 Good morning, my name is Katie Jett and I'm a 4-H state ambassador for Alabama for the 2021 Ambassador program and I live in Lawrence County where I love to go eat at our local bakery a Couple years ago. We didn't have a bakery or anything like it So I was super excited when we got one and it actually opened on my birthday a couple years ago So I loved it then I love it now and here with me I have the owner and Ms. Chantel Rogers is going to tell us a little bit about what it's like in her bakery So good morning, mr. Rogers. Good morning So I have a couple questions for you. So I guess I'll just jump right in What was your major in college? Well, um Actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna go back and regress for a second. I co-own it with my mother So I'm gonna kind of give you some of her information as well My major in college was computer networking and troubleshooting And that's what my degree is in my mother is an rn and that's what her degree is Oh, okay. My mom's actually an rn, but I don't think she could own a bakery with it. She's always been a nurse, but Um, next question is what's it like a day as a baker? Very busy our days start very early in the morning And because my mother and I co-own it we are able to share that workload, which is wonderful Um, I just actually got off of work. I started my work around 1 30 in the morning Um, we are a bakery, but we are more of a donut shop than a bakery Some of our items are baked, but the majority of our items are donuts many people don't realize that most donuts are fried and um, I started at one in the morning with the dough There's a long process for dough to get ready to be cooked Whether you're baking it or frying it either way when it there's yeast involved and it's a chemical process So a day in the life of a baker if I was doing it all by myself I would get up at one I would go in I'd get the dough going for the raised donuts and the raised products that we bake as well And you let it mix in multiple speeds at multiple time intervals Then when it's done mixing you pull it out and you let it raise for so long And then you do what's called gassing it where you get all the air bubbles out of it and get it all beat down And then you let it raise again, and then we roll them out. We roll them by hand We cut them by hand We form all our pastries by hand and then we cook them in the different types of cooking and different temperatures different time periods that they cook for And by about 7 30 in the morning everything is cooked just about some of the baked goods still have yet to be cooked and they're cooked just a little bit longer later and That's where we go. We start Icing donuts that are coming off as as they've cooled. We start icing those About 4 30 in the morning. I have customers start coming in around 4 30 in the morning And it's just an interesting process So if I were to stay there and like I said I left because my mom came in and she took over the front counter and the icing and all that um with our employees and It's you stay and you greet the customers and you wait on them and you help them make their decisions on what they would Like to get and prepare breakfast sandwiches on fresh made croissants or fresh made biscuits and Just so much to do during the day as well, but it's a it's a long day. It's a very long day Cooking and baking is a long process if it's done correctly I didn't know how so much work went into it really. I just throw like your donuts, but Well, thank you. There's a reason you like them and that's because It's all handmade and I'm not going to throw any stones at any other companies Most of your mom and pop shops are the ones that are taking the time to do them properly most chain Donut shops are not Made in home in house or if they're made in house they're made through computer and machine made and And you can google it if you want to google your favorite chain Donut shop you can google it and it tells you they're very clear on their process one Popular chain all theirs are made in a warehouse frozen and shipped out to their stores and then they're cooked in those stores Some are already cooked and they are just defrosted and served Another popular chain theirs are made in house, but all the ingredients are pre-measured and Dumped and then a machine does all the process all the way through until an employee takes them off of the glazer And and serves them or ices them So it makes a difference to have the dough freshly made every night. It can be interesting sometimes the flour reacts differently with the liquid ingredients you put in and the The eggs and the yeast and all that sometimes your yeast is more active. It's it's a living culture Sometimes it's more active and sometimes the donuts get huge Sometimes it's not as active sometimes If you're not gentle enough with the dough because it's a very tender dough you can actually Suppress it too much so that they don't raise properly and they're thick and dense. So it's quite um Quite chemistry. I keep going back into that baking is chemistry And you have different outcomes depending on how you treat the ingredients and the the chemicals