Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Jazzmyn Cramer, Owner of Wilder Bakeshop, located in Chama, NM, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I own and operate a neo-traditional European-style pastry shop and espresso bar in a mountain village in Northern New Mexico. We serve Viennoiserie and Patisserie-style items and simple, classic espresso beverages primarily. Everything is made from scratch (including our syrups and sauces for our coffee program) and baked fresh daily. We rotate flavors every few weeks to feature fresh fruits and produce.
This small village in the Chama Valley is populated primarily by deep Native and Hispanic family lineages and a more recent influx of transplants looking to carve out a meaningful life in this quiet scenic byway. We serve a blend of working families, ranchers, retirees, and enterprisers as the bulk of our customer base. Located at the T of two secondary highways, our town draws folks from all over with its narrow gauge steam locomotive, vibrant fly fishing scene, guided game hunts, ranching community, rafters, and cross-country skiers.
The Bakeshop catches a lot of folks on their way through town as part of the great American road trip, and we draw customers through social media and word of mouth recommendations from folks traveling or summering in the region as well as day trippers from Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, and Durango in search of destination-quality pastry. The nearest full-service town in any direction is an hour, and real fresh food like ours is hard to find in rural areas.
Tell us about yourself
As a child, I was relentlessly intrigued by baked goods - specifically the impossibility of the croissant’s tender and buttery honeycomb structure, so, at the age of fourteen, I decided I wanted to have my own coffee shop and scratch bakery. I was set on opening by the time I was thirty years old. With that as my goal, I sought out the best traditional European-style scratch bakeries, third-wave coffee shops, and coffee roasters in Seattle and Sonoma County Wine Country to engage in hands-on learning.
While I was rarely able to land a job in the kitchen, I observed and asked questions and spent just under 12 years developing an intimate knowledge of the business from behind the espresso bar, a few months on the baker’s bench, and finally, in the office learning everything I could about how to run a profitable values-based business.
This style of baking requires work around the clock. It demands I stay present and engaged mentally and physically, and I am shown constant opportunities for personal growth as well as examining and honing systems, mindset, and learning how best to balance my energy - from washing dishes to accounting, menu planning, and marketing, and of course the actual pastry production. The structure of the baking and business responsibilities contrasts with the soft skills side of my work and engages my entire personality each day.
It’s the pride and joy I feel when I see the giddy faces of first-time visitors or the hugs shared with regulars on their way to work, and the long goodbyes with folks leaving from book club and seeing their table with near-crumb-less plates and empty coffee cups in front of the fireplace that keeps me focused late at night at the baker’s bench when I know the next day starts in 6 hours.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I have a lot of experience in operations, team building and development, budgeting, and managing the financial health of the business, as well as customer experience and product quality/consistency, but I had very little experience as a baker when I closed on the building where I now operate a thriving bakeshop.
Drawing on my understanding and awareness of my fledgling business’ financial tolerances and sticking to my values in terms of ingredient quality and freshness, customer experience, generosity, aesthetics, presentation, and speed of service, I was able to manipulate those levers with agility to keep the shop afloat and growing while I taught myself how to bake a nuanced and challenging pastry style at a level of excellence I was initially unsure I could achieve.
As if opening a bakery without sufficient knowledge of baking wasn’t enough of a risk, I didn’t know a single person in the town where I opened up shop, so building community from scratch, learning the ropes in a new environment and culture, and weathering some pretty major setbacks which required closing my doors for several months in the first year of business is something that will undoubtedly serve me well as I continue on.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
As I reflect on the 4-year mark of operations, what stands out to me as the most difficult aspect is simply the amount of energy that is required for this business model, in and out of business hours. I am open to the general public and give a lot in every aspect: a creative and broad variety of offerings, hours of service, a high standard of excellence for my product which sometimes means re-making things at the eleventh hour, sheer production volume, and the genuine human connection and community which reaches to every interaction I have around this small town, online communication, and relationships, marketing, etc.
At this early stage, the finances don’t allow me to hire a lot of that work out without jeopardizing the financial health and debt pay-off strategy. I had to recognize and admit that I am the primary resource in this business which required a new strategy, pulling back on some of my extra offerings in order to protect and maintain my own ability to operate the core experience I offer.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Building elasticity into your business model will provide you with the path of least resistance as you shift and grow.
- If you can increase sales or decrease expenses through non-monetary investments like improving efficiency, improving quality of life for staff, and retaining skilled and loyal employees, providing a better and more consistent experience for customers, do that first. That is how you build substance, and that is what customers are craving. Provide that, and you will have a return business and a path to sustainable growth.
- Be clear on why you want to start a business and what you want to get out of it. Public and private criticism and failure of your ideas will feel very personal. People are most often critiquing your “how,” which is inevitable, so be flexible with your “how” and keep focused on your “why.”
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://wilderbakeshop.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wilderbakeshopandespresso
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wilderbakeshop/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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