great! If not, we strongly encourage you to eliminate eggs from your diet and to educate yourselves about the industry and it’s cruel practices. The picture of a happy chicken on the box of eggs you buy every week is anything but happy. To learn more about the egg industry, click here.

A HUGE thank you to all the selfless, dedicated, compassionate people who have stepped forward to provide care for these beautiful creatures over the last week. Each of you has made a difference. “To the world you may be one being, but to one being, you may be the world”.

Cinnaholic is looking for a highly motivated staff member who can do it all! Must have excellent customer service skills and knowledge regarding the vegan lifestyle.

This is a part-time weekend position.

 Approximately 12-16 hours / week

Detailed description of duties:

• Baking: Prepares dough by measuring and mixing ingredients, prepares dough & assembles finished product with prepared frostings and toppings. Packages baked goods to ensure freshness.
• Prep Work: Prepares topping and frosting ingredients for quick serve. Refills products as needed.
• Inventory Control: Receives, signs for, and stocks product orders from suppliers. Maintains and replenishes quantity of inventory.
• Counter Help: Greets customers, serves customers, knowledge of POS system, handles all sales transactions, submits daily reports and balances.
• Miscellaneous duties: Maintains cleanliness and operation restaurant equipment. Cleans, disinfects, and stores dishes and utensils properly according to health requirements. Prepares proper boxes and packaging for product consumption and sales. Maintains safety of establishment through awareness of hazardous situations such as wet floors, oven temperatures and basic security routines.  Maintains cleanliness of store as needed including mopping, sanitizing, routine dusting, waste management and general cleaning.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Friendly, team player, focused, dependable, thorough, works well under pressure & reliable.
• Must be customer service oriented, have knowledge of basic food sanitation and safety management.
• Needs ability to multi-task, verbal communication skills; basic mathematic skills; written communication.
• Must have ability to lift 50 lbs.

Interested in working for us? Please click here to apply!

When we first arrived to meet Frederick and Douglass, you could tell something was amiss. We sat and listened to the heart breaking stories of their former lives. Many of the dogs had gone directly from a commercial breeder to the lab. They had never felt a blade of grass under their feet or felt the warmth of the sun on their skin. They lived in cages with steel wire floors that penetrated their tender paws and they had learned to become fearful of people from a lifetime in confinement and being restrained. Some had been surgically de-barked by the breeder and all of them had horrifying ID numbers tattooed in their ears as if they were property instead of living, breathing, beings.

Sitting on the grass just a few feet away, looking into those deep brown eyes, I tried to imagine the agony these creatures had endured. I watched as they hesitantly circled us, hiding behind bushes and trees, poking their timid little noses out every so often to assess the situation. As my sadness and frustration passed, I began to feel a sense of relief and joy for them. Knowing that there were people out there who cared about these animals enough to devote their time, money, patience, and effort to rehabilitating them brought a sort of comfort to my heart.

Gradually, they seemed to inch their way toward us as the time passed. By the hours end, curiosity seemed to have gotten the best of Frederick and Douglass and we’d all become friends.

When we think of Valentines day, we usually relate it to romance, material goods, love letters, things of that sort. Rarely, do we find ourselves celebrating true, genuine, selfless love. Inspired by Frederick and Douglass’ story, we couldn’t help but feel insane amounts of love and gratitude for them and the people who had come to their rescue. This year, in their honor and in the spirt of love, we have decided to donate $5 for every online order purchased now through February 9th to the Beagle Freedom Project .

Instead of giving the normal overly processed candies, or flowers and diamonds laced with cruelty, we encourage you to send your sweetie a box of delicious, handmade cinnamon rolls packaged with the utmost TLC from our little bakery. Our first 50 orders will include a beautiful, customizable, letter pressed card made locally by the ever-so-talented illustrator, Rigel Stuhmiller. Her work has been featured in Sunset Magazine, BARK magazine, Wired.com, Salon.com, Daily Candy, The Today Show, Apartment Therapy, Town and Country, and mentioned on NPR. We’ve also ordered some pretty darn cute tissue paper to top it off!

You’re probably thinking this story can’t get any more loveable, right? Well, you’re wrong.

When we contacted Rigel about ordering these adorable cards, she told us that the beagle who was featured, was actually a lab rescue also! She and her sister Maxine, were adopted by a loving couple and now reside in Emeryville, CA. It’s been reported that their progress since their rescue has been phenomenal.

