Writing a book: a journey that starts with a few words

On December 14, we celebrated our 10th anniversary at AMIE Bakery. We’ve come a long way since we opened our doors during the 2014 Christmas Stroll. The journey, which began with an unexpected mid-life career change in 2008, has been nothing short of a wild rollercoaster ride of the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

With no food industry experience and a dream, I embarked on building a new venture from the ground up. AMIE Bakery only existed as a vision in my mind. Launching a business from a concept to taking your first order is not for the faint of heart; running a viable food business where the odds are stacked against you takes nothing less than courage, determination, hard work, and painstaking financial planning.

The lessons I’ve learned along the way—all the trials and tribulations—paired with the victories, hilarious and heart-warming stories, as well as talking about loneliest and darkest moments that overshadowed the experiences, requires serious contemplation and formally recounting the past decade by writing a book.

The experience of building any business is daunting. My book, Baking a Business, is not only for anyone that wants to open a bakery, but also for anyone that wants to open and run a business. The book will be peppered with a few of my favorite recipes, but it’s not a cookbook. It’s about all the things you need to consider when opening and running a business so you can go in with your eyes wide open without reinventing the wheel.

I have a saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Many lessons were learned on the road to discovering how to do things right. As I stumbled along, regardless of how much research I did, the chaotic day-to-day realities revealed themselves in the good, bad, and the ugly moments. If I can share the joys and spare anyone from the pains by sharing what I’ve learned, I feel it’s my responsibility to do so. Some topics include but are certainly not limited to: branding; renting; leases, and landlords versus owning your location; hiring and employees; licensing; equipment; administration; payroll; packaging; purchasing; costing, and pricing; resources; and so much more.

Our Flagship Location

In our first location, which was a fifth of our current facility, I foolishly thought my journey was remarkable. After years of planning and building our flagship location on Main Street we entered another phase of the unknown. We were essentially starting over again. A larger space in a state-of-the-art facility located in a higher traffic area meant we needed to gather new metrics to plan production. With an expanded menu, larger staff, and new separation of front and back of house workflow, we forged ahead only to be slapped with the pandemic eight months later. The COVID pandemic ruined any chances of being able to predict or plan for our future. Every metric that could help guide our new business was skewed. The pandemic and summer of 2020 was one of the darkest periods of this journey and one deserving of its own post and chapter in the book. And with all the obstacles and challenges it brought forth, it once again foiled opportunities to write the book; I was too busy firefighting every single day.

In September 2020 I hired a young woman, Jill, who I quickly promoted to front of house manager. While she was brand new to the business, I had no one else for the job and I could not continue wearing the hats of baker, FOH manager, barista, and business operations administrator. If I’ve gained nothing else from running this business, it has been the ability to hone my “good people” radar. She had a maturity and knack for solid business instincts, and this coupled with her years of serving experience, I knew she could get things done and help me steady the ship.

During Jill’s interview, I mentioned writing a book as my next endeavor. A few days later, we got our first “I have COVID!” phone call from one of our employees, and all hell broke loose. There was no handbook or lesson in pastry school that could’ve prepared me for the hysteria and madness that ensued, especially in the early days of the pandemic. As we triaged the situation, we had some epiphanies and I remarked to Jill, “Write that down for the book!” There was a different unforeseen plot twist every day, and that phrase became something I quipped a few times a week. It got to the point that each time I wanted to mention something in the book I would text SN (for sticky note) so we’d know to talk about the data point in the book. I’ve also been a paper saver my whole career. In my corporate job we’d always need to be able to trace an edit we made to documents and by saving any related papers and emails, you can tie history together. Going through boxes of saved papers, we'd unearth funny anecdotes one after the other or pull out something that was tied to a difficult lesson learned. Although times were gloomy, we'd laugh, and say "Write that down for the book."

Over time, that list for the book got longer and longer. Jill became more acquainted with the business and got her sea legs in an always-changing role. We were all in survival mode trying to make the best of a terrible situation. We wore masks and muddled through while the world changed around us.

To top off a bleak time, a few weeks after Jill’s arrival, my greatest confidante and dear friend, Lisa, passed away from cancer. This loss was so deep and profoundly changed my life. She was entrenched in the planning and daily play-by-play as I built and ran the bakery. We had nicknames for people on my team. She heard every story after work to summarize the day. And now, in my most desperate hours, the friend I’d leaned on since the beginning was no longer there to keep me moving forward. Her diagnosis was shocking; it was two months from diagnosis to grave, leaving little time to process and grieve while keeping a bakery afloat.

