Flourish

Hi there. You haven’t heard much from the Sweet Pea bakers lately, and we apologize. But we do have a good excuse. We’ve spent the last couple weeks readying our new space at 2622 West Main as the new home for our bakery. We’re still waiting for some important equipment to arrive, but a lot has happened already, and we want to share with you!

The plumbers were in last week, installing sinks and upgrading connections. Seth has been finishing the floor, and the baker girls have been hard at work painting and finishing.

If fact, the little space has gotten quite a facelift, but you might still get the feeling you’ve been there before, and that’s okay. We’re planning it that way! As part of our business’ effort to minimize our impact every day, we tracked down fixtures and tables from some local business favorites. Our tables came from the original Rocky Mountain Roaster, and the oak checkout counter was custom built for the Owenhouse Bike shop. Besides these pieces being attractive, functional, and re-used, they come from some of Bozeman’s most popular and longest-lived businesses. We admit we’re hoping some of that good energy soaks in to our new home!

If you look close, you might notice a few things missing, too. Like that giant pizza oven that made bread and desserts in the basement Sweet Pea all those years. In fact, all the bread equipment is gone now; redistributed to great bakers around town (and the continent, the moulder is shaping hamburger buns in Mexico City). The big walk-in cooler and freezer are history, too, replaced by sensible uprights.

We had been working with some of the best equipment out there, but since the set-up was optimized for a bread bakery, we were wasting a lot of space, effort, and electricity using it to make desserts. All that great stuff has a new home now, and we just finished shopping for equipment that makes sense for our application.

This change helped us take a huge step toward our goal of being as efficient as possible so we can focus on baking. When we re-open, Sweet Pea Bakery will bake and sell more desserts than ever before, but we will do it using a third less electricity than we did a month ago! We don’t know if there’s anything to this carbon footprint business, but we are sure this makes sense for our business. The savings on our power bill will pay for the new freezer before the warranty runs out!

Well, it’s time to get back to work. Look for us to re-open in about two weeks and check back here for updates, as we hope to start taking special orders again sooner than that. Thanks for your patience with us, we can’t wait to show you what we’re up to!