Oh, and as for Frederick and Douglass? It turned out that in the end, their foster situation happily became their permanent home.

XOXO Happy Valentines Day! XOXO

Ok, ok, enough strolling down memory lane. Let’s get to the good stuff. Christmas is really about giving, right?! This year we’re giving away a spankin’ new dvd copy of Bold Native AND a $10 gift certificate to one lucky winner! All you have to do is comment on this blog post and tell us what your favorite winter cinnamon roll combination is. Eggnog frosting with marshmallows perhaps? Best sounding roll, wins! (#gimmiegimmiegimmie)

2011 has been an amazing year. We’re looking forward to making many more memories in 2012. Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We wish you an incredible New Year.

From our kitchen to yours,

Happy Holidays from the Cinnaholic staff

Picture: VegNews Magazine

With that said, we’ve taken a look back on all of our progress over the last year as well as some areas that need to be improved upon. As of November 1st, we will be adjusting some of our prices to match the costs of what we pay our vendors. Some companies raise their prices without telling you, but we’re not shady like that. We felt it was right to put everything out in the open. Here’s why…

First, we believe that a happy employee makes a happy customer. We know that surviving on minimum wage is nearly impossible these days which is why we make it a point to pay our employees a fair, liveable wage. We consider our employees family and not only do we care about what’s best for the company, but what’s best for our employees as well.

Second, we make sure that all of our vendors use vegan ingredients which unfortunately aren’t as easily available (or affordable) as non-vegan ingredients. Often times, we end up driving for hours to pick up these ingredients to assure that our product meets certain standards. Since our purchasing options are limited to such a small amount of vendors, we have no choice but to pay up when they increase their prices. Sadly, this has been the case with more than one vendor over the last year. We’ve done our best to buffer you from those cost increases, but feel that we are no longer able to meet the financial demands without compromising the product. In order to continue offering an exceptional product with a variety of options, we’ve decided to slightly increase our prices . Nothing drastic folks. We’re talking cents. Not dollars. We just thought it best to give you a heads up and thank you for your understanding in advance.

In more exciting news, we’ve teamed up with Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary this year to celebrate a “Toast to the Turkeys!” For the entire month of November, we’ll be donating 50% of all Baby Bun sales to help out with feeding, housing, and general care for the animals. That holiday spirit is creepin’ up on us!

Speaking of, be sure to keep an eye out for some of our favorite holiday specials! Pumpkin spice frosting with gingersnaps and holiday spices, peppermint hot cocoa with marshmallows, candy cane pieces, peppermint ‘Oreos’, ‘egg’ nog frosting…*drool*

Thanks again for your continued support and positive comments in the shop and on Yelp.com. We are eternally grateful for your feedback.

We look forward to spending another amazing holiday season with you!

Shannon Michelle

Members of our small bakery family have come and gone as time has passed and some still remain from the very beginning. Each of them have played an integral role in the shaping of what Cinnaholic is today. We’ve survived equipment breakdowns, dough failures, insane rushes, and dreadfully slow days. We’ve put everything we have into making sure that our customers leave our store with an amazing, unique, handmade product and a great experience. As a result, we’ve met some incredible people along the way and have shared some very interesting stories.

We’ve had the pleasure of working with some fantastic organizations such as Farm Sanctuary, PETA and several other animal rights related organizations to help provide care for animals in need which has been extremely rewarding. We are so thankful to have been given the opportunity to reach out to so many people and offer educational literature and talk with our customers about the benefits of following a vegan diet. We’re even more thankful for all the positive feedback we’ve received! Speaking of feedback, THANK YOU to everyone who has left us a positive review on our Yelp! page. Sure, there have been days when we weren’t on top of our game but we’re HUMAN! We appreciate each of the 276 glowing reviews that put us at a 4.5 star rating. You rock!

We’d like to thank all the organizations who’ve interviewed us or mentioned us in the press. Thanks to SF Weekly, VegNews, Entrepreneur Magazine, NBC’s ‘The Feast’, The Oakland Tribune, The Contra Costa Times and many more. Without press, we’d still be the Bay Areas best kept secret! We’ve also been super blessed with the opportunity to gain some great exposure by serving some major celebrities such as Rise Against, Milo Ventimiglia, Ed Templeton, members of Marilyn Manson, Anti-Flag, John Feldman of Gold Finger, Davey Havok of AFI & Ricky Rockett of Poison just to mention a few. Who could have guessed Hollywood would end up in our store?! Thanks guys!

