I own a baklava bakery in San Francisco. Life as a small business owner in a city flush with AI money has been hard.
Tolgay Karabulut, owner of BaklavaStory in San Francisco, discusses the challenges of running a small bakery amidst the city's AI-driven economic boom. He highlights the financial strain caused by rising rent and the difficulty of maintaining a niche food business in a high-cost environment.
Why it matters
It illustrates the 'gentrification' and economic displacement effects that tech-heavy industry booms can have on local small businesses and cultural institutions.
Tolgay Karabulut is the 43-year-old owner of BaklavaStory, a bakery in San Francisco. Tolgay Karabulut Since 2022, Tolgay Karabulut has run a small baklava bakery in San Francisco. The small business owner works 12-hour days, six days a week, baking batch after batch of fresh baklava. The city's AI boom has sent rent prices skyrocketing, and earning a living has felt like an uphill battle. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tolgay Karabulut, the 43-year-old founder of BaklavaStory, a baklava bakery in San Francisco. It has been edited for length and clarity. I've been running a baklava bakery, the thing I'm most passionate about, for the last five years. But the financial pressure I'm facing in San Francisco makes me question whether I can continue doing this forever.
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