Entrepreneurship and business ownership are deafeningly lonely. If you aren’t familiar with either, it is hard to understand the weight of the burdens and the depths of despair that come with it. I felt abandoned. My core team disbanded and left (and it was in our peak season that makes or breaks business); Lisa was gone; and there was no consistency in any of the messaging about covid. For every protocol that was issued, there was counter information issued negating or debunking the benefits of the protocol. It also became political, and people were ruthless and tattled falsely to authorities if they saw something they didn’t like. We had customer holding a private party after hours and masks were only off to eat—and then received a call from the health department about the complaint—by someone that had no facts. There were so many things we had to deal with that every goal I had was pushed aside to make sure the business survived. I had just put everything on the line in this new location and I was determined to keep the doors open, even if it meant having to roll every croissant and steam every latte myself. 

Nearly two years later, I confessed to Jill that I was intensely frustrated with the lack of progress on starting the book. It was like 2020-2022 had been wiped off the calendar. Many restaurants, cafés, and bakeries everywhere were still announcing permanent closures. Many had accepted defeat and been forced to close their doors. Many owners simply lost the will to continue in a seemingly doomed industry. I felt every one of their aches and pains. My Facebook feed was littered with business owners recounting their plight. I would follow their stories and cry when they had to give up.

The good news is that we survived, but at a great personal cost. I had turned into Oscar the Grouch somewhere along the way. My office became my little garbage can, I rarely left my desk or did my hair. I didn’t take time off. I didn’t have the will or desire to go anywhere or see people. I sat flanked by piles of paper: notices of price increases from all vendors, notices of shortages of ingredients, notices of fuel surcharges, rising overhead costs, and announcements that so-and-so had been bought out, or was shutting down. Everything changed, not one detail was left untouched. But a nice surprise awaited.

Jill pulled out a 20-page document of notes, scraps, talking points, and outlined chapters out of thin air. “Remember every time you said, ‘Write that down for the book?’ Well here you go.” And with that she plopped down a packet on my desk. 

Remarkably, while Jill had compiled this list, she had never heard the guts of the stories. In all the chaos, I never had the time to tell her what really happened between 2014 and 2020. We booked a two-day trip to Newport, Rhode Island to get away from the bakery and start writing. That was where it all began.

Newport

Aside from our delicious meals at some of my favorite Newport eateries, we spent two windy days at Hammetts hotel and I shared with her parts of the story that had never been told. She was an enthusiastic audience, gasping “No way!!!” Yes, way. The dots started to connect, and we were in motion. 

With Jill co-piloting the efforts to write the book, she had the insight from the bakery and became privy to my first years of this venture. She heard the stories, asked the right questions, gave feedback, and has kept things moving forward.

The book has been a daunting task, no doubt. The constant daily disruptions drag me away from dedicated writing time. The story is in raw format but beautifully strung together in my mind; it’s connecting the raw to finished product that reached the pinnacle of urgency. It’s time to publish. In the past few months, I’ve been meticulously planning our schedule and staffing to be in a position to fully dedicate time to completing the mission. With Jill’s diligence and enthusiasm, we are committed to moving the momentum forward in 2025. Last year’s off-site book meeting resulting in a few hundred pages from hours of sitting in front of the fireplace with my cats, surrounded by all the things I’ve been hoarding in the name of the book: receipts, name tags, notes from well-wishers, and class notes. That’s right fellow packrats, those things do come in handy. After covering the topic to be memorialized in print, I was able to toss some of my piles ceremoniously into the fireplace. It’s cathartic to burn what’s been set in stone.

We watched two episodes of Julia Child, my hero. Jill had never seen Julia before. We made a point to find the episode she did with Gale Gand, who taught at AMIE Académie. Writing a book about your own experience sometimes feels like I’m too close to the project. I’m so immersed in the bakery that it takes some escapism for me to step back and marvel at what’s happened in the last 16 years since I walked into my first day of pastry school.

A decade later, working in the bakery still feels exciting and filled with awe as I watch the hustle and bustle in the kitchen and see my team’s camaraderie. Watching all the young students who have been with me for 6, 7, 8+ years grow up through high school and college has been a privilege. We all walked into AMIE Bakery as strangers and are now friends.

As I absorb this 10th anniversary, it’s time to take stock of everything. It all feels incomprehensible and miraculous as much as it does real. From a mere idea in my mind to building the brand, business, and becoming president of the Retail Bakers of America, the book is an inside look at what it all took and the last piece of the puzzle that cements the bakery’s legacy. It’s also an opportunity share what I’ve learned so the lessons are preserved when I hang up my chef coat someday. Thank you all. I can’t wait for you to read Baking a Business.

Your friend,
Amie