What a Daycare Wait List Taught Me About Growing a Bakery
July 2022. I had just moved into my first commercial kitchen, the one I'd bought before I was sure I was ready, and it was finally real. Walls, equipment, and a lease with my name on it. I also had a brand-new problem: a commercial space doesn't pay for itself sitting half used, and every square foot was a number I'd committed to whether or not the orders showed up. Then one phone call, which had nothing to do with baking, nearly took the whole thing apart.
The Part Nobody Puts in the Highlight Reel
For about ten months before the move, I ran my cookie business entirely out of my house. A normal day meant preschool drop-off, baking the day's cookies, squeezing in lunch, and decorating until it was time to pick up my son. My daughter spent countless hours at my feet on the kitchen floor while I worked around her, with cookie trays on every counter in every stage from raw dough to boxed and ready to go.
I barely documented that season, and here's the honest reason: I didn't want anyone to see my daughter on the floor while I frosted 300 cookies. That's not what a business is supposed to look like from the outside. It took me years to see that I'd been quietly editing my kids out of the picture of my own business. These days, when my kids wander into the middle of what was supposed to be a solo photo shoot, I say, "Snap it. This is my reality."
Here's the other thing I don't say out loud often enough. By the time I got the keys, I was already exhausted. Not tired-after-a-long-week exhausted, but genuinely worn down. When you're the one who quit the job, pushed for the property, and kept saying yes to more orders, there isn't much room to admit you're struggling. So I just kept going.
The Phone Call That Had Nothing to Do With Cookies
We were living in a childcare desert. Spots essentially didn't exist in our town, and I'd been on a wait list for over a year for a September opening. Six months earlier, the same provider had offered me an earlier spot, and I'd said no. Holding out for September felt like the responsible, patient choice.
So when I called to check in, I expected a quick confirmation. Instead I heard, "We deleted you from the list." I said okay, hung up, and just stood there in a kitchen I'd barely gotten the keys to. It wasn't rage. It was static, and then panic. How do you scale a bakery when you have no childcare and no way to get any?
I had spreadsheets for ingredient costs and a plan for scaling production, and none of it mattered in that moment. The thing that almost broke my business wasn't the business at all. It was me, and where my kids were going to be while I worked.
A Name, a Number, and a Trade
Not long after, standing in my brand-new kitchen, I was venting to a friend when the project manager who'd overseen the build overheard me. He was still there finishing punch list items to close out the permit, someone I knew but not well. He offered me a name and a phone number: Mercedes.
My honest first thought was, sure, because I can definitely afford a nanny right now. But I said I'd consider it. Starting that September, Mercedes became my nanny three days a week. By November, I'd offered her two days in the kitchen, and she started baking on Mondays so I could walk in on Tuesdays and go straight to icing. For about a year we ran on trade: I baked while she had my kids, and she baked and ran the bakery while I watched my kids.
I knew she was special within her first few training sessions, when she opened the oven before the timer went off because she could smell the bake was ready. You can't teach that. And I never intended to have staff. My whole plan was to be a solo baker. Yet before I'd hired a single person, that project manager told her, "I think you'll have lots of opportunity to grow with this one."
What I'd Tell Any Baker Who's Growing Right Now
The thing that threatens your business often has nothing to do with what you're selling. Sometimes it's a daycare wait list.
Notice who's watching from a little distance, too. That project manager wasn't family or a close friend. He'd simply been paying attention, and he saw room in my business for someone else's career before I could see it myself. People at arm's length often see your full potential before you do.
And when growth arrives, payroll and real costs arrive with it. That's exactly why I built Price It Right: knowing your numbers cold is what lets you say yes to growth without flinching.
This is the second episode in a three-part story, and it's the version of my build I wish someone had handed me when I was still deciding whether I could do this at all. Listen to the full episode of Mixing Up Success, and find more at https://www.daniskitchenshop.com/podcast
Need help dialing in your bakery pricing and profitability? Join our online class Price it right: https://www.daniskitchenshop.com/price-it-right
Want to join Dani at the Kitchen table monthly? Learn more about her Live monthly calls here.
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