Preserved began in 2015 as a pop-up shop on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California. We were generously supported in this endeavor by our friends at Good Neighbor, a Piedmont Avenue boutique that celebrates handmade homegoods. What began as a pop-up shop soon developed into a mutually beneficial, long-term partnership.

We built a 100 square-foot cedar shed in Neighbor's beautiful backyard (a rare gem in a busy retail district). Some called it the Tiny Shed of Wonder. The Tiny Shed housed a small but essential assortment of canning and fermentation supplies and DIY kits. Outside the shed stood two picnic tables where we hosted our bi-weekly workshops.

Preserved and Neighbor helped foster a community of DIY enthusiasts eager to learn and share. In 2016, we were ready to move to our own independent storefront in Oakland's Temescal neighborhood. Here, Elizabeth's dream of creating a community space to learn about and share traditional food preservation methods was more fully realized.​

For 9 years we continued to diversify our products and weekly workshops. We expanded our shop’s offerings to include a much wider selection of our favorite pantry products and culinary tools, going beyond our “preserving and fermenting” focus to encompass more handmade foods. We (quite literally) took up every square inch of the Temescal storefront with what amounted to over 1000 inventory items.

As we approached our 10th year, we realized our shop was bursting at the seams. Having maxed out every corner, tabletop and floor area we were ready to consider what it would look like to expand again, to a larger location. In a bigger space, we could continue to expand our culinary tools to become the Bay-Area’s go-to kitchen shop for all your culinary needs.

Perhaps most importantly, a new, larger location fulfilled our ultimate dream of having our own dedicated event space, separate but connected to our retail store, where we could host more workshops and events for our community!​ And now that dream has come true at our new Rockridge location!

From a 100-square-foot cedar shed on Piedmont Avenue to a thriving storefront on College Ave, Preserved has spent a decade doing what we love most — bringing people together around food. Every jar of locally made preserves on our shelves, every hands-on workshop in our classroom, and every conversation about your latest fermentation project reflects our deep belief that the time-honored traditions of preserving and fermenting have the power to connect us.