Like the bread she makes, Megan Loney starts her rise early. Loney’s sourdough baking begins around 2 a.m. in her La Mesa kitchen, where she sometimes lifts and folds 42 pounds of dough at a time.
Between steps, she also fits in feedings for 7-month-old Micaiah, the son she shares with wife Crystal Palmer.
In August, Loney left a 12-year career installing commercial HVAC controls to focus full-time on Gemini Twins Bakery, the home-based business she built while raising her family in the La Mesa house where she grew up. Her parents live next door.
“It was extremely hard to leave that career, especially because of the people I was leaving behind,” Loney said.
The trades had given her a start in the workforce after six years as a stay-at-home mom. In 2014, she earned her GED and began an electrical systems technician apprenticeship through Associated Builders and Contractors.
“I tried applying a few places like Target and Kohl’s, but heard no response,” Loney said. “And then a coworker of my wife’s mentioned apprenticeships. You work, you go to school, you get experience and you get paid. I was in.”
Now she is working to make the bakery the family’s livelihood.
The early rise of Gemini Twins Bakery
Loney’s baking journey began in 2019, when she took on a different challenge at home. She started experimenting with a sourdough starter as part of an effort to feed her family better.
Before she could bake her first loaf, she had to learn to maintain the starter, the fermented mixture of flour and water that helps the dough rise. Keeping the starter alive felt like an extra part-time job she hadn’t signed up for.
“I probably killed that starter over a dozen times,” Loney said.
By early 2020, she got one going long enough to bake her first loaf, then began to seek out what else she could make with it.
The baking coincided with broader changes in her family’s life. Loney said she and Palmer gave up alcohol in 2021 as part of an effort to improve their health and be positive role models for their oldest child.
By late 2023, Palmer was encouraging Loney to sell what she baked.
“I had no idea where to begin, so I started sending samples to work with my mother-in-law who works for Amazon,” Loney said. “Those were my first customers. And man, were they loyal. Every week I’d have at least four to five orders, and they loved everything I offered them.”
She formalized the business in 2024, naming it Gemini Twins Bakery, honoring twins Akira and Ezekial, whom she and her wife welcomed in 2022.
In 2025, while expecting their fourth child, Loney began working to build the bakery enough to support the family. She gave birth at home and was back mixing dough within hours, she said.
She worked to grow the business to the point where the family could live on its income, and in August she left her job.
“This was the first year we made any profit,” she said, adding that the family still reinvests 75 percent in the bakery and uses the rest for living expenses.
Not loafing around
The bakery offers naturally fermented sourdough breads as well as cookies, bagels, cinnamon rolls, scones and seasonal treats. Flavors include blueberry lemon basil and Dilly Jack, a savory loaf with dill, Monterey Jack cheese and dried onion.
Loney said the bestseller is roasted jalapeño cheddar, a bread she initially hesitated to offer because “you can find it everywhere.” Loney said roasting the jalapeños gives Gemini Twins’ version a distinctive flavor.
She sources flour from Central Milling, grinds her own whole wheat and avoids ultra-processed ingredients where possible. Her dough undergoes a bulk fermentation lasting four to eight hours, followed by a cold fermentation of up to 48 hours.
But baking ingredients are only part of what goes into each loaf.
“It’s the blood, sweat, and tears that go into making everything we offer that is the real answer,” she said. She listed “the burns from pulling things out of the oven while holding a baby, the cuts trying to fit large equipment through small doorways, the exhaustion from six 2 a.m. days in a row.”
A neighborhood bakery
Loney’s first customers after the Amazon fan club came from La Mesa neighbors, a following she and her family built one doorstep at a time.
She designed, printed and hand-delivered thousands of flyers promoting early driveway pop-ups, giving each event its own theme.
A homemade “SOURDOUGH” sign on a utility pole helped direct customers to the house. Today, a 12-foot feather flag in the bakery’s signature pastel green makes the business easier to spot.
“Our biggest fans started right here in our neighborhood,” Loney said. “Once we decided we wanted to make this a community thing, we put in the footwork.”
The bakery has also helped the family get to know more of the people around them.
“We have made such dear friends with people we may never have gotten to know if it wasn’t for the bakery,” she said.
Driveway pop-ups take place on the first and third Saturdays of each month. The bakery also sells at the Lakeside Farmers Market on Thursdays, at SHARP Grossmont Hospital Farmers Market every other Friday, at the Cardiff Farmers Market on Saturdays and at the San Carlos Farmers Market on the fourth Sunday.
Gemini Twins Bakery also supplies La Mesa-based Come Back Coffee Co. and recently began selling at April Beltz’s pop-up called “The Farmstand” on Garfield Street in La Mesa. Weekly preorders are available through HotPlate.
Growing without losing the family
Loney said she produces close to 200 loaves a week, plus sweets, using a standard double oven. An attempt to add a Pacific Beach farmers market stretched the family too thin, she said, so she is focusing on existing outlets and saving for a dedicated bread oven.
The business operates under a cottage food permit from the County of San Diego, a temporary food facility permit with the county, and business licenses with La Mesa and National City.
Managing the finances has been another learning curve, and keeping production manageable remains important, she said.
“I have learned that a small, perfected menu is better than a large mediocre one,” she said. “I do still find myself trying to make too many different things on different occasions, and it quickly puts me back in my place. I have also had the pleasure of overbooking myself, over baking myself, and having complete meltdowns when things start to go wrong! I’ve learned it’s best to stay humble and know your limits in these situations.”
Family remains central to the operation. Loney and her wife are raising their four children and maintaining a small urban homestead with chickens and rabbits. Palmer handles dishes, cooking and packaging while attending school full time to earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The children help with labeling and accompany their parents to markets.
Asked about work-life balance, Loney joked, “Currently we have none.”
Looking ahead
For now, a storefront isn’t in the plans. Loney said she and Palmer hope eventually to buy land where they can grow their own food and perhaps build a shop. In the meantime, she is focused on growing preorders.
She also said the road that led them to sobriety will tie into the bakery.
“We are creating a donation box and donating our market leftovers once a month to local sober living homes and treatment centers,” Loney said.
For customers who worry about bothering her, the message is simple. In her August announcement on social media, Loney wrote, “You are NEVER inconveniencing me by ordering bread,” adding that every order helps support her family and the business she hopes to grow.
Find Gemini Twins Bakery on Instagram @gemini_twins_bakery; on Facebook; through weekly preorder drops at hotplate.com/gtbakery619; via email at GTBakery619@outlook.com or by calling (619) 565-0128.
