Hiring: Morning pastry

WE ARE NO LONGER TAKING RESUMES FOR THIS POSITION! THANKS!

Baker (Morning Pastry)

Schedule: Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sat 4am-10am (or until finish, up to 40 hours per week)

Start date: the week of January 29th

The job we have open is for an early shift baker. This will include all morning pastries, yeasted doughs, danishes, cakes, cupcakes, doughnuts, etc. The perfect candidate will be able to work well and quickly alone, budget their time properly, follow a list, keep a clean work area, arrive at work on time, consistently turn out quality products, follow a recipe, convert a recipe, and create new vegan recipes. A full job description will be given during interviews, but basically we are looking for someone to train directly with me (Lisa) and Katie to bake our current recipes plus develop new ones. We are trying to push the bakery in a new direction and need a motivated, talented person to do this with us. This position will encompass all types of baking and decorating at times, from muffins to wedding cakes.

The position is not currently full time, but most likely will be by March, as wedding season kicks in.

The base pay rate for the position is $10.00/hr, but will be decided based on the candidate’s history, experience and training.

No previous commercial baking experience is required for this position. (I didn’t have any when I started.) BUT! Resumes with experience may be considered over resumes without. If you don’t have experience, please include a cover letter explaining WHY we should hire you with no experience. It is also strongly preferred that the right candidate is vegan, as you will be baking all vegan pastries and creating new vegan recipes.

The 4am start time for this position is non-negotiable. If you can’t get to work on time at 4am, don’t apply. The week days are subject to change, the schedule listed is our current need.

New Year, Big Changes

Ah, a new year and a fresh start! Since the world is going to end this year, I figure I should squeeze in everything I’ve ever wanted to do at the bakery before I run out of time. Some big changes are in our very near future, and while the details aren’t all ironed out yet, I want to let everyone know three big things that are happening. (And I’m kidding about the world ending thing, that’s all made up, right?)

Number one: We are raising our prices. I KNOW! This sucks. We have gone through TWO coffee wholesale price increases without raising our prices, and some of our drinks are seriously under-priced at this point and we are losing money. We have also watched flour, sugar, and pretty much everything else we bake with get more and more expensive over the last couple years, some of it doubling in cost. On top of that, many distributors are charging large delivery fees to cover high gas prices. I’ve held out as long as I can, but it is time for us to add those costs into our products so we can stay in business. Yes, our prices may be a bit higher than a non-vegan bakery, but the products we use in baking are not as widely available as traditional ingredients like butter and eggs, and the replacements for these items (Earth Balance, Tofutti, etc.) aren’t cheap.

Number two: At the beginning of February, we will no longer be serving our all-you-can-eat Sunday Brunch. I know that some of you are having a heart attack right now (I’m sorry Paul!) and I hope you will forgive me when you read number three. I have LOVED serving brunch for the last four years, and it was exactly what I wanted it to be – a time and place when many different people crowded together over vegan food and shared tables and made new friends. I always wanted it to be a community meet-up, and I feel like, for many people, that’s exactly what it has been. It has also helped me develop what I think are the best vegan biscuits ever. On the down side, it has been a scheduling nightmare for us, as well as being completely unpredictable. Some weeks are insane, and some are so dead we hear crickets, but we always have to buy the same amount of food because we never know how many people will show. So sometimes we run out after an hour (this sucks!), and sometimes we compost food to feed an army (this sucks more!). So, the next four brunches listed on the right of this page will be our last four ever.

Number three: I have saved the good news for last, which is that starting at the beginning of February, we will be serving breakfast 7 days a week. Our biscuits aren’t going away, they’re just becoming something new! We are no where near finished with the menu, but as soon as it is done I will post it far and wide. It will definitely feature biscuits and gravy, biscuit breakfast sandwiches and other quick breakfast items, that you can grab to-go or eat here. It will also have several Gluten Free options. We’ll be remodeling the sandwich menu at the same time, to add some new favorites and more salads. More info on all of this soon.

I know this is a lot of news at once. I spent a lot of time away from the bakery in the last year since I had a baby, but I’m really happy to be back and I have renewed motivation to help us be the best we can be. You may have already noticed some changes (new pastry case! palmiers!) and there will be a lot more to come. We are going to focus on having new and exciting pastries regularly, and making sure our pastries are baked daily in small quantities so we can ensure freshness and quality for all of our customers. We’ve also spent some extra time on our espresso training this fall, so come try a espresso drink if you haven’t had one in awhile.

Thanks to all of our loyal customers, and all of our new customers this last year too! All of you eating and shopping locally makes a big difference in all of our lives, and we love seeing your faces. We also know that Portland has a lot of amazing vegan food choices and we really appreciate it every time you stop by the bakery, and the mini-mall.

xoxo – Lisa

p.s. A list of vegan baking and cake decorating classes that I’ll be teaching at the bakery this spring is coming soon!!

Holiday Hours and Gift Certificate Sale

As usual around Christmas, we have some shortened hours and a few days that we will be closed to let you know about. Our staff works hard through the holidays and most of them take vacations for Christmas, so we’ll be a bit short staffed, hence the shorter than usual hours.

Dec 24th: 8am-2pm

Dec 25th: CLOSED

Dec 26th CLOSED (for repairs and maintenance)

Dec 27th CLOSED (for repairs and maintenance)

Dec 28th – Dec 31: 8am-6pm

January 1st: 10am-4pm BRUNCH FROM 10am-1pm

We’re also having a Gift Certificate sale, so snag them up for Christmas presents! You can call us from far away and buy one over the phone, and we’ll mail them to your Portland friends for you.

$20 for a $25 certificate

$43 for a $50 certificate

$65 for a $75 certificate

Get them now through Dec 24th!

