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S1 • E1
Tarsha is the owner/operator of Mrs. Joy's Absolutely Fabulous Treats in Lynchburg, VA, she "Mrs. Joy". The shop is one of the original retailers of a revitalized section of downtown. A graphic designer by training, she is a self-taught baker, learning whatever she knows in that regard from online videos and research. She has a faithful clientele who are drawn to her familiar and homey fare of donuts, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chips cookies, and her signature creation peanut butter thumbs. However, she is not making a profit after six years of operation, it having been a year since she actually paid herself. While Steve likes her baking in general, he doesn't see it at a professional level. But what he sees as the biggest problem is that there is no joy in Mrs. Joy's kitchen in that Tarsha has trust issues. While she micromanages, she really wants some relief in some down time for herself. And in not trusting her staff - even her daughters and her niece - feeling that they are only there for a paycheck, she doesn't train them properly or share her recipes, especially for the peanut butter thumb, fearing that they ultimately will be "stolen", thus no longer making Mrs. Joy's unique. While Steve plans to teach her *and* her staff some basic baking techniques, he also has a plan for Tarsha to trust her staff and thus make the business better run. Tiffany, in the meantime, has to make the space operate more as retail bakery as opposed to what it currently looks like, which is a mishmash of an antique store featuring Tarsha's collectibles, and a place for her to espouse her philosophy of joy.
S1 • E2
Classically trained chef Lesley owns and operates OMG Coffee + Bakeshop in Toronto, ON, it which she runs with her boyfriend, Jordan. Lesley is the general manager and does or oversees the baking while Jordan makes the custom ordered sandwiches for the lunch crowd in handling front of house with Lesley. Much of what she produces is personal to her, such as the maple tart - the primary ingredient originally sourced by her father from Manitoulin Island - which she has dedicated to him in he recently having passed. Despite good reviews for their food, they are constantly run off their feet, are always thinking about the shop when not there - neither having had prior retail experience - leaving them with no personal time as a couple, and are not turning a profit. They are at a crossroads in their lease being up for renewal, it foolish for them to renew in what may be a losing proposition. Steve can see that Lesley knows how to bake, but her quest for perfection may be part of the issue. He will help her streamline production while keep those items which are personal to her and the bakery, while create new product which will drive more profit but still keeping with their overall bakery philosophy. While he will also help with certain fundamental retail basics, Tiffany will have to do most of the heavy lifting in that regard, including making the interior feel more welcoming - something which Lesley and Jordan admit is an afterthought - and arguably the most important of upping the exterior curb appeal as the current frontage is easy to miss, and highlight what makes the bakery special to them and hopefully to their customers who generally like a story behind what they see and taste.
S1 • E3
Shana opened Bluegrass and Buttercream three years ago in Danville, KY, it a bakery specializing in cupcakes and custom cakes. She gives back to the community by providing two free cupcakes to every county and city middle school child on their birthday. But sales are starting to fall, her customers telling her that there is just too much buttercream making the entire cupcake too sweet. Steve concurs that everything he tastes is sweet on sweet on sweet, regardless of the cupcake flavor or if it's another food offering, such as the brownies. He learns of one culprit right off, that being that Shana solely uses American buttercream, one of if not the sweetest of the standard frostings, but the easiest to make. He doesn't discover the second more offensive culprit until he heads into the kitchen: that the all too familiar taste of all her cake items is because she uses exclusively boxed cake mixes, which are notoriously sweet. The reasons behind that approach is they are what she and everyone she knows in the region were brought up on, and she herself doesn't really like sweets, she having gotten into the business in enjoying the creative decorating side. Steve has to teach her not only standard recipes to make things from scratch, but expand that skill set by teaching her breakfast items which she does not know how to make at all. He also has to get Shana to taste her food and thus train her palate. In the process, he also has to get Shana over her fear that whatever he shows her to make will not be foreign to the palates of her customers. In the front of house, Tiffany has to warm up the space and make it more inviting for people to want to stay for coffee and a bite.
