A step-by-step information to constructing a pastry program seamlessly into your café.
BY MAXWELL MOONEY
FOR BARISTA MAGAZINE
Each barista price their salt has devoured their share of day-old croissants throughout a hurried 10-minute break, solely to return to bar with shattered croissant exoskeleton littering their shirt and a protracted line that accrued within the transient time they had been gone. And many individuals in that line had been seemingly quick on time and searching for a sugary increase to get them via the morning.
To each baristas and friends, pastries are now not simply an choice; they’ve turn out to be a cultural expectation. Even essentially the most minimal espresso applications supply pastries as a result of they really feel they must—and since the one factor worse than a morning with out caffeine is a morning with caffeine on an empty abdomen.
So, what ought to we do about pastries? How can we offer this anticipated deal with for our friends—and let’s be trustworthy, our baristas—in a manner that aligns with the model story we’re creating? Ought to we go together with an out of doors native supplier, bake frozen choices from a restaurant provide retailer, or carry baking in-house? There’s no single right reply, however totally different options will match varied conditions.
In my work as a enterprise guide, the very very first thing we concentrate on with shoppers is establishing a transparent mission, imaginative and prescient, and values (MVV). Investing time in refining your MVV yields a return in contrast to the rest; it’s the one resolution that influences a thousand different choices. And the reply to the pastry query lies inside your mission, imaginative and prescient, and values: Every firm can have a distinct reply primarily based on what they’re making an attempt to attain.
Utilizing an Exterior Supplier
The most well-liked choice for pastries on the café is usually sourcing them from an out of doors supplier. House constraints are a standard subject; for instance, a 300-square-foot walk-up bar in New York Metropolis merely can’t help an in-house pastry program. Specializing in what you do greatest—like your espresso program—is a great enterprise transfer, and partnering with suppliers to deal with the remainder is smart.
Laminated pastries reminiscent of croissants, kouign-amann, and ache au chocolate—these with layered dough that require a skillful contact—are notoriously difficult to good. Reaching excellence with these requires as a lot effort and experience as making nice espresso, which could be robust to determine. Collaborating with an out of doors supplier helps scale back the workload and the necessity for early mornings to provide high-quality pastries.
What must you think about when selecting a pastry provider? Initially, they should meet a number of key competency standards:
- Supply merchandise that align together with your firm’s MVV and successfully serve your goal market.
- Be reliable and able to delivering inside a timeframe that helps your small business’s success (normally a minimum of half-hour earlier than opening).
- Give you enough margin (extra on this shortly)
- Be glorious communicators
- Create significant partnership alternatives
Finally, the precise provider helps you higher obtain your organization’s mission. In case you’re a high-end espresso model that individuals anticipate true excellence from, your laminated pastry should have a shattery crust, correct crumb density, and be contemporary—in any other case, you threat sending combined messages to your friends about your institution’s requirements. You wouldn’t anticipate finding fast-food French fries at a Michelin-starred restaurant, so that you shouldn’t serve lackluster pastries alongside your thermal-shock anaerobic Sidra.
Ex Animo in Vancouver, B.C., has been within the pastry enterprise for many years and makes top-quality pastry. Aaron Surman, Ex Animo’s co-owner and pastry chef, has managed each in-house and wholesale pastry applications. He believes a café ought to obtain a minimum of a 50% margin on baked items, obtain supply seven days every week for laminated pastries that spoil shortly, and at all times obtain their pastries earlier than their café opens.
Aaron mentions that Butterboom, the enterprise he ran earlier than Ex Animo, tried to cut back their supply days to 5 per week, nevertheless it didn’t work as nicely for his or her shoppers’ success, so that they went again to seven-day supply. Wholesale bakeries face the identical challenges you may encounter when bringing pastry in-house—primarily that discovering individuals keen to work early mornings is a continuing wrestle, and it’s a skill-intensive job that takes time to study.
Aaron emphasizes the significance of getting excellent pastries to spice up pastry gross sales. The easy reality is {that a} top-quality croissant and a poor one aren’t that totally different in value when contemplating the price of items offered. Nonetheless, approach, ingredient high quality, and execution finally decide the ultimate product. In a crowded market the place many locations serve good croissants, product high quality turns into an important consider driving gross sales. Once you work with a pastry supplier that aligns together with your firm’s mission, imaginative and prescient, and values, you may ship a constant model message and construct stronger belief together with your friends.
