How it all began

After working in hospitality management for over 10 years (where Adam & Rachel met) Rachel always enjoyed baking at home for friends and family. She set up the business in summer 2020 after leaving her management role, baking in our tiny kitchen at home and making delivery runs across York & Ryedale during lockdown. 

It was a huge risk but with the support and encouragement from friends, family and her husband Adam, she set up her own business and was willing to work every hour to make it a success. Our first orders were to a local doctors surgery where a close friend's mum - Annie, worked and alongside her encouragement to go for it and set up the business, had offered to be guinea pigs for any new recipes and bakes, our first paying customers.

Rachel was very lucky at the time to have a close friend from University, Vanessa, who owned her own interior design & decorating business so in between baking she would be painting houses and businesses across North Yorkshire for extra income whilst having fun catching up and putting the world to rights with a close friend.

As business grew we began doing pop ups at Christmas Markets, sending out postal orders, making celebration cakes and supplying wholesale bakes to local businesses, and the demand kept coming.

In January 2022 we saw one of our favourite bakeries Flori on Walmgate was up to let due to relocation. At this point we were in no position to get a premises , although it was something we hoped for further down the line. But we had a gut feeling that it was the perfect size and location so we went to view the space and after viewing our gut feeling was even stronger so we went for it because life really is too short not to try. 

We got the keys on 28th February 2022 and began work 1st March, after  a crazy 6 weeks of doing all the work, mostly ourselves with help from friends, we opened on Good Friday 2022. We were so grateful to every single customer who walked through the doors, to the ones who made a purchase, to those who wished us good luck and those that told us how great the place looked. We were so excited to be open. 

After a great first year , Adam left his job to become joint partner in the business. After helping out most evenings and days off it was more practical to have us both there, a little married baker duo... we survived 24/7 together in lockdown 2020, not long after our wedding in 2019, so surely we could handle this too. 

Fast forward to 2025 , 3 years has flown and we have just renewed the lease for 66 Walmgate and have big dreams for the future. We are so grateful to all our amazing customers, we are very lucky to not have to rely on tourism as some other businesses do as we have such a strong local following including lots of students and local businesses plus residents from all over York & beyond. 

It really is hard work, physically & mentally, I think we have aged 10 years in the past 3 and we have had to sacrifice things like holiday time and seeing friends and family less often but it is 100% worth it and now we are in a better position where we can start to do these things more often again as we have a strong team of 8 amazing staff including 3 full time bakers. Let's keep manifesting for business number 2, 3 or more in the future... we have big plans we just need to find the right places.

Thank you all again so much for your continued support

Rachel & Adam