In a gallery-dotted industrial district where the burgeoning creative class played (but didn’t yet live), Eric Lester opened the Pearl Bakery in 1997 with Greg and Carolyn Mistell. The Pearl District grew skyward as the Pearl Bakery provided PDX’s escalating foodie population with crusty French baguettes, wheel-size pugliese, and classic French pastries like the raisin-studded pain au raisin that still fly off the shelves today.