26 Aug Opening a bakery seemed like a daunting task
Our kids told us we were nuts to open up a bakery…”you guys are too old”. Well they may have been half right. We do feel a bit old after the initial chaos of opening. But I have to say to them we are still standing after a wild first three weeks. Our goal was to open a simple bakery serving a few breakfast and lunch items. We simply underestimated the response to our lunch and were overwhelmed in the first few days. We have added staff, tightened up our processes and are ready to do battle again this week. We have tweaked our hours and will now be open from 7:30-4:00pm Tuesday thru Saturday. We will serve breakfast from 7:30-11:00 and lunch from 11:30-2:30.
The contractor delays and air conditioning woes are but a distant memory. Those challenges have been replaced by the usual sardoodledum of operating a small business. In the first three weeks…in the midst of working 14-16 hour days…we have lost 3 employees, including our pastry chef who has resigned after only 6 weeks (4 of which were before we opened). We wish her well. We are actively searching for a qualified pastry chef so if you have a son or daughter, or know of a pastry Chef who would like to relocated to beautiful Beaufort, please have them contact us. We lost another employee after a scuffle between cooks on a very busy day. He left and never came back; and the third employee just never showed up for work when we opened. For added fun, the love of my life had an “incident” with her beloved car of 11 years. She is fine, her car was permanently “retired” by the insurance company.
Two paragraphs with no mention of what we actually do…operate a bakery with a great selection of products. We also have begun to turn our attention to pasta, sausage and foods to delight your palate. We hired a wonderful young women from the Ukraine, Инна Соловей. She has an excellent sense of taste and style. Инна created the hors d’oeuvres for the first Artist’s Reception of our Brickwall Gallery. We had a big crowd to view the photos of Jane Abrams and enjoy Инна’s food. She has been a breath of fresh air in all the craziness! Our old pasta machine has come to life and we are cranking out Ziti and Shells while working on other pastas. You will see more in the coming weeks. We have 5 varieties of sausage available and the list is growing. Inna is making fresh Hummus and Baba Ganoush to go with our Poppy Seed Lavosh. Deborah has discovered an Espresso Balsamic Vinegar that is just plain “Fun in Your Mouth” and is having trouble keeping it on the shelves.
In the coming weeks we will be introducing more items to help you with home entertaining and will be bringing out our Wood-fired oven for a Flatbread Friday. This will be an invitation only event to try out the concept of offering fresh flatbreads baked in our wood fired oven right in front of the bakery one night a month. If you would like to be a part of the inaugural event, please drop us a line or let Deborah know next time you are in the bakery.
Check out our Facebook page for a gallery of pictures of the first few weeks.
