What running a retail bakery is REALLY like every day…

In the bakery, 2014.

Let’s be honest here, it’s nuts. People opening restaurants and bakeries and bars are maniacs, and we know it. But let’s say you are doing it anyway, even though this is your warning not to, and you finally get through all the red tape. You do the marketing. You hire the people. You open the doors. How does the day to day go from there?

For the first year, you just hold down the fort. You now have 400 different jobs to do every day (this is true for anyone who goes from employee to business owner). The whole atmosphere is chaos and work and chaos and work, repeatedly. Little fires put out here, huge fires put out there (and that’s DAILY). But then you get the hang of it and hey, maybe you can hire an employee or two now and get a little help. Here comes the real stress- you’re responsible for their paychecks, even if that means you don’t get one. Hello stress! For the first three years of the bakery, I paid myself a TOTAL of 14K. Zero dollars the first year and $7000 each for year two and three. But all of my employees were paid. All of my rent, utilities, supplies, inventory, and taxes were paid too. I literally ate beans out of can for dinner and sold most of my personal belongings to pay my apartment rent and supplement my income. Living the dream.

Now, let’s talk about employees- because a niche allergy friendly bakery brings you a weird mix. You get the regular food employees (pastry school students, trained bakers, etc) but then you get a bunch of people with Celiac and food allergies who believe in the cause. And they aren’t trained, but they are just as important. You want customers to feel comfortable buying your safe baked goods from other people like them (the untrained employees with food allergies). You need a good mix to make an allergen free bakery work.

Now, some employees are outstanding, some are good, some hate your guts (it’s mutual), some love your guts (it’s also mutual), and some are just the bad apple that spoils the bunch. And I hired them all, all the time (food service turnover rates are no joke). You have no idea that the bad apple that spoils the bunch IS actually the bad apple in an interview. Like a new relationship, they wait a few months to show their true colors.

And now you need a schedule for them all. So you make one, based on the hours each employee wants to work and the hours you need help. Now you get to pay each employee, make sure they don’t hate their schedule (because they will quit if they do), repeatedly tell them what their schedule is when they ask/text you every day, and remind them of the dress code/policies/etc (you won’t even have time to make a dress code or policy until at least year 5). By the way, your 400 daily jobs haven’t disappeared yet, and you just added some more. The good/great employees always remember their schedule, the dress code, and the policies and you RELISH their entire shift as a little break from being a babysitter.

Then come the customers (have we done the baking yet?) who are also just as good/bad as employees. And the good ones are actually great and you know them by name and you love to see their faces. The bad ones are OH SO bad; frighteningly awful really. Employees talk about the good ones, so sweetly, so fondly. We remember their names, kids, allergies, favorites, and anything else, because they are the best. We also remember the same stuff from the bad ones because they created mini nightmarish scenes in the dining room or screamed at us on the phone (and I thought teaching kids with behavior disorders was rough!). We remembered that and still do. I have many, many stories for later blogs.

Now we’re baking. Are we? Am I? I used to do the baking, but then I hired employees as front clerks, and they hated it and now they want to do the baking. And then I needed another baker and a decorator (custom cakes are growing) so now I have to be the decorator (yuck) because all I could find was a baker.

I started a little bakery because I love baking (and I obviously love stress and chaos). Now I’m a few years in and my day is just admin (boring) and ordering supplies (blah) and being the decorator for custom cakes I don’t want to do (I’m crying now). Are we having fun yet?

Sigh. We are. Because I thrive in chaos. I love when 400 things are happening at once. And I’ve been watching the growth all these years and suddenly, one employee turned into 12. And some of those people were awesome to know. Others will live in infamy. Either way, the growth over time was on a successful trend and when I stepped back to look at it, it was pretty cool.

So what’s it like to run a little bakery that you think is going to be so cute and adorable all the time? We’re making cupcakes, right? Everyone’s so happy.

Some days go like this: Arrive, everyone shows up, baking is steady, dishes are steady, orders are done and picked up, sales are high, no employee animosity, customers were all the faves, everyone cleaned up, and you go home.

And other days go like this: One employee called in sick at 2am (that’s a fun middle of the night phone call), your brand new employee never showed up for their first shift today, the baker ruined three batches of cookies (in a row), you have to decorate 12 different cakes with 12 different frostings you need to make, your flour blend is almost gone and the shipment has been delayed another few days, it’s raining so barely any customers have come in, two employees hate each other today, a customer told you this was the worst cupcake she has ever had, and another one smeared their own feces all over the bathroom wall (which actually happened), and then you’re too exhausted to finish the dishes or clean, so you finally all go home and crash (you can mop in the morning).

If this blog post sounds chaotic, it’s because you need to feel what I felt for 14 years to really get the picture. It’s stressful, it’s a gamble, it’s different every single day, and despite the bad days- you get to see and do some really cool stuff. Owning a retail bakery - 8/10 (but only when you’re young).