Hundreds of fans line up in Pacific Grove for Pavel's last day.

Just before 7am on Saturday, March 28, Paul and Johanna Wainscoat emerged from the kitchen at Pavel's Backerei wearing Hawaiian shirts and straw hats, with Paul hoisting a tray of cinnamon rolls above one shoulder to distribute to an awaiting crowd.

As they exited, Johanna lifted her arms in the air and shouted, "We're retired!"

Outside there was a line of nearly 200 people down Forest Avenue to the corner with Lighthouse Avenue. People hugged Paul and Johanna, gave them flowers and congratulated them on finishing 30 years of business.

Many in line had waited over an hour and a half and more to get a chance to say goodbye and buy some of the giant cinnamon rolls, danishes and loaves of farmers bread. They left with small towers of white boxes full of the baked goods and European-style sandwiches. As the first customers exited, new customers were constantly added to the end of the line.

Larry Dotson was the first in line at 5:15am, down from Lafayette in the East Bay. He regularly volunteers at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and would always make a pitstop at Pavel's when he came down.

He had a list from home of what to buy: bear claws, salami sandwiches, brioche, danishes, cinnamon raisin brioche, and a few Pavel's tea towels.

Gloria Carson arrived about two minutes behind Dotson, coming from Marina. She says she's been coming to Pavel's for years. Dotson and Carson made friends with the third person to show up soon after, Jenni Hickey, who works at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She walked 30 minutes from her home in Monterey to buy treats for coworkers.

While many Pagrovians were in line, there were others like Dotson who made a special trip, like the family from Fresno who were fans for many years. 

Johanna and Paul are each 68, and while they've made Pavel's such a beloved bakery for 30 years—the bakery was often a readers' favorite in the annual Best Of Monterey County poll—Paul is retiring after just shy of 60 years of baking. He started baking at just 9 years old.

That being said, Paul is not getting out of the baking business entirely. He's already committed to teaching baking skills to young people at the Food Bank for Monterey County in a bread mentorship program, Johanna says. Food Bank officials are giving him 3,000 square feet of space to create a kitchen and set up the program. It should take about six months.

The partnership with the Food Bank comes naturally, after years of the couple donating products to the nonprofit.

Part of why people have such a devotion to the Wainscoats is for all the service they've provided to the community, including providing bread to P.G. school children in need during the pandemic or to instructors from the Defense Language Institute who were furloughed last year. 

"We’ve always tried to donate what we could and it's not been about our profit margin, it's about what people need," Johanna says.

Also on hand on Saturday were the new owners, Iris and Reda Hamade, from Switzerland. They were also passing out freshly baked cinnamon rolls to waiting customers and introducing themselves.

(Johanna calls the rolls they were passing out "mini." In reality they were about the size of regular cinnamon rolls, smaller than the massive ones Pavel's was known for.)

"For us its a big adventure," Reda says. A chocolatier and pastry chef, he says he'll be keeping many of Paul's recipes, while adding some of his chocolates and pastries. The farmers bread definitely will remain on the menu, he says. 

The bakery will close for a brief period while the Hamades do some renovations before reopening as Maison Iris. In the beginning they plan on being open Thursday through Sunday.

Over the years Pavel's had whittled down its days to Saturdays only, as the Wainscoats searched for someone to buy the business. It became a regular sight to see a line down the street starting at around 6:15am every Saturday as regulars waited to buy their baked goods. 

"If it's down to Lighthouse, an hour wait, people say, 'we don’t care, we meet new people and talk,'" Johanna says. "It doesn’t matter if you're Democrat or Republican, people don’t get political. It's become a place where people can come and meet new people."

For P.G. resident Ségoléne Rubin, originally from Paris, it gave her a sense of home away from home.

"As a Parisian I wanted to walk to a cafe and to a bakery," she says. "I felt like I was still close to home. It was very important to me."