Well, um, what's the best thing about your job? Oh, I actually love love my job. Um I don't know that I can say one best thing I love my customers. I love it when your family comes in I I've gotten to watch kids. We've been open. You said a couple years time flies, babe We've been open six years this month and I watched yeah, no It's hard to believe so many people come and say really it's been that long it has I've watched kids grow up. I've watched babies be born and now they're in Starting school and coming in before school Um, I love the sense of community that we have I love The dough I love being in the quiet at night and making the dough myself and going in and just that process were very Religious in our private lives outside of our business. Well, even our business. We don't mind to bring God into our business but That quiet time when I'm alone in the kitchen at night and I can just meditate and watch the dough grow and Watch it happen in that scripture of a little yeast leaven at the whole lump It really means something when you understand how yeast works and it's really applicable to life But that quiet time. I enjoy that I enjoy the frying and watching the dough Become something and a finished product. I enjoy the pretty decorating part We get a lot of orders for some unique donuts and being creative and icing Coming up with new recipes being creative in that way. That's a lot of fun new flavors and Not just a sense of community with customers, but no one usually leaves a donut shop with a frown on their face Unless we sold out of their favorite one. So I get to make people happy every day They come in and they get what they love and I get to be a part of that and that is always so much fun So there's a lot to love about what I do Yeah, you said it's been open six years. I did not realize that I guess My 10th birthday and I just turned 16. So yeah That's me. Um What is the largest order you ever filled? Do you have a specific crazy order that you thought of? We have done huge orders. I'm talking 20 30 dozens and I mean you think that's a 12 known as each. So we've done massive orders. Um And there's there's unique orders where we've done them for weddings that are unique custom color icings And we do a lot of those we do Um, I wouldn't say Yeah, 20 to 30 dozen at a time. That's probably our largest Over six years all kinds of runs together um When you talk about orders and massive quantities, I will say that the holidays are our busiest times Um, and we get to have fun with the donuts. We do especially ice donuts for every holidays You know, we have the easter donuts and the valentines donuts and thanksgiving Halloween Christmas All the fun stuff for the July. So we usually make massive amounts of those things. Um, but those aren't for one person So I say we've had some large groups. We've had the school come in order for teachers or for the students And there's usually quite a few donuts ordered at one time Well, uh 30 dozens is a lot But anyway, what is your favorite item on your menu? Oh I see that is a difficult difficult question people ask me this all the time and It would change by the season probably But it's an interesting question and I'm gonna kind of blow your mind a little bit I don't really eat my donuts because about Four years ago now I ate them all the time. Um about four years ago I realized that I can't eat gluten that a lot of problems I was having health wise work because I was eating gluten And it is completely out of my diet now. I do not I'm not allergic to touch it A lot of there's people that have a high sensitivity to it. I don't so what I do is I taste everything and then Sounds gross, but I spit it out. I can't ingest it But I still taste everything um to make sure that the prop that it's properly tasting right You know, you can't serve something if you don't taste it make sure it tastes right Um, but my favorite. Oh lord have mercy katie. Oh my goodness I like the apple fritters when I'm in the mood for that. They're delicious They're picking the blankets are to die for collages is what a lot of people call them We call them picking the blankets The croissants are buttery and delicious and a lot of things that I love We don't actually have on the menu. They're kind of I guess would be secret menu items um If you ask for today in advance you can have a glaze cinnamon croissant And they're amazing. You can have a chocolate croissant. We'll stuff a croissant fresh out of the oven with chocolate chips And drizzle glaze on it. It is oh heavenly, but it's not on our menu because it's It's not very something that we could sell a lot of it's not You know just common, but there's a lot of things we do for people that There are special requests. We did maple bacon donuts. We do. Oh, they're so good So how do people even think about a chocolate croissant? Did you tell somebody or did they just have the idea and you started doing it for them? No, that's something we have a chocolate croissant I've been to paris and a chocolate croissant is delicious. I've had them in france So when we make our croissants up, I'll sneak sometimes I used to and would make me one and me and my mom