LOCAL BAKERIES MAKE SWEET TREATS

In Business, March-April, 2006, Vol. 28, No. 2, p. 10

Two Pennsylvania bakery owners make the transition from art and fashion to lots of specialty cakes and cookies.

Jim Gavin

AT 10:00 A.M., Danielle Konya - owner and baker at Vegan Treats, a bakery located in the thriving city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania - is pouring chocolate cupcakes. The scent of rich Belgian cocoa is wafting its way out the door, as the “walk-ins” follow their noses inside. The alchemy of smells betrays the presence of nuts, fruits, and chocolate in the Vegan Treats Bakery's French pastries, gourmet goodies featuring fancy toppings, and 200 different varieties of cakes. No wonder the website claims “more vegan goodies than you've ever seen in one location!”
A strict vegan menu requires that no animal fats, eggs, butter, honey, or cheese be used in the recipes. Lighter ingredients such as soy are used. The usual question this inspires is whether the vegan substitute ingredients make for higher prices, but proprietor Konya quickly points out that it's rather the top of the line berries, nuts, and that rich Belgian chocolate that make her charge a little more. (Mousse dipped in chocolate and drizzled with peanut butter, then topped with candy flowers or strawberries goes for $6, and $3 will get you two cupcakes. The most expensive item is a special occasion cake, custom made at $35.)
“The things I put in are not generic. I use fresh vanilla beans, and all natural spices and flavors. Vegan food is not health food,” she explains, “but it is natural, and I believe that everything in moderation is okay. I want to create light, fluffy, decadent desserts, every bit indulgent as any other bakery.”
One “satisfied” customer wrote to Konya about his trip to New York City where he'd dined at a restaurant serving Vegan Treats desserts. “Your chocolate strawberry shortcake was an emotional experience. Later the same day, I went back to the restaurant for dinner with a friend, and the blueberry cheesecake was unbelievable - the best I ever had, vegan or not! The next morning, before I left, I got two more desserts to go”
Back in the previous millennium, Konya was doing freelance art and illustration in New York City. “Pre-1999, I worked off-Broadway on set design, and posters for plays, among other things. Later, I moved here to Bethlehem to work for an art gallery.”
Vegan Treats was born seven years ago when an acquaintance and restaurant owner in Philadelphia sampled a slice of the cake Konya had just baked. “He said, 'you should bake for me', and since I needed a little extra money I started to do that on the side. It was mostly on weekends at first, but after a while, everyone started calling. I began baking for some places in New York City and Philadelphia, which both have a 'healthy' demand for vegan products. I thought about opening a bakery in New York, but realized that I'd be competing against myself since I already made products for every vegetarian restaurant in Manhattan. Even with the cost of transportation and shipping, things worked out better financially for me to stay here in Bethlehem.” (Population - 72,000.)
For the first six years, she was doing wholesale work - behind the scenes in a warehouse space. But she decided to see if the public was ready for a bake shop and cafe, and it has been busy. A lot of people don't know what vegan is; they just love dessert. But others are committed to a vegan lifestyle, and they come from all over, from New Jersey and Delaware, not to mention Pennsylvania.

