This was the title of an article I wanted to write probably about baking out of the South Phoenix kitchen. I started baking in the South Phoenix kitchen in January of 2024. However, starting on Monday, February 24, 2025 I will be baking in the Mesa kitchen.
In my first year of baking in a commercial kitchen, I have had a great experience. I have met and shared the kitchen with other food entrepreneurs, some of whom I have befriended. I respect all of my fellow bakers and chefs in their efforts to do something for themselves. I am grateful for the food team of Local First Arizona and their assistance in helping me to elevate my business. Leslie Kruk was the manager of the South Phoenix kitchen and is instrumental in directly assisting and recommending programs to help me.
I had to learn how to use the convection ovens. It took me some time to get it right, but we are moving now. I continued to use my hand mixer until it finally broke, in this last two weeks. I purchased another one and as soon as I got it out of the box and used it for the first time, it broke! I took this as a sign to use the big mixer in the kitchen.
One of the things that everyone encouraged me to do was to raise my prices. Mario purchased some chocolate chips cookies. He asked me, how much are they? I said, “$3.00” He said “oh no” and gave me almost $10.00! I had customers admonish me to raise my prices. Then a pastry chef took about forty minutes to kick me in the rear about raising my prices. He said that I should double my prices.
That is exactly what I did. I doubled the prices for each item. One of the other bakers in the kitchen that I met for the first time, Leslie told me to sell my pie for $30.00!
Denella of Denella’s Kreations has on two occasions ordered products from me to offer her customers for a catering event. I also became of customer of Donna of Heal with Juice and her fresh squeezed juice blends. Cicara has purchased bean pies from me and referred me to customers.
One of the things that I did not like and I would share that with Anaeli, was our mandatory cleanings was on a Monday, the day I am scheduled to bake. I had to forgo baking on Monday once a quarter, every three months. Overall it has been a great experience, hard work, coming into the kitchen, cleaning your space, pulling out your supplies, prepping, baking, storing and then cleaning to leave the kitchen as or better than I found it.
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