Tuesday, September 30, 2014

One Year Later

We had a busy lunch today Downtown, and it made me reflect on how far we've come since a year ago when we purchased the Bakery from the Ferrell family.  A year ago, a lunch rush was often set askew by dropped orders, not enough staffing, unanswered phones, limited choices, and longish waits.  Today, we are staffed up to handle all the Downtown professionals that enjoy our sandwiches and rotating vegan and gluten-free specials.

Many of our customers see Ninth Street as largely having stayed the same, but many changes have been going on behind the scenes, including:
- More baking lessons offered
- More daily vegan specials
- More wholesale pastry accounts
- More gluten free and vegan pastry offerings
- Improved bread quality and consistency
- A new cake program
- A new culinary-trained Pastry Chef, Shelby Smith, who has been delighting our wholesale customers with inventive desserts and snacks

The stability of the Bakery has improved as well, with revenues up 15% relative to last year this time, allowing us to engage in modest infrastructure improvements and increased wages for our hardworking staff.

We look forward to a great second year in business (the 34th since the Bakery's founding) and thank all of our customers across the Triangle for their continued support of our mission to bake organic breads and pastries in an environmentally and socially responsible way.

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