WHAT HAPPENED/IS HAPPENING THIS WEEK:
Its been a devastating month at Fire Island with the deafening loss of our beautiful Amelia Nowak. She will always be loved and remembered here at the bakery. Her sisters and Momma are taking time to grieve and be with one another.
She was so vibrant and exuberant and we will keep her in our hearts and thoughts as the live wire and bubbly co-worker we came to know her as.
A reminder not to talk with any media or post anything about the accident that could possible implicate the criminal investigation.
Nothing is more important to this company than the health and well being of each employee. We are deeply saddened for the Nowaks and will continue to support and surround them with love and compassion.
I, Rachel, will be doing all scheduling for the foreseeable future. This includes all bakers, counter, expo, and clean team scheduling. Text me anytime and I will return your text asap and get WHEN I WORK to be as accurate per those conversations/texts as possible. Gentle reminding is encouraged and please remember to over communicate if you are going out or have requested time off coming up.
Also please remember to let us know when you are ready to work again (covid specifically, you’ll be scheduled off until you are 3 days from symptoms without any medication or with 2 negative test results 24 hours apart.)
At our largest, we carried a 77 person staff in June, and even into July. Then the closing of 91st bakery, in addition to people leaving for school (both studying and teaching) we became a staff of around 60. At this time we have 55 people!! Feels great. We are hiring, but super selectively. Definitely could use another pal or two on the counter and we are in search of a cleaner… so send me your friends~!
TRAINING…
Last week of Tori training Leslie and then Leslie is our incoming croissant queen! She will start with slightly lower numbers next week and then work up to full capacity as we flex with the fall tourist season.
Avery is baking off croissant on Sundays, and then moving back into Cookies/Packaged Goods where he is desperately needed.
Karen is coming back to join the Cookies/PKG goods and will be seen around the bakery on Thursdays and Fridays. Beeke is down to 2 days a week with .5-1 of those days on Expo. Sarah and Laurie will pick up a bit more expo hours on Saturdays so that we can transition into the school year and keep product moving around and cookies in stock!
Naomi is starting to work into sandwiches and will also help cover where she can (obvy, homegirl is needed on the counter, but we are working the schedule to get her training hours.)
We’ve got a new comer to the sandwich team, BRONCO ZAMBONI, stage name Brendan Lashua. He’s another bike guy and comes highly recommended by his fellow sandwich artist and bike enthusiast, Miron. In fact, Miron will be training him Wednesday 8/31, and we will hope to see Bronco help cover for Miron’ 3 week out later this month.
WHATS TO COME:
Well the remodel project is CRUISING along downstairs at K st. The demo has all take place and walls are out. We have a sweet superintendent names Wes who gets free coffee and cookies anytime he wants (keep this dude happy.) The floors will be redone in CREAM and the walls will be hot pink and bright blue. We can’t wait to keep this project rolling forward. Thank you so much to Janis for being a problem solver.
We are trying to gracefully move through this reno without breaking the bank or pissing off K street tenants.
We are switching up freezers and fridges so lets make sure everyone double checks units to ensure they are storing ingredients and products correctly. We will be moving more of the single units downstairs into the new kitchen space, and moving over the working doubles from 91.
ACCOLADES: Congrats to Beth who has gone back to teaching elementary school! Last school year before she (maybe, hopefully) joins our team more full-time and shares her many talents. Hope its a great year Beth!!
ATTA BOY: To all the dudes and dudettes heading back to school this week, GREAT LUCK and don’t take it all that seriously. its just school, better to breath fresh mountain air and work hard building community and eating full flavored real foods.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK:
Positive review: “An absolute gem in Anchorage. Any visit to the city is incomplete without a sampling of their meticulously crafted baked treats or their divinely brewed black coffee. They source as many ingredients as possible locally and rotate their menu accordingly.”
Negative review: “So tired of it always being "15 min" until things are ready. It's 8am, why isn't there breakfast focaccia ready?”
LISTEN- I wish this reviewer luck out there in the real world, but things are not always ready exactly when you want them. We probably DID have one ready at 8am, it sold out and we are doing our best to make another one. Its not like we are withholding product to make our customers angry…. get a life!
Questionable review: What is your current Sandwich of the week, this week/today? 8/26/2022
If you could post them on your website, Instagram or Facebook, that would be great!
I am vegan and your bakery will make the sandwiches plant based for me and friends.
I greatly appreciate that you will do that.
HMMMM…. we do this? no special orders… so I don’t think so. Take it as is homies, or go elsewhere. I hear Middlway puts out great vegan sandos.
FACILITY PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS:
Another week, another fridge/freezer on the damn fritz!!!! But we are hounding the technicians and trying to get units fixed and back in the mix. Currently the Dairy fridge at K st is down. We moved product around and will update everyone when its back up and running. We moved the break room fridge to the bottom of the stairs and can keep overflow dairy down there for the coming days.
We got the ovens switched so that K st has 4 working convection ovens. So thats cool.
There is a lot of product (mostly packaging and ingredients) in the break room downstairs at K. There are green products in the mothers room, outside the conference room and stashed throughout the bakery. We are trying to compile and organize extra supplies so we stop having such a large inventory of the things we can easily order… better for stuff to be on other peoples (Green Prducts/Costco/Linfords) shelves if we can order it frequently.
Yearly schedule…. seems like this would be a good time to lay out the rest of the year!!
September has just Labor day and we are closed all mondays so no issue here.
October has halloween but we are doing some very simple nods to the holiday (like merengue ghosts), no pizza or special orders of any kind. Halloween is also a monday and won’t affect our scheduling.
November has Thanksgiving which is on thursday the 24th, and we are open this day until 2pm. We are closed on Friday the 25th, and reopen for the weekend. No non-emergency time off request will be granted this week.
December- first two weeks are the last opportunity to use your PTO, unless previously discussed and cleared.
third and fourth week in Dec are black out dates, same as thanksgiving week. Xmas falls on a saturday. Xmas eve we are open until 2pm. Then closed christmas and the day after which leaves just the last week of december 12/28-12/31. Closed new years day at 2 (I think…. check back on this)
January- We are closed at both shops 1/1-1/18, reopening on the 19th!!!!!! Lets get the heck outta here!!!! come talk to us about setting up a stage in another state.