Navigating Challenges and Celebrating Milestones: A Mid-Year Bakery Update

It’s been a while since I last recorded an episode of Kitchen Notes. Our last episode was recorded waaaaaay back in January, so I apologize for the abrupt four to five month hiatus!

But I’m thrilled to be back now and reconnecting with all of you 🥳

I’m happy to report that we’ve been making progress on many of our goals for this year. It’s been a wild ride, but a good one! So, let’s dive in and catch up.

Here’s what I’ll be covering in this episode:

• Reopening the dining room! In January, we reopened our dining room for the first time since March, 2020. It was a significant step for our bakery, and a major change to service for us. In the end, this was an incredibly positive step for us and has resulted in a huge amount of growth this year. All good things!
• Pivoting and adapting: We’ve all become experts at adapting to unforeseen circumstances. In 2020, we pivoted due to COVID’s impact, and in 2021, we had to move the bakery to a new location because of a flood. In 2022, we faced challenges with supply chains and rising labor costs. As I said in the last episode, I found it a bit difficult to set clear plans and intentions this year due to the unpredictability we’ve experienced. We set three overarching “themes” for the business this year, and have been making solid progress …
• Addressing staffing challenges: Staffing has been an ongoing challenge, as I’m sure many of you can relate. I’m glad to say that hiring & retention has started to stabilize recently. Last year, turnover was a significant issue for us. To address this, we’ve been focusing this year on:
  • Overhauling our compensation and benefits packages to make it as competitive as possible
  • Improving training and added in new technology tools to better support our team
  • Prioritizing employee feedback
  • Including employees in decision-making processes as much as possible!
• Implementing systems: Another area we’ve been prioritizing is implementing systems. We’ve been:
  • Reviewing, defining and refining our current written systems to make sure everything is up-to-date
  • Transitioning from paper checklists to digital management using 7Shifts – more to come on this!
• Diversifying revenue streams: Diversifying our revenue streams has been a key goal this year. We’ve been:
  • Expanding into events, catering, and savory (lunch & dinner!)
  • Increasing wine sales and making it a more significant part of our business model
  • Reducing reliance on walk-in customers – our goal is for revenue to be more predictable and stable