Today we’d like to introduce you to Britny Wray.
Hi Britny, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
In March of 2020 at the very beginning of quarantine, I came down with a rare heart condition. Since one of the more extreme side effects was fainting, I wasn’t allowed return to work with my coworkers. Given the rarity and complexity of my condition, I didn’t receive a diagnosis until October of that year. During the more than six months I was stuck at home, I began selling cookies out of my house. It began as a hobby to keep my mind busy, as I’ve always loved to bake. Quickly, my friends and family began ordering and my kitchen became designated for ONLY cookie baking three days a week.
At this point, my then coworker started spending all of her days off baking with me. With a great baking assistant at my side, we created a Facebook group called the cookie club to keep up with orders and business EXPLODED. Pretty soon, we were baking five days a week and living on takeout because we couldn’t spare our residential oven long enough to make lunch or dinner! In November, I learned that it could still be months before I returned to work. At this point, we decided we had to look for a location. We simply could not function in our residential kitchen any longer. We found an old vacant building downtown with a kitchen full of old appliances. With some design experience under our belts, a ton of elbow grease, and baking days dedicated to paying for the supplies we’d need to open, we whipped the building into shape and opened our doors on new years eve. It’s only been four months, but we now employee a staff of seven and we recently won best bakery and best bagels in our area!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Absolutely not! Money was a huge struggle. My household was running on about 30% of the income we usually had, and I was determined not to take out a business loan, I didn’t want to end up in debt if all of this failed. We worked slowly. Buying up what we needed a piece at a time. We would promote baking days and pop up sales and direct those funds directly to a goal. Most of our furnishings are second-hand. Our display cases are actually antique gun cases that we refurbished.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We’re a small batch bakery with a ton of sass. We support local artists and use our walls as a gallery space. We have and upstairs that houses a live music venue and a studio ran by a Grammy-nominated music producer. We are also very involved with our community and regularly make specialty cookies and donate the proceeds to charity.
How do you think about luck?
A HUGE ROLE. While yes, we have worked extremely hard to get where we are, people often remark how it seems we were fated to be doing this. Our building fell into our laps, licensing couldn’t have gone smoother, and every time we needed something, we made the money almost instantly. Finding staff was easy, and qualified applicants want to work here. While we aren’t churning a massive profit, our business is only four months old and floating. I’m EXTREMELY grateful for the luck we’ve had.
Contact Info:
- Email: thebrokenheartbakery@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thebrokenheartbakery
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thebrokenheartbakery