Enterprise partnerships are a two-way road; so what makes a café an excellent companion for a bakery? Brett Fisher, normal supervisor of wholesale and retail bakery Bread Craft in Roanoke, Va., emphasizes the significance of communication: about enterprise wants, considerations concerning product, product gross sales, and potential areas for enchancment. “You don’t desire a shopper who’s sad however by no means says something to you,” Brett says, because it makes it troublesome to work collectively to create a profitable program that enables each events to thrive.
Brett and Aaron each point out how laborious it may be to get objects delivered on time due to the tight deadlines. Every thing is made by hand, and generally issues go unsuitable—with proofing, manufacturing, or cooking processes. Brett says that, as with espresso, “there’s extra that may go unsuitable in a bakery than methods to get it proper.” Good communication between each events can assist forestall conflicts and permit every of them to succeed extra by promoting extra merchandise.
Help out of your supplier in managing waste can also be essential. One thing Ex Animo does for his or her shoppers that I’ve by no means seen earlier than is encouraging them to save lots of day-old pastries by wrapping them in plastic wrap and freezing them for the week. They then reduce these croissants and fill them with almond frangipane accessible from Ex Animo to make almond croissants. This sort of partnership towards mutual waste discount and shared monetary achieve is strictly the kind of communication that results in success.
Hybrid Fashions
The subsequent pastry choice within the café is a kind of hybrid. It entails shopping for par-baked, frozen pastry which you could bake absolutely in your store. There are advantages to this method: You possibly can higher management freshness, scale back waste by baking solely what you want, and it requires much less tools than a full bakery. All you really want is a freezer, a half-sheet pan, a convection oven like a Moffat Turbofan E22M3, and a cooling rack for pastries, and also you’re able to go.
The standard of suppliers for this kind of providing can range, identical to when working with a wholesale bakery. On-line foodservice retailers like Webstaurant and brick-and-mortar restaurant provide retailers carry frozen par-baked objects which you could bake in your personal enterprise. Or you may work with extra boutique corporations like Salmonberry Items within the Seattle space that give you a wide range of high quality ranges which you could match to your MVV.
One other frequent scenario is that companies work with an out of doors supplier for laminated pastries however make cookies, scones, biscuits, granola, and different much less fussy objects in-house. This method normally requires extra tools than a par-baked mannequin; you’ll want a stand mixer, extra sheet pans, probably extra oven house, and extra ingredient storage. However it’s much less equipment-intensive than a full laminated pastry program. This methodology could be a superb option to take a look at the waters for an in-house mannequin and means that you can improve margins on some well-liked objects whereas conserving extra labor- and space-intensive merchandise outsourced.
A hybrid mannequin is what I used to launch my enterprise, Narrative Espresso in Everett, Wash. We began working with Salmonberry Items and baked their pastries in-house; we additionally made cookies, granola, and a few vegan bars totally in-house. Utilizing this method enabled us to fulfill friends’ expectations for a wide range of merchandise and gave us the flexibleness to develop new objects as we had been prepared. It additionally helped us safe nice margins on prime sellers: Our salted chocolate chip cookies shortly grew to become one in every of our best-selling objects in each items offered and revenue margins (gross revenue margin was over 90% on a single cookie). In 2019, we offered 7,414 cookies at $3.50 every, netting over $18,000 after accounting for price of products offered (CoGS) and labor.
Over time, we switched to a pastry supplier that delivered pre-baked laminated pastries as a result of we launched a meals program that elevated oven use. We confronted some challenges discovering bakeries that met our high quality requirements and will ship a minimum of 5 days every week, however finally we discovered dependable companions. The present supplier at Narrative (although I now not personal the corporate) is the superb Cottage Bakery in Edmonds, Wash., and so they do excellent work.
In-Home Fashions
The ultimate mannequin is essentially the most concerned but in addition gives essentially the most management: bringing pastry absolutely in-house. Aaron strongly recommends this mannequin in case you can handle it as a result of it gives unmatched freshness and sometimes generates extra gross sales for the reason that product is tastier, to not point out the baristas normally know extra concerning the in-house product and are usually extra keen about it.
