About Us
Sam built his first oven when he was sixteen, inspired by those he had seen as a kid in New Mexico. A few ovens and many loaves of bread later, he met Lenny in Philadelphia. Sam was a teaching a bread class in the winter, and Lenny, a restoration mason, wanted to learn to bake.
First they built clay oven and then a brick on at Sam’s family’s house. Sam brought the wood-fired baking expertise, and Lenny brought the traditional masonry training. They have built every brick oven together since.
Sam continues to build clay ovens and teaches bread baking in Western MA, the Northeast, and beyond. Lenny runs a chimney sweep business in the Philadelphia area.
Backyard Bread is not about baking the perfect loaf; it is about starting that party, again and again, in Sam's backyard and yours. We believe that communities will be at their best when the oven is hot, the food is plenty, and people are fed.
Sam Coates-Finke has been building and baking in wood-fired ovens since he was sixteen. Since returning to his hometown in Western Massachusetts to start Backyard Bread, he has specialized in Jewish baking and education. He is found baking hundreds of round challahs for Rosh Hashanah with volunteers, a thousand wood-fired donuts for Chanukah, and kosher matzah baked hot and fast with the live fire. He teaches baking Hebrew School at the Jewish Community of Amherst using a clay oven that the kids helped build.
Sam feels incredibly lucky to take the crafts of baking and oven building and embed them in community daily life and festivals.
Lenny Cohen has more than a decade of building experience- primarily in the masonry field- from historic restoration to new construction, and foundations to chimneys. He has worked in markets including Central Texas, Eastern Massachusetts and the Lowcountry of South Carolina. He now owns a chimney sweep + masonry restoration business serving South Jersey and the Philadelphia area. Lenny enjoys the creative freedom and challenges each unique oven brings with it, the place-making ability of the oven site, the friendships made around them and most importantly, being well-fed!