It was 2011 when Brett Boyer and Brendon Wilharber met on Grindr in Oakland. The Bay Area city was booming with restaurants and bars. Boyer worked for Greenpeace, and Wilharber worked in restaurant management— they connected over their love of food and community. “We kind of connected at the farmers market,” Wilharber recalls.

At the time, Boyer was just getting into pastry, and with Wilharber’s encouragement, he found his way to Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’ legendary Berkeley restaurant widely credited with launching the farm-to-table movement.

Boyer worked at a handful of other notable Bay Area patisseries before he and Wilharber decided to make the move to Las Vegas. “We would come and stay at the Bellagio and just lie by the pool for a few days,” Wilharber says.

After years of visiting, the couple married and purchased a midcentury modern home, where they currently run the solar-powered Desert Bread with just an oven and a painstakingly cared-for backyard garden, to source their seasonal fruits and vegetables.

Initially, Boyer sold his sourdough bread loaves and pastries at the Fresh52 farmers market. “I brought like 80 loaves of bread,” Boyer says of his first day there. “I was by myself, and I sold them out completely.”

The pair eventually moved the operation out of their home. But when the pandemic hit, Wilharber and Boyer were informed they couldn’t sell homemade goods online, so people began lining up outside their home. “It was insanely busy,” Boyer says.

Today the pair sells a rotating, seasonal selection of croissants, cookies, bread loaves and more from their house on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

DESERT BREAD 5530 McLeod Drive, desertbreadlv.com. Wednesdays, 9-11 a.m.; Saturdays, 8-10 a.m.