If you lived in the Mission along Bryant and 15th and 16th prior to 2005, as we did for many years before evacuating to SOMA, you might recall that magical odor emanating from the Hostess Cake / Wonder Bread factory at 1525 Bryant. Yeasty, jammy, and artificial. The youth-kissed scent was such a staple of the area that SF Weekly awarded the factory "Best Place to Be Fondly Reminded of Your S.F. Childhood" in 2003.

To wit:

"Like most urban areas, San Francisco offers some, uh, interesting scents to tickle our metropolitan noses. But one place produces a delightful odor that shocks us right back to our callow youth: the Wonder Bread/Hostess Bakery. Walking past the old brick factory near SOMA on a calm day, we can inhale deeply and catch that delicious synthetic-spongecake-ribbon-of-raspberry-jam-soft-creamy-center waft of a bygone era. It brings us back to our junior high school cafeteria, where the only respite from pre-pubescent politicking was the sweet treat in the bottom of our lunch bag. At the Wonder Bread/Hostess Bakery, the kitchen still makes Ding Dongs, Twinkies, and other pastry-ish delectables. Sure, they're processed to within an inch of edibility and full of (insert disease here)-causing chemicals, but they're also mighty tasty. As adults, we're supposed to practice self-control by not shoving Ho Hos into our mouths by the fistful. Fortunately, the passing aroma of those treats lets us imagine a time when that was not only acceptable, but expected."

Sadly, the plant closed in 2005 due to bankruptcy by Hostess Brands, which also resulted in the shutdown of the then 49-year-old Parisian San Francisco bakery on Evans Avenue in Bayview. Both factory closures forced an estimated 800 people out of jobs. Today, the much missed junk food factory is a now U-Haul storage facility, a place where people can store their stuff—their tasteless, useless, creamy-filling-free stuff.

Hostess Brands, purveyors of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, went to U.S. Bankruptcy Court this morning to ask permission to end business, strike over a contract—one that, according to Gothamist, "would have forced workers to accept reduced pension benefits, outsourced deliveries, an 8% pay cut and other changes." Hostess brands, such as Dolly Madison, Drake's, and Butternut, will probably be sold and most of the company employees will lose their jobs.