would always split it It was so good. But yeah, that's actually a real thing. It's just We don't sell Not less is requested and we will and that's the cool thing about owning my own business and not being bound by a chain or Rules and mandates on my own boss and I can make whatever I want whenever I want I do have gluten-free products. They're by special order only Um, because there's not that big of a market in our small town for that I'm probably one of a handful of people that truly can't eat gluten in our in our city So is there a special menu like actually printed up or is it just you just gotta know about it? You ask it will make it pretty much Well, I'm gonna have to keep that in mind I didn't realize that but yeah Um, what gave you the inspiration to start your donut shop? Well, I love donuts My mom loves donuts. Uh, we lived about 45 minutes from the Closest donut shop when I was growing up in Texas in a small town And it was um a big chain donut shop It's not one that was local to here when it's just now starting to really become popular here but it was popular in Texas and We would go about every two weeks to the large town that had it to do some of our main grocery shopping And my mother would always stop And get a dozen donuts and bring them home And we would eat like two or three that day and then we would freeze the rest and over the next two weeks We would defrost whenever now and then and that would be like a treat And so from a young age that was a treat for us. We love donuts And then as I got older in Texas, um, little chains of donut shops that still did the donuts the way we do But it became more popular and in Texas just about every little town has at least one donut shop on the corner And so through high school and college donuts were just a normal breakfast food in Texas They're everywhere And I actually worked at a donut shop when I was in college and I loved it. I loved love the process I moved here in 2003 and I got married. I was working in the computer industry Um and there wasn't a donut shop anywhere the closest donut shop was actually in Huntsville And they built it was a chain a large Um national chain and they built one in Florence not long after that And I'm really not fond of their donuts because I wasn't raised on that style of donut The glaze was more than what I like. I like a thin glaze and their glaze is quite thick And my husband loves loved their donuts And so we would stop anytime we were in Huntsville or Florence and pick up some of those for him And I would nibble on I'd be like, yeah, it's okay. It's good But it's not what I grew up having and so I had a major craving for that And anytime I went home, I would eat donuts. Well, my mom still lives in Texas And I told her mama, we've got to open a donut shop. These people don't know what they're missing So when she decided to move here to be close to me we Even though she transferred her nursing lessons here and I was working computers We thought it would be really neat to open one up. So she went to the local Mama bought donut shop there in her town and said, hey Can I train with you? Will you teach me everything you're doing? I'm not coming in competition with you I am moving 12 hours away and my daughter and I and they Said sure so she came in at night and they taught her everything they did she moved here And her and my uncle actually decided they were doing it. He thought he wanted to retire He did it for about a year and decided he wanted to go back and he was a computer engineer He wanted to go back to computer engineering and not be a bakery. It just wasn't his cup of tea So I bought his half of the donut shop and it has been wonderful ever since so that's kind of our inspiration that we just We love donuts. We love baking. We love bakeries Anytime we would go on a family vacation even to this day when we go on a family vacation We look up the local bakeries and we go visit them donut shops bakeries all of it. We've like I said when I was in France I went crazy. I went to all the bakeries. I love it and Same thing for my mom. So it's just it's a passion of ours Yeah, I think that's neat how y'all came y'all didn't grow up cooking donuts for everybody know Being an rn and being in computers and then you made such a successful business Which is so hard to do in lump county. It seems like So that is neat But do you have plans to expand your business or do you want to keep it local? Or do you have an idea? Well, we do. Um, we've talked about expansion in several different areas geographically expanding and opening another shop or two And that's been in the works for about three years. We've talked about it. We've looked at different locations We actually we're looking at a shop in another major town a lot larger Um, we have the ability to do so as far as um employees that are trained well and that can help us do that um It seems like everything we every time we try to step into doing that the time is just not right something happens um The building we were looking at in two different major cities something happened with the buildings both times that they become became unavailable and so That kind of