How We Started the Flour Barn Bakery

How we started the flour barn bakery

Every Saturday my morning starts by waking up at 3:00 am and making a cup of coffee. During these quiet early hours of the morning, I make a mental list of all the items that are waiting to be prepared at the bakery. As the morning fog slowly fades from my brain, the butterflies of excitement start to kick in. Today we will be open, customers will soon be arriving at the bakery.

As I take the five minute drive over to the bakery, I blare music to help amp up my energy. I arrive and am welcomed with a hug from my partners, my dad and my sister. Now it’s time to get down to business. The next three hours fly by in a blur as we ice cinnamon rolls, bake pastry, fill croissants with cream, glaze scones, brew coffee and meticulously pack the case full of freshly baked treats. A couple minutes before our doors open to the public, a little head peaks through the front door. It’s my nephew ready to pick out his Saturday morning treat.

This has been my Saturday morning for the past three years, yet each Saturday I still feel a sense of overwhelming gratitude that this is my life. As I spend the morning talking with regulars and greeting new customers, I often get asked several times: How long have you been out here? How did you get started? Does your dad really just wash dishes?

So, in this post I am going to try to explain how we started the Flour Barn Bakery.

Ellen’s Background

Humble and kind as she is, Ellen often needs me around to “toot her horn.” I would label her the brains behind the operation. Starting in high school she began her own cake decorating business and eventually got into the wedding cake scene. For many years she worked as both a NICU nurse and a wedding cake decorator. Once she had her first child, she felt that she needed to focus on her growing family. She switched to part-time nursing and began taking less wedding engagements. But her passion for baking could not be kicked. She still dreamed about one day owning a bakery full of freshly baked bread and pastries.

The Barn

One day, in 2017, my dad decided that he wanted to build himself a better workshop for woodworking. And as these things go, my mother found a way to convince him to instead build her a summer kitchen with a small shop on one side of it. And as things go, when the building was complete, Ellen convinced them to make sure that summer kitchen was commercially licensed, just in case she wanted to start her baking once again. And soon enough we had ourselves a beautiful barn with a large open commercial kitchen, and a small woodworking closet. Although not at all what my dad planned for, it ended up working out in his favor.

Stars Aligning

If it feels like I am rambling, I am not surprised. But the truth is our start came from many different events happening and everything aligning perfectly at the right time.

2020

During the pandemic, my dad, who had worked in IT (Information Technology) for more than 25 years, started working from home. At the same time, I was able to do most of my schoolwork from home as well (I was in nursing school in Toledo). Ellen thought it would be a fun idea to make cinnamon rolls that we could sell to the community. These items were picked up by families and would hopefully add a bit of joy to their homes during those crazy times.

The response was amazing, and if it hadn’t been for that response, we would never have had the confidence to move forward. When customers came to pick up their cinnamon rolls, we began to get to know our community. The reward was so much more than financial–it propelled us to want to do more.

secrets and betrayal

Dramatic, I know. Our sales were doing really well and while we loved the pickup-only arrangement, we yearned for a more typical bakery set up. Our parents were timid about the idea. Who is going to come out to the farm to shop for baked goods? You’re going to make all this food with no guarantee of selling it! All fair points. But we knew we could do it. Call it confidence, or maybe just call it being naïve.

We waited until our parents had left for a vacation to Hilton Head, and we pounced. Then Ellen and I started baking away, working till the late hours of the night and waking up in the early hours of the morning. We flooded Facebook with advertisements of “Pop Up on the Porch Sale”. To be sure, we were excited and scared to death. But no one was around to hold us back.

The time came and we set out all the baked goods we had baked. A mix of cupcakes, fruit tarts, cookies and bread. We sold out in one hour.

Saturday Morning

When my parents came back they were not angry, or even disapproving. They were proud and excited. For that summer we hosted several porch sales, each one growing in size.

A new path

At this time, we were living in the strange pandemic world, but we knew that soon I would be graduating from college and my dad would be returning to his office. We really had to make a leap of faith at this point. After much prayer and long discussions with our families, we decided to move forward with the bakery. This meant my dad would retire from his job, I would invest all my energies into the bakery instead of nursing, and Ellen would do the same. Our financial goals were not lofty, but we each had an idea of what we needed to make it worth it.

To our delight, the community received us so graciously. We’ve been baking ever since, looking forward to each Saturday morning, meeting new customers every weekend, and catching up with regular customers as well.

The More things change…

We have added classes, laminated pastry, a blog and much more since the beginning. My dad always wanted to learn how to make the perfect laminated dough (danishes and croissants). So, he studied, we purchased a sheeter and now danishes and cream filled croissants are some of our best-selling items. Ellen has always loved artisan breads so now we offer freshly baked sourdough, and she makes focaccia for our breakfast sandwiches. I love coffee and am now in the process of renovating a trailer into a Coffee Shop trailer. Our business has grown and changed in so many ways, but it still feels like we are living the dream.

Family

I know this might sound cheesy, but it is the truth. The best part of our job is that we get to work with one another. In fact, we were also able to hire our other sister, Paige, as a full-time employee. Although we can be too honest with each other at times, working with family works for us! We each have strengths and weaknesses, and they all seem to work together to create a very special relationship.

The Flour Barn Bakery

So, there it is. It seems like one article cannot summarize the events that have taken place these past three years, but this is my attempt. To follow along on our journey, sign up for our mailing list below. Thank you for reading!

More Questions!

I get so many questions from customers and students and sometimes I don’t have the time to answer them fully. Please comment any questions you have had about our bakery, our farm, or even just our lives!