There are a number of important objects you’ll must do pastry in-house: a fridge, a freezer, and a convection or deck oven. There are additionally some instruments that can considerably enhance your effectivity and batch sizes: for instance, a superb stand mixer—eight quarts is an effective dimension to start out with, however 20 quarts shall be most helpful for bigger volumes. If you wish to make laminated pastries, you’ll want a proofing cupboard. Moreover, you’ll discover {that a} dough sheeter is a really useful piece of apparatus for laminated objects, providing each consistency and effectivity. You’ll additionally want some sheet pans, molds, and a pace rack to chill objects. This setup can work in a comparatively small house, particularly in case you maximize cubic footage along with sq. footage.
One firm I’ve seen bringing pastry manufacturing in-house over time is 5 Stones Espresso in Redmond, Wash. They initially relied on an out of doors supplier known as Bakehouse 55, however needed to shift when Bakehouse 55 closed. They started making pastry in-house as a result of one in every of their baristas, Aleah Donner, believed she might deal with it. She had some expertise, having attended culinary faculty, however no formal pastry coaching. She credit 5 Stones proprietor Jacob Archer with being a supportive boss who inspired her as she realized and experimented, and he or she emphasizes their shared dedication to bettering each day as a key issue of their in-house program’s success.
They started by renting a small kitchen house from one other enterprise and adopted a hybrid method, the place they made non-laminated pastry in-house whereas sourcing laminated pastry from exterior suppliers. Ultimately, Aleah took a category with famend pastry chef Dominique Ansel and determined to start out testing laminated pastry manufacturing in-house. She says these candy treats had been tough at first however grew to become extra constant over time. She additionally credit an Estella Reversible Dough Sheeter with serving to to spice up high quality and pace up manufacturing by bettering croissant hydration and avoiding overworking the dough, which might trigger extreme gluten growth. Later, they moved into a bigger rented kitchen earlier than constructing their third café, which included a devoted house for pastry manufacturing.
A typical theme I seen within the tales of Aaron, Brett, and Aleah is that creativity performs an important position in a profitable pastry program. Aleah particularly remembers that in their studying course of, they needed to discover methods to make use of less-than-ideal croissants. She explains that cruffins (a muffin-shaped croissant dough) and croffles (croissant dough pressed in a waffle iron) grew to become important options for imperfect batches, permitting the enterprise to nonetheless promote these merchandise. Being versatile as your group and enterprise enterprise into new territory can assist ease the transition into unfamiliar challenges.
However there’s one other invaluable lesson in that very same story that I believe is essential: There was a top quality normal that needed to be met for the dough to be served as croissants. And when that threshold wasn’t reached, Aleah and the group refused to let the product exit. They discovered various makes use of for it that didn’t compromise their friends’ expertise. This creativity and suppleness, mixed with robust high quality requirements, creates excellence.
Once you carry your pastry program in-house, goal for CoGS to be a minimum of 15%, in keeping with Aaron’s estimate. He notes {that a} souffle can price lower than $.50 however promote for $20 or extra due to the issue of the approach and visitor expectations. Clearly, espresso retailers gained’t offer many souffles, however his level is that pastry can have a lot better CoGS than different elements of your small business, like retail objects and even meals.
However what if, like 5 Stones proprietor Jacob Archer, you need to carry pastry in-house however lack the abilities or curiosity to steer that group your self? Properly, in keeping with all our sources, the qualities that make an excellent chief of a pastry program are extra character-based than essentially competence-based at first. This can be a course of that may be developed regularly. Aaron recommends beginning small, with an deliberately restricted menu of some candy objects and just one savory choice, and constructing demand regularly relatively than making an attempt to completely inventory a pastry case and shedding cash each day on waste. Our sources agree that output issues greater than title or resume, per se. The proof, as they are saying, is within the pudding. Or, for all my espresso folks, cup don’t lie.
Now, in fact, if you wish to launch a rippin’ pastry program straight off the bounce, you’ll want to rent somebody to steer a group or herald an excellent guide to assist with what you don’t know and to coach your group. However in case you’re OK with beginning gradual, specializing in self-motivated, detail-oriented, and passionate individuals is a manner to make sure you’ll have group members who can develop into their roles as this system expands. Somebody might begin as a barista and regularly tackle extra baking hours as this system develops, finally shifting on to completely managing the baking operations.
So, what to do about pastry?
