Bread for $60: how Martin Auer's bakery took New York by storm

The Austrian bakery Rye by Martin Auer has opened a branch in New York, selling a loaf of rye bread for $60 (about 1,300 crowns) — three times the price at an average city bakery. The news instantly went viral on social media: some call the price outrageous, while others are lining up for “New York's best bread.”

At the head of the nearly century-old family business is Martin Auer, already the fourth generation of bakers. The company's history began in 1936, when his grandfather opened the first bakery in Maribor, in what is now Slovenia, moving the business to Graz, Austria, during the Second World War. In the 1960s his son took over and began opening new branches — by 1980 the chain had become the second-largest bakery network in Austria.

It was Martin Auer who turned the family business into a recognisable brand: he pulled the products off supermarket shelves, leaned into an artisanal image and actively promoted the bakery on social media. According to the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, the company's revenue reached €48 million (about 1.2 billion crowns) in 2026, with 800 employees working across 43 branches.

Martin's son, Tim Auer, explains the high price at the New York outlet by the fact that all the bread is made entirely by hand, without machines, and the dough — made with a starter that is almost 60 years old — takes 48 hours to mature. The raw ingredients are shipped in directly from Austria, and the bakery itself is located in one of the most expensive cities in the world, on Lafayette Street.

For Martin Auer, opening in New York also carries personal meaning: he says the city has felt special to him since childhood — his grandmother once tried to emigrate there but never managed to. Now her dream is being fulfilled, in his own way, by her grandson — under the watchful eye of the entire internet.