Thanksgivig Pre-Order

It’s time! The info is below, and our staff is waiting to take your order. 503-477-5916. Oh, and if you call and get some weird “voicemail is not set up” message, it’s because we are on the other line (and we don’t have voicemail) so just call back in a couple minutes. As always, we will have extras of most items, but they will be in limited quantity so it is better to reserve them ahead of time. Thanks! (The combo deal serves 6-8 people.)

It’s Pumpkin Pie Time!

You can officially start calling today to place orders for you holiday pumpkin pies! Tomorrow I will also post our other Thanksgiving offerings after we finalize it all this afternoon.

This year we will have available for pre-order:

Pumpkin Pie (made with spelt flour as always) $12 (serves 8 – 10, or 2 depending on the size of your stomach)

Oregon Berry Crisp  (this is gluten free!) $12 (serves eight )

Shoofly Pie (Amish molasses crumb pie, Lisa’s favorite!) $12

Pumpkin Cheesecake (made with spelt, serves 10-12) $35

Our famous Dinner Rolls (very glutinous, one dozen) $5

We will also have limited supplies of Apple Pie, Pecan Pie, and Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie, on a first come first serve basis.

Oh, Holidays, we are so excited to see you!

Closed Monday Aug 15th

We’re all going out to have some fun, but we’ll be back on Tuesday! And maybe when we’re back I’ll write an actual blog post, and not just a closure notice. That would be nice.

Closed for the 4th!

We are closed today, for cleaning and repairs. And for fireworks! Open regular hours again tomorrow.

Hello summer!

What a great year it’s been so far! I think we can hesitantly say that we are coming out of last year’s horrible slump, and things are looking up. We been working on expanding our offerings a bit, and that should be really obvious in our pastry case this summer, with lots of new items, and the return of some old ones. We can also announce the return of iced tea, and iced toddy coffee!

Most excitingly, we’re now offering more options for special order cakes. We are adding a line of erotic cakes, which we’ve actually been making for quite awhile, we just haven’t really advertised it. There will be more info on our Bakery Selections page very soon! Now even your bachelor and bachelorette parties can be vegan (and even gluten free)! (I want to post a picture of one SO BAD, but I’ll let you just head over to our Flickr photos to see them instead.)

We are also expanding our decorating options for all special order cakes, so your birthday, anniversary, bar mitzvah, or arbor day cakes can be like one of those fancy cakes you see on the TV. Well, to some extent anyway. We are now offering stacked cakes and fondant decoration options! Please call us with your ordering and pricing questions, because of the added time it takes to make fancier cakes, we are handling each one individually as far as pricing and design is concerned.

We have lots of great new pictures on our Flickr page, of recent cakes as well as the start of our wedding season. Please take a look! We still have some summer wedding dates open, so call to set up a free tasting as well.

4/23, big day!

We’ve been looking forward to tomorrow all week! Tomorrow is the Food Fight edition of the World-Wide Vegan Bake Sale, where you will see me being really excited to eat other people’s baked goods, which at 9.5 months pregnant I can eat as many as I want. It’s at the mini-mall in the Food Fight warehouse, which is around the back in our parking lot. I made batches of my biscuit mix to sell at the bake sale, with instructions for how to make our delicious biscuits from the mix. MMMM. More bake sale info on the Food Fight page here. Or you can look at this adorable poster that Mr. Kurt Halsey made for the event.

Coincidentally, tomorrow is also time for the huge Earth Day event that happens across the street at the park. We are in no way involved/associated with this event, but it’s there, and apparently very kid friendly. More info on it here: earthday.cityrepair.org

We ordered extra bagels for tomorrow, and made a whole bunch of grab-and go sandwiches in case you just want to pop in and out, as well as easter items, like sugar cookies, and other fun stuff!

PLUS, if you are one of those “I like the rain” fakers and haven’t been checking the weather every single day to find out where the sun is, it is supposed to be 68 DEGREES AND SUNNY tomorrow. Oh, and we got some new outside furniture for you to try out. And I will be working in the morning hours tomorrow, so please come by and tell me how to get this baby out of me, because I am READY.

Valentine’s Day

Oh man, who hasn’t updated the blog in forever? When I find out who it is, they’re so fired.

Valentine’s day is in 3 days! We’ve been making heart shaped sugar cookies for weeks, and the rest of the fun starts tomorrow. Here are your options:

Flowers! My friend Leela from Bright Designlab is bringing us roses again. A single stem, wrapped with greenery will be $6. I believe we will have a selection of lovely colors to choose from.

Cookies! Our oh so delicious heart shaped sugar cookies are $1.50 each, as always. This year, we will write whatever you’d like on them, if we can fit it on the cookie. Call ahead with your order and we’ll have it ready to pickup, or you can walk in and ask, but if it’s after 3pm you might have to get the messy handwriting of the on-duty barista. Who doesn’t need an “I’m pregnant!” or “It’s over!” or “Yo Boo” cookie?

Box ‘o’ chocolates Cake! These are so cute, it kills me! A heart shaped vanilla or chocolate cake, decorated to look like a little box of chocolates. Filled with cake ball truffles. You can eat everything but the ribbon. And I imagine that the paper truffle liners are probably edible, but I wouldn’t recommend it. They serve 2 people, and are $18.

eat your heart out

Sorry for the blurry cell phone photo, Katie will send me a better “real camera” photo soon I hope. We’ll have some other random Valentine’s day stuff as well, like cupcakes, 6 inch heart cakes, mini heart cheesecakes, homemade caramels, and lots of pre-made sugar cookies, both mean and nice. Drop in and get something for yourself, or your sweetie. I bought myself a box of chocolates from Food Fight, but they didn’t make it ’til Valentine’s Day. And did you know that Herbivore has SHOES now?! They’re so great, stop in there and check them out!