Restaurants, Food and Drink | Why is Plantation bakery’s new cinnamon bread loaf being compared to Knaus Berry Farm?

Eddie and Betty Diaz’s Wicked Bread Co. stall at Yellow Green Farmers Market once beckoned impulse buyers with the unmistakably spicy perfume from its spotlight treat: hot-and-sticky loaves of cinnamon bread.

It wasn’t uncommon to catch the husband-and-wife duo standing beside four ovens in their 150-square-foot booth, smothering the pillowy bread with dollops of cream-cheese icing.

Now, after three years of running their popular Hollywood booth, the couple have upgraded Wicked Bread Co. into their first brick-and-mortar bakery in Plantation.

The Diazes’ new storefront debuted in early January, a loaf’s throw from the Interstate 595 on-ramp on Pine Island Road. At 1,221 square feet, it’s eight times the size of the couple’s old booth, with a spacious kitchen that ensures they bump into each other less often.

Theoretically, at least.

“It’s funny, but back when it was 150 square feet, we had it down to a fine dance,” Eddie Diaz says with a laugh. “She pulls out a tray from the oven, I duck, and there was harmony. But we’re still figuring out the rhythms of a big kitchen, and we bump into each other all the time.”

Wicked Bread Co. — whose name was inspired by one customer’s declaration that the bread was “wicked good” — will eventually carry cookies, cupcakes, muffins and other baked treats, but not yet. For now, the priority is giving space for Wicked’s homespun star to shine: 7-by-4-inch loaves of hot-and-sticky cinnamon bread.

It is this dedication to a single baked treat that has drawn comparisons to the king of gooey cinnamon rolls, Knaus Berry Farm in Homestead. On the Sun Sentinel-run “Let’s Eat, South Florida” Facebook group and on crowdsourced review sites like Yelp, customers — whom the Diazes call “cinners” — rave about Wicked’s loaves, calling them a “swoonworthy calorie splurge” and “the cinnamon treat to beat.”

Is it all true? You won’t hear such boastfulness from Eddie Diaz.

“I leave that up to you, and if you think not, I won’t take it personally,” says the Miami Lakes resident. “I think we’re different. They have dense, gooey, buttery rolls. Our bread is soft and fluffy, like biting into a pillow.

“If we ever got to the level that Knaus is, it would be insane, so to be mentioned in the same breath like that is extremely humbling.”

Wicked Bread Co. started as a pre-pandemic side hustle for the couple, who are high school internship coordinators for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Betty Diaz loved baking cinnamon bread for her grandmother (whose kryptonite was the Taco Bell cinnamon twist), but she wasn’t convinced of its greatness until a Friendsgiving dinner in 2019.

“You’re seeing everyone’s reaction in real time,” she recalls. “When they take a bite, their eyes roll to the back of their head, and you realize, ‘OK, maybe it’s pretty good. Could this actually sell?’ ”

Eddie Diaz says he picked the bakery’s proximity to the I-595 on-ramp to attract the same impulse eaters who once gravitated to their Yellow Green booth. Potential customers paused at the southbound red light on Pine Island Road will see Wicked’s bakery sign, turn right and smell cinnamon in the parking lot.

If cinnamon bread is the lure, the bakery’s decor is meant to cast a different spell on customers, adds Eddie Diaz, who compares the dining room to “the witch’s lair in Hansel and Gretel.” Spooky motifs that reinforce the bakery’s “wicked” name are everywhere: Faux occult books and ram skulls and statuelike busts are stacked on the mantle of a white fireplace. Vines creep beside a gnarled tree and a pointed hat. Murals of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Sanderson Sisters from the “Hocus Pocus” movies adorn the walls.

Icing-topped loaves cost $9.85, but other configurations ($13 to $15) include Smack My *** and Call Me Cinndy (icing, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and condensed milk); Six Degrees of Maple Bacon (maple glaze, Applewood smoked bacon); and Black Magic (peanut butter, crushed Oreos, chocolate drizzle). Add an optional scoop of ice cream for $3.

The are also espressos, lattes and cappuccinos ($2 to $4.50), guava-and-cheese pastries ($1.85) and five types of empanadas ($3.75; filled with chicken, beef, spinach, marinara and mozzarella, or ham and cheese). Another top-seller is Swine in a Sweater ($6.50), a Cajun sausage wrapped in flaky pastry and drizzled with maple glaze.

“That’s the older brother of a pig in a blanket, but with an attitude,” Eddie Diaz explains. “He’s spicy, he’s thick, and he’ll put up a fight when you start eating.”

Wicked Bread Co., at 1263 S. Pine Island Road, in Plantation, is expected to host a grand opening in late January. Visit WickedBread.com or call 305-912-7323.