FINANCING A START-UP
“Every dollar made off this business, I've put back in,” Konya reports. There was no financing; I never borrowed money. The business grew gradually, and my family helped along the way. As activity grew, I went along with it slowly. For the first few years, I was baking in the evening, sometimes late at night at home after getting back from my other job. But now I have several part-time employees.”
Not one to slow down, Konya speaks of her next challenge, a franchise in Chicago potentially ready for start-up in Fall, 2007: “There's some interest there, and I'd probably go for six months to get things up and running.”
Without a formal marketing plan, and without any infusion of capital, Konya has pulled this business up by its bootstraps: “In the beginning, I didn't see the possibilities. But slowly I saw it was my career, and now I love it. My family helps me paint and renovate. I'm connected with the community. I didn't have any problems with the city - the permits or paperwork. And now other local business owners come to visit.”
Backing all of this has been Konya's conscience: “My moral principle lies with animals, and by not using animal products, we save land because domesticated animals need more space. It takes more ground to produce a gallon of cow milk than a gallon of soymilk. The ice cream I sell here is made of soy.”
Shannon Kummer, who bakes for Konya, says that she was drawn in by the principles the bakery represents as much as by the friendship with her mentor: “I was going to college in the area, and I recognized that this was the kind of job and lifestyle I was attracted to.”
SUZIE'S MIXING BOWL
One town over in Easton, Pennsylvania, is another new bakery, Suzie's Mixing Bowl. Proprietor Suzie Trankle's “bakery cum soup” has only been in business one year, but has already made quite a mark on the community.
The fare ranges from Danish and lemon squares at less than $2 to pies and extra-tall four layer cakes at under $5 for a slice. These sweets are backed by rich soups, and a variety of coffees, teas and juices.
“I don't do any carb, or low carb,” she says. “It's all eggs, sugar and butter… lots of butter. The kind of baked goods your mother or grandmother would make. Or you wish they made. People work so hard these days that they should feel good about treating themselves or indulging friends and loved ones; that's why I'm here.”
Trankle explains that she worked for 15 years in New York City in fashion design. Her niche was in special events, and that money dried up after the World Trade Center attack in 2001. But baking had always been a serious hobby for her, and she discovered that her artistic background allowed a lot of carry-over.
“A high-end bakery and restaurant dovetailed well with my fashion background,” continues Trankle. “It was a different medium, but the esthetics, rules, and guidelines for balance, form and color all transferred well to the design and decorating I started practicing in my baking.”
Trankle learned quickly about the Easton community. She became a member of the Chamber of Commerce and also joined the Easton Business Association. She and her husband (a planning and marketing guru par excellence, according to Trankle) went door-to-door, talking to local merchants in different neighborhoods before zeroing in on a location across the street from the stately Governor Wolf Building, which houses the County Seat.
They liked the foot traffic near the County Building, and the drive-by potential. Plus they were helped with some well considered advice from a local bank offering years of experience in the area. Trankle enthused, “We were sold on the revitalization potential in this section of Easton. Also, I had previous experience with the Small Business Association, and when I called on them again, they helped me with financing and a thorough review of our business plan.”
”The shop actually opened the day of the great flood in early April, 2005, and as fortune would have it, river-watchers flooded in that day,” Trankle recalls. “I couldn't have arranged for better visibility or publicity, so for us, the disaster turned into a deluge of success. Despite our good fortune, I felt terrible for those not as lucky that day.”
Inside Suzie's, the Country English décor is easy on the eyes, and strains of Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller help transport you to a distant but familiar place. “People respond to what we've created here,” Trankle reflects. “It's like Grandma's kitchen…there's nothing here you don't understand, nothing that's unfamiliar. People respond because they 'know' a place. There's the smell of the hearty soup mixing with the aroma of the fresh baked pastries. 'It's like home,' one lady told me. The bowls we have reminded her of what her Mom had. That's why people go out of their way to come here, and that's what keeps them coming back. They like to chat about themselves and after we see them once, we remember them and become friends.”
One new friend is Stephani Murdoch. Sitting by the window as the sun streamed in, she recalled her first contact with Trankle. “I ordered a cake for my husband's 50th birthday. We were getting ready for a trip to Hawaii to celebrate, and Trankle made a beautiful cake with a Hawaiian theme. She put her heart and soul into it, and created a whole miniature luau on top of the frosting!”
Looking ahead, Trankle is beginning to bake for hotels and country clubs, and also finding opportunities in banquets, wedding showers and the like. “We're doing more special orders and specialty cakes. Word gets around, and word of mouth is the best advertising.

We invite In Business readers to e-mail us with recommendations of small, locally-owned bakeries in your area which have become favorites - and why. Please e-mail Ann Miller at biocycle@jgpress.com.

Copyright 2007, The JG Press, Inc.