Home Grain Bakery - The Beginning
I never thought that I would own a bakery.
Owning a bakery never came up in any of the possible futures I had in mind for my life, and if you asked me just three years ago if I would ever work in a bakery, I would have said no without pause or hesitation.
Until Toff and I were out driving one day, and happened to pass an old building that was for sale. It was the old General Store in Aldinga, an 80 year old building that was obviously in need of a lot of work. But it got our gears turning, and once we started thinking about it, we just couldn't stop. We had always talked about owning a coffee shop, maybe, one day, far, far down the line, of course. But the problem was that the street already has two coffee shop/cafes, so that idea was out. But that building! It was just itching for someone to come along and DO something with it. And suddenly, we had it. The light bulb went off, and we just knew that someone needed to turn it into a bakery. The area really needed a good one - bakeries in Australia are an institution of their own. Every town has to have one, I'm pretty sure it's written somewhere, that in order to even be called a town, there has to be first, a pub and then a bakery. Why not us? Why couldn't we open a bakery? When you ignored all the silly, inconsequential reasons for us NOT to open a bakery - like the fact that we had never even worked in one before, or knew how to bake, or had ever owned a business, oh, or how about the fact that we were four months away from becoming parents for the first time - there wasn't any reason that we shouldn't be able to do it.
So we decided to give it a try. Somehow we convinced Toff's mom and her partner to put a bid on the building for us at auction, and after what is the most stressful day of my life, became the new owners of 13 Old Coach Road. And of course, as luck would have it, we got the keys to the building just one day before our son was born. So I stayed home with the baby, and we roped my mom and sister (who were in Australia from Virginia to help with said new baby) into helping Toff at the shop instead. After three months of feverishly renovating our new building from top to toe, as well as finding people who knew how to bake, we opened our doors in December of 2011.
And the rest, as they say, is history! The sole reason we opened Home Grain Bakery was because we thought the area needed a good bakery. We sat down together when we first thought of the idea, and came up with a list of things that were an absolute must in any business we would ever own. First, we had to hire nice people. We can teach you how to make a coffee, or put a meat pie in a bag to serve to a customer, but we cannot teach you how to smile. To this day that is still our philosophy, and I reckon it's paid off! The number of people who stop us in the street just to tell us how much they like coming to our bakery astounds me every day. It's awesome! How lucky am I to get to work in a place that makes so many people happy?? Second, we had to make a good product. No freezing things to use later, and no ordering in pre-made crap just to slap between some pastry. In our experience, we were always willing to pay a little more for something we knew was going to be good, instead of paying less for something that could be good or bad on any given day.
So we set off with these two principles in place, and now, 1 1/2 years later, HGB is humming right along. We now have a staff of just around 25, and they're all coming over to our house in a couple weeks for a farewell BBQ/birthday party for a few of the girls that work for us.
So, if anyone had asked me if I ever thought I would own a bakery, I would have laughed in their face. But if anyone ever asked me if I thought owning a bakery would make me this happy*, I would have called them downright crazy.
So that's it! That's the quick story on how Home Grain Bakery came to be, and if you like, I'll keep telling more HGB stories as well. For all you American's, I'll give you a description of the things we sell, as it's quite different from any bakery I had ever seen growing up. But that's a story for another day.
*Said happiness could also be, in part, attributed to these two wonderful babies I get to raise, but more on that later.
Recently I've encountered a few people in my life that weren't aware that Toff and I own Home Grain Bakery. Possibly this is due to the fact that having known me for a good portion of my life, they too could never have foreseen me in this role. So I thought I would take the chance to tell you our story here, because I don't think I've ever put it in writing myself for other people to see.
So, would you like to hear a story?
Owning a bakery never came up in any of the possible futures I had in mind for my life, and if you asked me just three years ago if I would ever work in a bakery, I would have said no without pause or hesitation.
Until Toff and I were out driving one day, and happened to pass an old building that was for sale. It was the old General Store in Aldinga, an 80 year old building that was obviously in need of a lot of work. But it got our gears turning, and once we started thinking about it, we just couldn't stop. We had always talked about owning a coffee shop, maybe, one day, far, far down the line, of course. But the problem was that the street already has two coffee shop/cafes, so that idea was out. But that building! It was just itching for someone to come along and DO something with it. And suddenly, we had it. The light bulb went off, and we just knew that someone needed to turn it into a bakery. The area really needed a good one - bakeries in Australia are an institution of their own. Every town has to have one, I'm pretty sure it's written somewhere, that in order to even be called a town, there has to be first, a pub and then a bakery. Why not us? Why couldn't we open a bakery? When you ignored all the silly, inconsequential reasons for us NOT to open a bakery - like the fact that we had never even worked in one before, or knew how to bake, or had ever owned a business, oh, or how about the fact that we were four months away from becoming parents for the first time - there wasn't any reason that we shouldn't be able to do it.
So we decided to give it a try. Somehow we convinced Toff's mom and her partner to put a bid on the building for us at auction, and after what is the most stressful day of my life, became the new owners of 13 Old Coach Road. And of course, as luck would have it, we got the keys to the building just one day before our son was born. So I stayed home with the baby, and we roped my mom and sister (who were in Australia from Virginia to help with said new baby) into helping Toff at the shop instead. After three months of feverishly renovating our new building from top to toe, as well as finding people who knew how to bake, we opened our doors in December of 2011.
And the rest, as they say, is history! The sole reason we opened Home Grain Bakery was because we thought the area needed a good bakery. We sat down together when we first thought of the idea, and came up with a list of things that were an absolute must in any business we would ever own. First, we had to hire nice people. We can teach you how to make a coffee, or put a meat pie in a bag to serve to a customer, but we cannot teach you how to smile. To this day that is still our philosophy, and I reckon it's paid off! The number of people who stop us in the street just to tell us how much they like coming to our bakery astounds me every day. It's awesome! How lucky am I to get to work in a place that makes so many people happy?? Second, we had to make a good product. No freezing things to use later, and no ordering in pre-made crap just to slap between some pastry. In our experience, we were always willing to pay a little more for something we knew was going to be good, instead of paying less for something that could be good or bad on any given day.
So we set off with these two principles in place, and now, 1 1/2 years later, HGB is humming right along. We now have a staff of just around 25, and they're all coming over to our house in a couple weeks for a farewell BBQ/birthday party for a few of the girls that work for us.
So, if anyone had asked me if I ever thought I would own a bakery, I would have laughed in their face. But if anyone ever asked me if I thought owning a bakery would make me this happy*, I would have called them downright crazy.
So that's it! That's the quick story on how Home Grain Bakery came to be, and if you like, I'll keep telling more HGB stories as well. For all you American's, I'll give you a description of the things we sell, as it's quite different from any bakery I had ever seen growing up. But that's a story for another day.
*Said happiness could also be, in part, attributed to these two wonderful babies I get to raise, but more on that later.
Comments
Post a Comment