What pushed me over the edge to start my own baking business from home.
I was working at a grocery store cutting bread with an associate in Baking & Pastry Arts. I kept being told for months that I’d eventually move up to decorating cakes, which only ever happened when they were short-staffed. I was given no creative ability whatsoever. Everything I decorated had to follow guidelines. We didn’t even make the cake, buttercream, or anything for that matter. It all came in frozen or in plastic buckets that had so many preservatives in it stayed good forever.
I didn’t realize how much I was being used until my final month or so of being there when my manager would tell me at the beginning of my shift that if I finished cutting all the bread I could decorate cakes. Which was my favorite thing at the job. When 6 months came around and I had the opportunity to make more money, I only got a 25 cent raise. That’s when it all clicked. The manager doesn’t care how much talent I have, education, or how responsible I was to never call out and how I always showed up to work on time. I was always the one to get called in on my day off when someone wouldn’t show up or call out. I was just done.
This is how Summer Joy’s Bakery came about. I gave a one-month notice to give myself time to get my crap together. One month to change the address of my driver's license (since I moved), make Summer Joy’s Bakery an LLC, get all my business tax information started, to open a business bank account, the list felt never ending some days. All I knew while starting my business was that I couldn’t go on working for someone else that didn’t know my worth and just used me since no one else was reliable.
On March 28th Summer Joy’s Bakery became an LLC. I kept working at this job I began to dislike till April 28th. I graduated with my Bachelors in Business Studies on May 2nd and Summer Joy’s Bakery was officially open for Business on May 11th. The menu was up in the air, to begin with since I didn’t know what would sell the best. I began making scones, cinnamon rolls, muffins, and cookies for markets. It wasn’t till two months in that I figured out what sold well which was cookies and sweet bread which has stuck around. I make other things even once in a while when I get tired of making the same stuff each week for markets.
I knew from the start of the pandemic in February of 2020 when I left college campus in North Carolina driving down to Florida that I wanted to start my own baking business I just didn’t know where to start. I went through so many bakery names and logos my head was spinning. I finally decided on Summer Joy’s Bakery as it included my name. The logo I hand drew on an app on my iPad and took about three weeks to draw. My favorite flower is a sunflower and you can’t bake anything without mixing ingredients so that’s how the round whisk design came about.
-Summer Joy