From weekend pop-ups, to a kiosk in a shared workspace to her very own brick and mortar store front, in less that two years — and she did it all in the midst of a pandemic!
We stan a queen with a booming scalable, profitable business!
Known for her over-sized and uber delicious cookies, doughnuts and pastries Chef Ivana Moncur is making boss moves with her popular and well-loved pastry shop Bakehouse. With lines that wrap around the building, a constant overflow of customers and the most delicious sweet treats on the island, Bakehouse has experienced a massive growth spurt in its short almost-two year stint.
They’ve recently relocated their sweet shop to the Old Fort Town Center in a brick and mortar that Chef Ivana says she’s dreamed about for years.
“This is definitely a dream come true! I’m so excited to see the massive growth we’ve had in such a short time and in the middle of a pandemic. We’re so fortunate to be able to elevate the brand and business in the way that we have. We’re happy to be in a new home, we’re happy to meet new customers, who become like family and we’re so so lucky that our tried and true clients have followed us to our new space.”
The cute and quaint store has all the makings of a modern day bakery, the likes of what you’d see in places like California, New York, Colorado and even France. Clean lines, loads of neutrals, light and easy-on-the-eye decor leaves lots of room for your senses to take in the wads of blueberry lemon compote, cookie dough batches, brown butter toasted pecan and almond croissant bakes coming from the kitchen. Ivana says nothing but quality ingredients and love go into the products.
“If you’ve ever had a Bakehouse product, then you know there’s nothing like a Bakehouse product. One of the things we pride ourselves on is the fact that we bake our pastries fresh, every single day! Nothing is left for the next day. If we do have leftovers we donate them or give them away to our neighbours. We pride ourselves on quality and ensuring that every single customer gets a freshly made bite. We also bake in small batches because we don’t even want the products sitting on the shelf too long. So we do a fresh bake every two to three hours. We source and buy the best of the best ingredients, some we even have to ship in monthly because they’re not sold here. It’s that serious for us!”
On scaling her business in such a short time, Ivana says:
“It’s all God, it’s all our customers! It’s because of them our company has seen such massive growth that has allowed us to open our own doors just a-year-and-a-half after our first Saturday pop-up. We work hard to ensure that every single customer experiences the, “wow!” of Bakehouse and because we succeeded there, we’ve just kept on growing. We knew it was time to get our own space, our customers were asking for it, we needed more space in the kitchen as the demands grew and…we did that!”
Bakehouse is located in the Old Fort Town Center, Old Fort Bay and is opened Tuesday to Saturday 9am to 5pm. Bakehouse shares a space with new handcrafted ice cream company Mudda Freeze.