Properly, it relies upon. Which of the three fashions described will get you closest to fulfilling your mission, imaginative and prescient, and values? Finally, the reply to that’s a very powerful. It ought to affect whether or not it’s good to get artistic by renting a commissary kitchen for baking as a result of your café is simply too small, or if it is smart to usher in par-baked pastries from an out of doors supplier merely to supply your friends a contemporary but budget-friendly choice.
My hope is that you simply now have sufficient info to get began. I’ll be searching for the croissant crumbs to see which path you selected.
Bake, Purchase, or Each?
Each café is exclusive, and your bakery program can considerably affect buyer expertise, kitchen workflow, and profitability. From absolutely in-house baking to sourcing premade pastries—or a mixture of each—there’s a mannequin to go well with each sort of café proprietor. Right here’s a fast information that can assist you determine which method suits your house, employees, and imaginative and prescient.
1: Totally In-Home Baking
Description:
All pastries are ready from scratch on-site, giving cafés full possession of recipes, taste profiles, and presentation. From laminated doughs and candy rolls to tarts and specialty objects, every thing is crafted in-house to fulfill the café’s particular requirements.
Finest for:
- Café homeowners who need full management over high quality, taste, and menu creativity, permitting them to craft signature or artisanal choices.
- Outlets with enough house, commercial-grade baking tools, and educated employees to handle prep, baking, and plating.
- Cafés aiming to distinguish themselves available in the market, constructing a repute for distinctive, handcrafted pastries that complement their beverage program.
Concerns:
- Larger labor and ingredient prices, as expert bakers and premium substances are sometimes required.
- Consistency and scheduling could be difficult; sustaining high quality throughout busy durations or throughout a number of shifts requires cautious planning.
- Robust operational oversight is critical to keep away from waste and guarantee effectivity.
2: Totally Outsourced (Premade Pastries from a Native Bakery)
Description:
Cafés buy ready-to-serve pastries from a neighborhood bakery, which might embrace fresh-baked objects delivered each day or partially baked merchandise that require minimal ending on-site. This mannequin reduces in-house manufacturing calls for and focuses on comfort and consistency.
Finest for:
- Café homeowners who need to concentrate on espresso and beverage service relatively than bakery operations.
- Small cafés or retailers with restricted kitchen house or staffing, the place in-house baking isn’t possible.
- Cafés prioritizing effectivity, pace, and consistency, guaranteeing that clients obtain dependable, high-quality pastries with out each day manufacturing effort.
Concerns:
- Much less management over recipes, taste, or seasonal creativity, as choices are dictated by the bakery.
- Dependence on the bakery’s schedule, high quality requirements, and reliability can affect menu consistency.
- Restricted means to regulate choices in response to buyer suggestions or tendencies.
3: Hybrid Program (Mixture of In-Home & Premade)
Description:
A hybrid method combines in-house baking of signature or seasonal objects with premade pastries sourced from a neighborhood bakery. Some objects could also be partially baked by the bakery and completed on-site, permitting cafés to supply a stability of creativity and effectivity.
Finest for:
- Café homeowners who need some management and creativity however want the operational effectivity of premade objects for high-volume or normal choices.
- Outlets with reasonable employees and restricted kitchen house that also need to spotlight distinctive or seasonal pastries.
- Cafés experimenting with specialty choices or rotating menu objects whereas conserving core merchandise constant and reliable.
Concerns:
- Requires cautious stock administration and workflow coordination to make sure each in-house and outsourced objects can be found and contemporary.
- Scheduling could be extra complicated, as employees should stability baking, ending, and stocking premade merchandise.
- Affords a center floor in price, labor, and management, however success is determined by clear operational planning and provider reliability.
This text initially appeared within the October + November 2025 subject of Barista Journal. Learn extra of the difficulty on-line right here totally free.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maxwell Mooney (he/him) is a barista turned enterprise proprietor turned guide with Threadbare Espresso Consulting who helps individuals construct espresso companies that take nice care of individuals. His focus is on serving to startups construct sustainable manufacturers and serving to single-unit companies scale to multi-unit companies utilizing his decade-plus expertise to assist individuals craft significant companies. He’s competed nationally in lots of United States Barista Championships, has gained dozens of latte artwork competitions, opened an award-winning espresso store in 2017, and, most significantly, has had the prospect to work with wonderful baristas over time. He additionally by some means has turn out to be identified for his spreadsheets (regardless of not being excellent at making them).
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