South Carolina native Rusty Quirk originally came to San Luis Obispo to study graphic communications at Cal Poly.
Years later, she’s still calling the Central Coast home and owns Linnaea’s Cafe and Villain Bakery at 722 Marsh St. along with her partner Alex.
“When I was little, I would wake up early, and I would go to the toaster oven, and I would make my parents breakfast,” Quirk said. “I would put peanut butter on saltines and put it in the toaster oven…so I was kind of always very food inclined.”
After working in marketing, Quirk decided that she wanted to cook and, with no formal training and pure connections, now has an impressive resume working with Michelin and Michelin-star-recommended restaurants around the Central Coast.
Quirk said, “I opened Hotel SLO as the executive pastry chef, and then I worked down at Bell’s and Los Alamos and their restaurants there.”
Knowing she always wanted to work in hospitality, she said, “I always loved the environment. You know, it really is fast-paced. It’s exciting…and you know, helping people make all these memories, but also, it’s a community.”
She then added, “People in restaurants really take care of each other…and it got to the point where I was like, you know what? I think I actually want to do this.”
The couple took over Linnaea’s in 2023 but had their fair share of obstacles.
“A lot of it was restoring the cafe…like it needed a lot. Everything was broken. We needed a lot of training, updating, coffee, food, all of those things,” Quirk said.
“But every day I was pretty much either working at the shop…or baking in the kitchen. Owning a restaurant is like a 24-hour situation.”
Regardless, in March 2026 they still held their first pop-up events at Villain Bakery, hoping to open it full time.
“It takes a huge amount of effort to…make close to 800 pastries for one day,” Quirk said. “Honestly, it is really like putting myself back out there creatively…everything is something that I put a lot of heart into. And so I’m very tender around it.”
One of Quirk’s proudest moments is when she overhears people’s excitement about their upcoming pop-up events, saying, “it is really cool to be a part of the community and meet people every day…provide the space and open the bakery.”
Her final advice — to give your passions a try.
“I was really proud of doing these pop-ups and getting really good feedback…it was really great to be cooking in a way that I wanted to again,” Quirk said.