Today we’d like to introduce you to Justina Padia.
Hi Justina, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Founder, Justina Kukla, started Arlowe’s Bakehouse in 2021 as a Cottage Industry Bakery serving North Georgia and beyond. She has a heart for hospitality and has always loved sharing her love of food with others. She finds herself in the kitchen more hours than not baking away and experimenting with new, innovative creations. You never know what you’ll see next. With so much love and support from their family, friends and community, Arlowe’s Bakehouse opened their first brick-and-mortar in Ellijay, Georgia later that year. We are here to provide community, a place to create memories, and inspire others to enjoy all of life’s little moments.
Justina, founder of Arlowe’s Bakehouse, is a self taught baker. Born and raised in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and later relocated to Georgia with her family during 2021. Growing up, Justina’s fondest memories were those in the kitchen and around the dinner table. For as long as she can remember her family always had a deep love for exquisite flavors and well crafted food. She took inspiration from baking alongside of her parents during her younger years and watching them too, create a hometown café from the ground up. She and her family have spent decades creating, testing, and perfecting recipes in the kitchen. That café will forever hold a special place in her heart for it brought her to where she is today. She is thrilled to continue sharing the love with the world through Arlowe’s Bakehouse and invites you to come to their table and share in the experience of the magic that awaits.
Everything at Arlowe’s Bakehouse is carefully crafted with the freshest and best ingredients to bring you an unforgettable culinary experience from handmade artisan breads to pastries and beyond. They have a little bit of everything to offer.
My family is my inspiration and the community and love is what keeps us going. You can find my parents and husband in the kitchen running things amongst our staff. My husband, Pratt, runs the daily operations and is our head bread maker. I have wonderful staff ( Ella, Alexa, Yvonne, Joy among others who have contributed to exquisite customer service and baking in the kitchen) It takes a village! I am grateful for ours.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For the most part it has been an incredible, exciting, fulfilling but exhausting calling. We love what we do and would not trade it for anything but bakers hours are not for the weak. We are passionate about what and serving others and wish it was just as simple as opening the doors and enjoying good food with our customers everyday but there are just so many other details that go into it and at the end of the day there are bills to pay but we continue because we believe it what we do and love what we do everyday. Another thing that has been challenging is finding staff. Given our location it has been difficult to find staff that is passionate about baking or that have any baking skills. We are in a unique area where alot of folks have come to retire. It has taken alot of work to train up our staff but we are so grateful for everything they do. They support us endlessly and we couldn’t do it without them.
As you know, we’re big fans of Arlowe’s Bakehouse. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We are a family owned and operated artisan bakery. We specialize in artisan breads (sourdough and yeasted bread offerings) as well as baked goods and pastries. We offer sourdough daily as well as hand rolled sourdough croissants, cinnamon rolls, cookies, brownies, scones, danishes, cakes, etc. We have become known for bagel days! We make homemade sourdough bagels (NY style) on Fridays and Saturdays. We offer a daily lineup of items as well as specialty and seasonal offerings that we rotate throughout the year (ex: March we do homemade irish soda bread just like grandma used to make, Spring we do our popular strawberry cream puffs, homemade pies for the holidays, apple and pumpkin offerings in the fall). Our chocolate lovers cake is a fan favorite as well as our delicious chocolate chip cookies. Our chocolate chip cookies are the jumbo, golden crunchy edge and chewy centers. reminiscent of childhood. You can also find us baking up artisan sourdough pizzas as well as featuring other pop up style lunch and dinner offerings. We offer our house brew coffee that was specially crafted by a local roastery, Alma Coffee. We like to keep it interesting at Arlowe’s! You can guarantee you’ll find something tasty when you walk through our doors. It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We pride ourselves on doing things from scratch with quality ingredients and local when possible. We also offer bread classes on site and private. We have enjoyed getting to grow closer to the community through our classes as well.
We love partnering with our community and other local businesses. We wholesale goods to Ellijay Mushrooms, Talking Rock Country Store, Coffee at Hemlock Bazaar, Lodge and Walnut Grove, Bent Tree Lodge Bed and Breakfast.
We also love being a part of peoples events and making them one to remember. We believe food is such an integral part of gatherings and what brings people together. We love to cater from sweets trays to custom charcuterie and sandwich trays.
Any big plans?
No future plans at the moment other than to continue to grow where we are participate in more farmers markets. We love where we are at and hope to continue to grow it for generations to come and to be able to serve our community. That said, if an opportunity did present itself years down the road we may consider another location. But that is a very big and far dream.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.arlowesbakehouse.com/
- Instagram: @arlowesbakehouse
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arlowesbakehouse
Image Credits
Professional photos- Molly Hensley Photography LLC
