The Schenk’s Family Bakery inspired a simple mid-century feel for our ‘Save My Bakery’ design makeover.
Family businesses are truly special. Filled with a mesh of personalities who can be as real-as-it-gets because it’s family, the family business that thrived more than 75 years like the Schenk’s Family Bakery has earned a gargantuan amount of respect from us. So, we were honored to have the opportunity to help make over this family business.
For all of the previous episodes of ‘Save My Bakery’ I’ve selected a new color palette and rearranged the floorplan to improve the customer experience. But, for Schenk’s, I wanted to focus more on what happens behind the counter. And wanted to use the kinds of colors they already had in the bakery, because I think that shades of blue and orange can work well together here. (And, to the delight of my general contractor husband and our hard-working team, we still rearranged the floorplan behind the counter.)
My two objectives were to increase efficiency and to decrease clutter.
Clutter is easy to remove. As part of the show, the bakery staff clears out everything that isn’t nailed down.
Increasing efficiency is more challenging. I wanted to move elements behind the counter, to make it easier to everyone to work.
For the last dozen years, the cake decorator was located in the hallway next to the door to the front of the shop. Yes, hallway.
Her stool was in the walking path, so people bumped her all day long, and she has had things fall off of shelves from above and ruin her cakes. She also keeps her supplies in a ‘closet’ that is less than 2’ wide. As the look of the product is essential these days, it was time for her to be in a better area.
We opened up one of the walls to create a new area for the cake decorator to work that is out of the walking path in the bakery. And created a little window for her to see—and be seen. We also created a new office area to consolidate the office items that are spread apart in the bakery, and give the decorator space to store her supplies.
In order to help highlight the cake decorator’s area, I chose a textured panel and painted it in a soft Avid Apricot hue from Sherwin-Williams. The rest of the space was painted in Dollop of Cream with Down Pour blue as accents on the new shelving and as the main color for the new logo and exterior signs.
The bakery shelves behind the counter were updated from the standard bakery shelving to add charm to the shop. We moved the refrigerator and tables that are blocking the view into the bakery from the street. We replaced the folding tables and added a low shelf around the front of the counters to give the owners their top request: That customers have more ‘grab-and-go’ options. We readjusted the entire back counter area to fit the refrigerator, and give the bakery an unobstrusive way to display their cold products. And even though my objective was for the owners and workers to have an easier experience working in the bakery, these changes also opened up the front of the shop, giving the customers more space and greater access to the bakery’s items.
My favorite part of the design elements is the light. I found this 10 1/2″ blue glass Possini Euro Darby light with a vintage style Edison bulb at LampsPlus.
In every episode of ‘Save My Bakery’ I’ve used a different type of cake pedestal, baskets, platters, and plates to make sure each bakery makeover looks distinctive. And since each family is truly different, it isn’t hard to be inspired by their stories to create unique looks. For Schenk’s Family Bakery, I used candle holders from Ikea and spray painted them in a gold metallic finish. And then used JB Weld to secure simple white plates to the tops. The result is an elegant pedestal that looks like it cost much more than $10.
[…] a friend of MyFixitUpLife. I couldn’t have done what I designed for the Food Network series ‘Save My Bakery’ without their spray paint. When faced with a 48-hour project turnaround in thundersnow, dry times […]
[…] is a friend of MyFixitUpLife. I couldn’t have done what I designed for the Food Network series ‘Save My Bakery’ without their spray paint. When faced with a 48-hour project turnaround in thundersnow, dry times […]