S1 • E4
Husband and wife Edwin and Tess opened Bread 'N Batter five years ago in Milton, ON, it a bakery specializing in Filipino goods, often in a fusion with western baked goods. The division of labor between the two is defined: Edwin handles the cash and finances, and Tess bakes and takes the special orders. Those roles are not as well defined for Tess' daughter Erin, the three who are all in agreement that she will someday take over the business. Erin, who has bakery experience elsewhere, does not like the chaotic nature of the kitchen and thus her work life in Tess always wanting to please customers, which means accepting last minute or rush orders mostly for custom cakes. On top of that problem, sales are slipping where they are now just breaking even. Steve doesn't see the problem in their items for offer, but that there isn't a well enough defined division of labor, kitchen staff who are often told different things by the different kitchen "supervisors", including a third in Dianne, and as there is no communication either between Tess and Erin, or between the kitchen staff themselves who work in their own vacuum. Steve wants to introduce a few new items to build off what they are already doing, those items designed to bring in more foot traffic for breakfast and afternoon snacks, which also means serving coffee which they currently don't do. Most importantly, however, Steve has to get them better organized overall, namely having clearly defined job descriptions for Tess, Erin and Dianne, Tess, as the owner and thus boss, who has to lead by example. As the establishment is located in a strip mall and thus has an industrial feeling, Tiffany has to change the ambiance from one of a wholesale business or grocery store to a cozy sit down bakery.
S1 • E5
Certified Red Seal pastry chef Tanya opened Whisk Cake Company in Kelowna, BC eight years ago, initially specializing in wedding and other custom cakes. She expanded the business two years ago by opening an adjoining café. While the cake orders still occupy most of her time, the café isn't doing as well as she had hoped, in the process stretching her and her staff thin as opposed to what was supposed to be the plan of the café increasing her revenues allowing her to hire more staff to give her more free time to spend with family. The café may sink the entire business if things don't change. While Steve can see that Tanya knows how to bake, he sees her offerings as being too one-dimensional - sweet - and in the process doesn't cater to a wide enough range of clientele spread over the entire day. He wants to help her streamline production so that she can focus on her strengths, as well as expand her product offerings to include what the Okanagan is renowned for, namely fresh fruit, she already sourcing much produce used from her own garden. Meanwhile, Tiffany plans to warm up the space from it's existing cold, gray palate, which also includes adding curb appeal as the set-back building is difficult to see from the roadway.
S1 • E6
The business named after her oldest son, Felicia opened Mecairo's Cake Co. in Etobicoke in suburban Toronto, ON, the shop the offshoot of what started as her home based custom cake business. A visual artist by trade, she is most attracted to the artistic side of the business, the more her custom cakes don't look like cakes, the better in her mind. Whatever baking she knows she learned from watching baking shows, which was part of her much needed recovery process from Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. While Felicia believes her items taste good, she can't get people through the doors to try them, and as such the business is failing. It's a Catch-22 in that she doesn't stock her pastry cases with no customers and not wanting to create waste which she would throw out, those empty cases which make the business look empty and uninviting. In tasting her wares, Steve finds more misses than hits, and suspects that she spends most of her effort on the decoration of her custom cakes and not much effort into making her pastries either look or taste good. Steve has to help her transform from being a home baker to being a professional baker, which includes knowing how to recycle items that haven't sold at the end of the day, and bring her artistic skills to the pastry case in the entire process. Tiffany has to contend with some inherent problems, such as the large windows and the heat and light coming through affecting what Felicia can display in the front cases, as well as maintaining a space for her children who she often needs to care for while at work, all the while trying to work toward Felicia's vision of the space looking like an edible art gallery.
