One Year Down.

Today we celebrated our first year at the retail location. It has been an amazing year filled with highs and lows, but the thing I am most proud of is how much we have learned so far. I remember last year fighting with the city, contractors, myself, my husband, and anybody else who got in my way. Fighting to open our doors no matter what. I remember that last stretch of the buildout when we were completely exhausted, and faced with patching 3 new holes in the bathroom, resorting to masking tape, which we just painted over. The patches are still there, making me realize that sometimes a quick fix is all you need, after all I am a baker.

I am so thankful to Christy my pastry chef, who is the main person responsible for us surviving this first year intact. Without her amazing attention to detail, her drive to be as thorough as possible, her obsession with keeping everything neat and organized, her charming and wonderful personality and hilarious sense of humor, the amazing way she cares for everybody around her, her honesty when I'm doing something she doesn't agree with, and the millions of other traits that are the priceless value she brings to Sugar. I can't believe I missed HER anniversary with Sugar. I hope she knows how much we appreciate her. Without her, we would not be where we are.

Sugar would also not have made it without fabulous coffee, and I am happy for my two baristas, who make amazing coffee that gets us going in the morning. I am thankful to Zane for his hard work and team spirit; we are so happy to have him in our family. I am also happy to have Aimee, who is so helpful and gracious.

We look forward to the years to come. I have a lot of great ideas up my sleeve, and can't wait to release them to greater Seattle.

Pennies from Heaven

If you can't trust the bank with your money, who can you trust. I have always trusted the bank. They are better at counting than I am. They have never ever made mistakes, and even when I think they do, I call them and it turns out it was my mistake. I mean they are like rock solid. But I suppose that maybe in the midst of this financial crisis that is being promoted all over the news that maybe, just maybe, it is becoming clear that they do make mistakes. I just caught them making a very big one and discovered that my bank can't count rolls of change. Imagine my surprise to find three different amounts of pennies in three different rolls. Now I'm suspicious of the dimes. Maybe the financial crisis might actually be a mistake? ;)

Almost Caught Up, and get ready for Fall Cakes

Have been spending the last few weeks catching up with all the accounting schleppy stuff. Now I can start to see all of our financial components are fitting together. I just have a little chunk of data to put in and then finalize a system to keep things on track. Phew! It's been tough with reduced staff, but we are all hanging in there and working extra hard. Being able to streamline is becoming increasingly important. Now I'm ready to work in the ER!

I am very excited about the new fall cakes lineup which we will begin rolling out next week. After a few days rest over the weekend, I spent labor day getting some cool stuff for the window display. Fall is my favorite time to bake. It's when we started the bakery. It brings back so many happy memories. Yummy memories.

Sometimes, you screw up real bad

Had trouble sleeping last night again...it's been a rough couple of weeks after our payroll taxes were much higher than predicted, and we found out from the IRS that we now have to pay monthly instead of quarterly...so we have to come up with a lot of money fast. I had to cut everybody's hours and start a huge project in figuring out big holes in our expenses. My tiny paycheck is gone so we are struggling even more with how to buy food. After a difficult first week with less staff, it's going to be a rough road ahead.

So on Saturday there was a large party platter order that was correctly filled out, in the right place, I had been told about, etc. For some reason, even though it was right in front of me, I completely did not make the mini desserts. The customer arrived at 2pm. I was so embarrased. I tried to help him by offering delivery, quickly trying to figure out what I could whip up very fast. Before I could come up with a solution, he walked out. I was so disappointed in myself. There's nothing I can do...I can't even give him a cookie.

It's like I have to hit rock bottom or something. Stuff like this can't happen when we are trying to increase our sales. We can't disappoint our customers with bad service and bad products. I know I'm human, but I feel as a leader, I have be held to a much higher standard.

Next week is a new week. I think I will try to be more simple about how I approach the bakery, and hopefully prevent mistakes like the one on Saturday from happening again.

Happy Day

A customer hugged me today because he liked one of our croissants so much. I guess this is why I like owning a bakery and being able to do what I like. Sure some people try to say mean things about me, or my products, or the bakery itself for whatever reason. I guess everybody has a bad day once in a while (or always!), but I am sure thankful for those people whose lives I can make a little sweeter, even if I do sound a bit corny by saying so.

We're still trying to get people in the neighborhood in on Saturdays. We really want to make this THEIR bakery for those leisurely weekend mornings. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear about them.

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm sitting home, relaxing with a glass of wine, enjoying the good honest tiredness of a hard day's work. I love it when it's busy, not because it helps pay the bills, but just because it's tons funner with all the happy people around.

Aside from a few gliches of the credit card machine, mostly our internet connection which was not cooperating, it was so fabulous that we were able to make enough sweet treats for everybody who came in to get for their sweeties.

I'm tired, so accordingly, I'll cut this post short.

Coincidence?

A few weeks after I moved to Seattle to begin my master's degree in photography, somebody broke into my apartment and stole all of my cameras. I spent most of my first year in the program trying to figure out how to rethink my ideas about my work with a plastic camera instead. My work spiraled down quite substantially. I lost my focus, instead shifting into some pretty sloppy ideas that I could never express. I became more interested in reading articles than making work, and by the time my thesis was due, my work was even more uncentered, although nice to look at, the concept and the visual just never seemed to mesh. Perhaps it was losing my cameras so early in the game, perhaps it was the wrong medium. In any case, I'm glad to have found pastry, to which my true artistic vision can be achieved, albeit through some struggles, with usually consistent results.

I started to feel that same panic when I realized my oven would not cooperate. It's currently jumping around between 350 and 500 degrees, and if you know a little bit about baking, that's not a good thing. I burned another two pans of scones this morning, so people, that oven's got to go. Ten years ago, I was a photographer without a camera, and now I'm a baker without a reliable oven. I'm so glad I'm not going to let it get me down.

Anything is Possible

If somebody can try to sell a used cup of Starbuck's coffee at Value Village, anything is possible. It's officially 2008 and I am putting the past year of struggles behind me, setting my sights on shaping a fabulous bakery and pastry shop now that we're open. (Notice that I didn't say "finally" open, which would have implied that I was still bitter about the tremendous sweat and tears extolled over trying to get the bakery open.)

Last week, my husband and I met with a local newspaper writer while I did the morning baking. We talked about a lot of stuff, mostly about my husband's cancer, and how that made it so difficult for us to handle the struggles of trying to get permits to build out the bakery. We seemed to dwell on that topic quite a bit, so much so that we neglected to talk about the pastries themselves. I noticed the writer on several occasions staring at the pastry case; she seemed to be searching for the story of the pastries inside. I asked the writer if she had her "hook" to write the story. When she answered a tentative "maybe", I knew right then that with all the struggles of the past year, I had lost who I was as a pastry chef. I had worn so many other hats, the electrician, lighting designer, ditch digger, etc. So I suppose this is a perfect time to reinvent myself as a pastry chef, to find that funny little voice inside that has all the great creative ideas, and what perfect time than New Year's day.