The New Artisans

 

ELLIOT HOFFMAN

Just Desserts Inc.

There is a larger meaning, perhaps, in the fact that it took a New Yorker to bring a decent cheesecake to San Francisco.

Actually, Elliot Hoffman didn't really bring his grandmother's secret recipe with him from Manhattan. Nor was he much of a baker. But starting with the recipe of a San Francisco friend, Hoffman soon discovered that he could make more money selling cheesecakes to restaurants than he had supervising production at a local jewelry factory. Today, Hoffman's Just Desserts is the acknowledged baking phenomenon of San Francisco with nearly 200 employees, four retail stores, and close to 800 restaurant customers, two-thirds of them outside the city. Now, with sales last year reaching $6 million, Hoffman is again thinking about moving westward -- to the Orient.