S1 • E7
After years of working in others' kitchens, Scott fulfilled his dream by opening his own establishment, SkyeFire Bakery, in Airdrie, AB. He specializes in artisan breads, especially the sourdough, its starter which is now ten years old. Some of his most faithful customers admit they never buy bread elsewhere. However, Scott hasn't really diversified his "bakery" offerings in admitting that he doesn't really know how to make cakes, he leaving those slim pastry offerings up to his staff, who he has never really trained to do such. While Scott doesn't push his staff in classifying them as inexperienced - two of the three who are teenagers - and not wanting to be that mean and thus bad boss which he himself has had, they, in turn, see Scott as an ineffective leader, proverbial home baker Twila, the senior staff person, who is left to "run" the kitchen. With a mountain of debt to open the bakery, he is running thin financially in just breaking even. Steve can see that Scott knows what he is doing when it comes to the bread about which he has passion, but doesn't have that same passion for anything else in the bakery in not knowing anything but bread. Steve has to show Scott how to have that same passion for the pastries in making cake recipes easy and tasty, and by repurposing his bread into those pastry items, and in the process have Scott be able to lead his staff effectively. Both Steve and Tiffany are on the same thought process that it looks like Scott had a vision for the bakery but gave up on the front when he ran out of money in focusing on a large and professional kitchen, and that the focus of the front not be his "day olds" which he is putting front and center arguably to get rid of them and thus not have them be a total loss.
S1 • E8
After working there since she graduated from culinary school, certified Red Seal pastry chef Vikki, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, bought the two decades old Lighthouse Cake Company in Langford in suburban Victoria, BC from the original owners upon their retirement. After running it now for three years with her boyfriend Richard and her best friend Alisa, Vikki has not changed much from the previous owners, from the food offerings to the décor, in fear of alienating the business' longtime and primarily older customers. That fear stems from needing to keep the business afloat until she pays off the previous owners in about six years time. But in making baked goods that look like they are from a 1980s bakery, Vikki isn't happy in not having put her own stamp on the business in making the same dated cakes day-in and day-out and in wanting to attract a younger clientele, Langford's demographic which is shifting to young families. And all she knows about running a business she learned on the fly from watching the previous owners, she currently just making ends meet. While Steve can see that Vikki knows how to bake, he has to show her that change is not always a bad thing and that modernization does not mean totally throwing out the old. In focusing on cake items, Vikki had outsourced certain items, such as sausage rolls, Steve wanting her to replace it, a good seller but in and of itself not good tasting, to something they can make in house. But Vikki's biggest fear may be realized when Steve wants her to phase out the raspberry decadence cake - the previous owners recipe and what the bakery has been known for - to replace it with a modernized version called the raspberry dream cake. With the updated menu, Tiffany wants to update the space including to play up on the "lighthouse" nautical theme which is currently missing.
S1 • E9
Sixty-eight year old Deb fulfilled her lifelong dream six years ago by opening the Kneaded Knook Bakery and Cafe in small town Straffordville, ON, in cottage country en route to the north shore of Lake Erie. Her wares are generally what "grandma" would make, she most renowned for her pies, but also for other unique, homey items such as the breakfast muffscuit - part muffin, part biscuit. While her daughter Brenda helps out whenever she can, Deb is a one woman show partly in not having the finances to hire any staff, and partly in not liking to relinquish control. While she does have a loyal local clientele, she doesn't have any pass-by traffic in not being known outside of the community and the establishment looking like someone's house. Steve likes her baking, but wants to show her how to run the business more effectively by having a set menu and offering other menu items that fit in with what she is already doing in their rustic, "grandma" vibe. He also has to get her to give up some control if she will be able to pass along how to do things to any staff she hires. While Tiffany wants to retain the country feel, her challenge is to transform especially the exterior so that it looks not only like a bakery that will catch the eye of people passing by, but an actual retail business.
S1 • E10
Best friends since they were fourteen, Lise and Cait, self-taught bakers and businesspeople, are the owner/operators of Homestead Artisan Bakery + Cafe in downtown Barrie, ON. They have slowly grown their business, starting selling their wares at farmers markets before leasing their current space, with their goal to purchase the property which they believe will place them on more secure financial footing. The business is currently only breaking even, and while their artisan breads - their range of sourdough breads for what they are renowned - sell well, their sweeter offerings in the pastry case aren't. Steve admits the breads are fantastic, but believes the pastry offerings are hit and miss and boring overall. He wants to diversify their product line with more higher profit margin pastries, artisan unique to their bakery as opposed to the standard current offerings which all pastry shops sell, what required for them to succeed: their customers may still come in for the breads for home, but will also want to stay for coffee and dessert which currently isn't happening. Part of the problem is also the cold and vacuous space. While Tiffany loves the bones of the historic building, she wants to warm the space up so that they can't hear the literal echo inside, while capitalizing on the great location.