we're just waiting on god's time is the way to put that we we believe Like I said, we're religious and and a lot of people don't think uh god is a place in business where We're opposite. We don't believe it's our business. We believe it's god's business and when it's his time and he wants it to grow then we'll grow And that's kind of where we're at on it. We um We would love to expand we would love to expand our hours right now. We're open from officially 5 30 until noon um Like I said, though, I have customers coming in at 4 30 on the way to work or on the way home from work when they work at the plants and things like that But um, we close at noon unless we sell out and that does happen as well. We'll close early We're closed mondays and sundays sundays for church and mondays for rest so It's expanding into a larger city also means that we'll have to give up some of that freedom We probably won't be able to close on sundays and mondays when there's a larger client base customer base Um, I don't know maybe guys just saying we've got enough right now and we do we have a great time We'd also like to expand what we offer as far as our our products We have talked about going into cakes right now. I mentioned a gluten-free products I have brownies that are gluten-free that are available in their divine Um, we've tried selling cookies. We've tried different baked items that are so delicious and very popular With a select few the problem is we can't Be successful with only a select few taking products like that when we try to expand into another product line So we keep just going back to the donuts that are very successful and there's a market for them um We don't want to try to do too much and spread ourselves too thin and Put ourselves out of business if that makes sense. We offer too much. It's It puts a problem there. We would like to expand our products into lunch products We would like to have a deli offering and things like that but um We just can't seem to make a go of it every time we we want to expand into that something Like I said steps in a way on that too as well And so we're just trying to follow and and feel after the lord in that leading because like we said We believe it's his business and we're just stewards of it So yes, we would love to expand But we're going to be patient and wait on the lord If it doesn't happen, that's okay because I live in lump's county, but Um Finally, um, what's owning a baker your dream job? Did you always have it in the back of your mind? That's what you wanted to be or did it just kind of happen like you said earlier? Oh my goodness I don't want to say no, but I don't want to say yes either because I don't have one dream. It's funny. Um I come from a line of entrepreneurial people. My father has owned many businesses. Um He's in retirement And just started a new business here. He moved here as well He's just moved here within the last six months and has a new business here It has nothing to do with food and nothing to do with what his former career was that he was very lucrative and successful in He's still dabbles in that but he totally new business for retirement Um, my mother has owned multiple businesses in the healthcare industry Worked many many different positions as an rn And it's funny that I don't have a dream job. I'm in I'm loving what I'm doing now But I'm ready to go back to college and get another degree believe it or not I've already told my daughters when they go to college in a few years Um, mom's going with you. I'm ready to get I'm I'm I'm not just a baker I'm also a pastor's wife a music minister. I'm a foster mom and Do the donut shop as well. I'm very dizzy and I love it I love all of it and I'm ready to go back and get my my degree in family counseling Actually, I want to go get a psychology degree in family counseling And if you were to ask me what I said I wanted to do as a high school student I would have told you I want to be a child psychologist and Those those plans change don't Don't feel like what you want to do right now will never happen or that you have to do it first There are a lot of steps they like to get you where you're going And I wouldn't even say that being a child psychologist is what I want to do now Even as a foster mom. I love what I do in all the areas of my life, but I'm really um I love I love making people happy and whatever that takes in whatever avenue That's that's my dream job is making people happy and You can't make everybody happy all the time. You got to realize that too When I was little me and my sisters talked about how my two older sisters are talking about how we're gonna Open a family bakery because we didn't have one and then here come the donut shop like hey We can do other stuff with our lives because now we have a donut shop. So I guess everything turns out good Or y'all could just open a shrewsbury too There we go. Oh I Love your shop. Like I said, I go there a lot of times in the mornings for school Or bring a couple to teachers or stuff like that and it's a good inexpensive way to show. Thank yous or Something like that. So thank you for all you do and for meeting with us today and telling us