The Naked Baker has opened its second venue in Sydney, a 100-seat site at 23-29 Addison Road, Marrickville that extends the brand from its Mortdale flagship in the city's south into the Inner West.

The seating count matters to the story. Owner Dino Manoleskos initially planned a smaller footprint because he did not expect to secure a site of that size in Marrickville. The lease changed his calculus.

"I couldn't believe my luck when this was available," Manoleskos says.

What does the second venue change?

Manoleskos positions both venues as a "cafe that bakes" rather than a traditional bakery, a framing that pushes the business toward longer dwell times and higher-margin table service. The Marrickville build leans deliberately restaurant-grade: stone tables, upgraded crockery, and an open-plan kitchen that mirrors the glass-enclosed kitchen at Mortdale.

"We've also tried to create more of a restaurant-style feel, with nice crockery and stone tables, so guests can feel comfortable to stay for as long as they want," he says.

The transparency is a deliberate design carryover. At Mortdale, the glass-enclosed kitchen gives customers a view of baking in progress and inspired the company's name. Marrickville repeats the format with an open-plan layout.

How does the menu engineer for the new market?

Everything is made in-house. The core lineup travels from Mortdale:

• Original pizza focaccia slices
• Portuguese tarts
• Cinnamon buns
• Croffles
• Signature eggs benedict with thick-cut maple bacon

Marrickville gets venue-exclusive items built as differentiated draws. The headline is an apple turnover that took months to develop — miso caramel apple, nutmeg custard, and croissant-laminated pastry — plus two site-only specialty drinks: a Vietnamese salted cold foam latte and a blueberry matcha.

The turnover is a personal play on nostalgia, Manoleskos says: the sweet treat has been one of his favourites since childhood.

"I wanted to create something that tasted nostalgic," he says.

The exclusive-drink strategy gives the new location menu items the flagship cannot replicate, a common tactic for multi-site operators defending against cannibalization across a metro market.

How did the business scale?

Manoleskos's path is unconventional. He spent a few years working with his father, then launched a food truck outside the site of the current Mortdale venue. A self-taught baker, he took TAFE courses on weekends and developed his own recipes along the way.

He originally planned a wholesale bakery on the Mortdale site, but customer demand for his products redirected him into retail service instead.

At 22, one year after starting the food truck, he opened the first store in 2023. The 80-seat Mortdale bakery has since doubled in size and now includes an upstairs dining area and a boardroom — a format that supports functions and corporate bookings alongside walk-in trade.

"It's very fulfilling," Manoleskos says of the growth. "It's like a drug seeing all of these people wanting to line up for something I've made."

Trading hours

The Marrickville venue operates Monday to Saturday, 7am to 3pm, and Sundays, 8am to 3pm — a breakfast-and-lunch daypart focus consistent with the bakery-cafe model.

With two venues now live across Sydney's south and Inner West, and exclusive menu items anchoring each location's identity, the brand has a template it can replicate should Manoleskos pursue a third site.