As if all this positivity wasn’t enough to have us beaming from ear to ear, we were just recently informed that Cinnaholic won the East Bay Express Editors Picks award for ‘Best Remixed Comfort Food’! What an amazing anniversary present! This definitely merits a celebration!

Celebrate with us!

In honor of our 1 year anniversary, we will be offering $1 Old Skool rolls from 12-4 pm on Sunday, August 7th as a thank you to our customers.

Don’t forget! We also have brand new reusable travel mugs for sale too! Not only can you represent in style with these classy lookin’ mugs but your cup of coffee is FREE every time you bring it in and purchase a regular priced roll!*

See you all Sunday, August 7th!

* Terms & Conditions for the Cinnaholic free coffee deal:

• Only valid with purchase of a Cinnaholic anniversary travel mug (limited supply).
• Valid for one free coffee per person per day with purchase of regular priced roll.
• Offer available only while supplies last.
• May not be combined with other offers.

You can read the full “Best of the East Bay” issue online and see who else is featured in the list of winners.

Thanks so much for all your support!

Michael, my step-father, walked into our lives with open arms. Not only did he have three of his own boys to take responsibility for from a previous marriage, but he happily embraced the task of caring for my brother and I as well. Unfortunately for him, I was a hellion at that age! I did what I wanted, when I wanted and I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Not once did he ever try to be my father or reprimand me when I deserved it. Instead, he was patient, understanding and extremely tolerant. He was my friend, someone I could confide in when I couldn’t talk to my mom, he provided a roof over our heads, food on our table, guidance and constant reassurance that I was a special, beautiful, unique person which turned out to be exactly what I needed to hear back then. He did more for me than my biological father ever could have and I thank him from the depths of my soul for that.

My ‘parents’ are still married to this day and continue to raise my two brothers. One of whom has been disabled since birth. I’ve seen them go through good times and bad and despite the circumstances, they always put us kids first. The amount of strength, dedication, love and compassion it’s taken to hold our small family together with all of our differences, hasn’t been easy and I admire him for sticking through it all and staying by our side.

With that said, this month we would like to offer a very special thank you for all the fathers out there who have made a difference in our lives. Whether you’re a father, a grandfather, a soon-to-be father, a step father or perhaps just a father figure, this month is dedicated to you!

On Sunday, June 19th, we are offering all dad’s a free roll of their choice! All you need to do is bring dad into the store with you for a special treat. Buy one, get his free!

For all those long-distance dads, from now through June 15th, we will be offering FREE SHIPPING on all online orders!

Happy Fathers Day!

Mom’s are some of the strongest and most powerful women in the world. It was once said that where the “man is the head of the family, the woman is the neck that turns the head”. No truer word had been spoken when it came to my family. My grandma was the boss and whatever mom said came directly after. Dad never had a chance.

In a home where there was 10% fear of my mother, there was also 90% love. As most teenagers do, I rebelled. Despite all the times I ditched school, disappeared for the weekend, snuck boys into my room or swapped water for peppermint schnapps in her liquor cabinet, mom was always there for me. While I was off causing chaos, mom was holding down 2 jobs and trying to raise me the best she could on her own. Not only did she survive my teenage years (by some miracle), she has been one of Cinnaholic’s biggest supporters from day 1 and is one of our most important assets today with her role as office manager.

Now that I’m older, a little more settled and I can appreciate what it means to have to pay bills and make grown up decisions, I realize just how amazing my mom really was – and is! That’s why this Mother’s Day, we’ve decided to honor all moms.

On Sunday, May 8^th, we are offering all mom’s a free roll of their choice! All you need to do is bring mom into the store with you for a special treat. Buy one, get hers free!

Mom not in town? No problem! From today until May 4th we’ll be waiving our shipping costs so that you can send mom a box of our sweet, cinnamon-y treats with no extra shipping charges just in time for Mother’s Day! Who’s the most awesome kid in the world? ; )

Looking beyond whatever relationship we may have with our mother today, there is one thing you can be sure of and be thankful for. At one point, they made the decision to sacrifice themselves and give us the opportunity to be something amazing. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.

Happy Mothers Day to all the beautiful women out there!

*My mom is going to kill me for posting this picture of her.