December 26, 2023 • 35 mins
Remember the early days of COVID-19 lockdowns when, practically overnight, it seemed that every shop closed its doors? Do you remember how all of those small businesses you might have taken for granted – the ones that gave life and an identity to your community – suddenly felt essential to you? Tim watched lots of small businesses in his small town in New Jersey struggle, including his favorite local bakery, Montclair Bread Company.
We first published this episode back in March, marking three years since the initial lockdowns in the US. But the holiday season is the most important time of year for small businesses, so it feels fitting to share this episode again now. In this episode, Tim tracks the trials and tribulations this unimaginable public health and economic crisis threw at the bakery and its owner, Rachel Wyman.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Tim. We're on vacation this week, but
the Crash Course team wanted to reair an episode we
had fun making about a small business in my hometown.
We published this episode around the third anniversary of the
initial COVID nineteen lockdowns back in March, but the holiday
season is the most important time of year for small businesses,
(00:21):
so it feels fitting to share this episode again. Now,
thanks for listening, and happy holidays. We'll see you next year.
Now here's the show. If you're ever invited to visit
a bakery at four o'clock in the morning, I highly
recommend you do it, but here's a warning. You might
get put to work. I can handle those, okay, I
(00:42):
can handle those, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And you just dip it in. You just don't want
it to get like too much of a globby math,
so you just sort of like there and.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
One of these called strawberry sprinkle donuts.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Strawberry sprinkle donuts.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Amazing, Okay, I'm now I'm gonna dip a bunch of
donuts into strawberry glaze and then put sprinkles on.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Top of it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's my duty for today. However much I enjoyed my
brief internship as a baker with Amy. That wasn't the
main event for me. I was there to talk to
the bakery's owner, Rachel Wyman, and she came bearing treats.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
You want to be ruined for the rest of your life?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeahs ruined me for the rest of my life. Oh gosh,
a hot blazed donut.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I have literally a hot glazed donut that was just
put in my palm on a piece of wax paper
that looks like Nirvana. And I'm gonna go ruin myself
for a minute because Rachel invited me to do that,
and I'm gonna have this donnu. Welcome to Crash Course,
a podcast about business, political, and social disruption and what
we can learn from it. I'm Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash
(01:44):
Course small Businesses versus the Pandemic. Three years after the
COVID nineteen lockdowns, I invite you to think back to
those early days.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
COVID nineteen can be characterized as a pandemic.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
All but promises that the coronavirus will spread. Here today,
I am officially declaring a national emergency.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Only essential businesses will be functioning.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
All businesses will need to shut down.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Remember when practically overnight it seemed that every shop closed
its doors. You remember how all of those small businesses
you might have taken for granted, the ones that gave
life and an identity to your community, suddenly felt essential
to you. I sure do. Montclair Bread Company was one
of those shops. For me. It's souredaugh bread was a
(02:35):
staple on my family's dinner table, and it's maple bacon
donuts are the best in the world. As I watched
lots of small businesses in my small town in New
Jersey struggle, I didn't want the bakery to disappear. I
didn't want any of those stores to close. So I
started writing about them in their fight, just a few
businesses among tens of millions across the country that faced
(02:57):
an existential crisis because of COVID nine nineteen and I
started with Rachel Wyman, the owner of Montclair Brett. I
learned that she'd overcome so much a bad marriage, a
terrible bike accident, and money problems. Yet she found the
strength to leave her husband and raise her three children
on her own. And even though she had very little
(03:19):
Rachel chose just about the riskiest career you could imagine
the small business owner she had Moxie. I kept in
touch with her and watched her take on the trials
and tribulations of the pandemic threw at her. What I
didn't understand when I first got to know her back
in twenty twenty was that I would end up following
her journey for nearly three years through an unimaginable public
(03:42):
health and economic crisis. This is that story.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know. I've been thinking about this so much recently
because you know, we're coming up on the anniversary of that,
and all these pictures are popping up from February twenty twenty,
like me and the kids, and it's like, God, we
had no idea, we had no clue what was going
to happen in just a couple weeks.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
When you're looking at those pictures, are you looking at
like the faces of people on the deck of the Titanic?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yes, yeah, exactly, I am. And I think, you know,
I still think that I suffer like PTSD from that
from twenty twenty, and I just can't let go of
a lot of things that happened during that year. As
you know, an essential service worker. It's been really hard
for me to go back to you know, status quo.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Before we hop back in time to the early days
of the pandemic, we should probably hop a little further
back in Rachel's story so you can understand how much
was on the line for her. She's earned everything she has.
Rachel grew up with little money in rural Maryland, worked
her way through school, and fell in love with bread
and pastries. After a state in France, she went to
(05:02):
the Culinary Institute of America, baked with some of the
biggest names in the bread business, and then decided to
go off on her own. She started by giving away
bread to moms in her yoga class, and then tried
breaking in through local farmers markets. Then one of those
moms told her about a local bakery for sale.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I pitched it to the moms who had been picking
up bread at my apartment, and they gave me the
money that I needed to get going.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So your seed capital were your moms, Yeah, yeah, moms
who were coming off for bread exactly?
Speaker 6 (05:34):
And how much did you raise for me?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was gonna say, when we're talking about seed capital,
forty thousand dollars total is what.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
I had on day one.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
This was back in twenty twelve, she juggled launching her
own shop while still working for another bread company full time.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So the only day of the week that I had
to focus on my bakery was Sunday, and that's when
I would like test recipes and try out new things
and make food for the staff.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
And we made donuts one day.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
And they were gone in a second, and we did
a light bulb go off. Well yeah kind of, I'm like, wow,
that's great, Let's do it again next week. And so
every Sunday we made donuts and the lines got longer
and longer and longer.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
And then it became a thing. Then it was a thing. Yeah,
I mean the donuts saved the business.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Rachel was on the map. It was time to cut
the parachute strings. After two years, she quit her other
job and went all in at Montclair Bread Company. She
had found her place in the world doing what she loved,
and she was good at it, like really good. And
others began paying attention.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
The town starts noticing, the press starts noticing, I'm getting
all of these accolades, get to go on a food
network and in the New York Times, And the better
it gets.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
On the outside the harder it gets.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
At home, she was consumed with self doubt.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So even though everyone else thinks that I'm this like
rock star, I think I'm like the worst mother in
the world.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
And you know that I can't run this business, and
that I've you know.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Ruined our family life and had all of these things,
and it was awful.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
It was awful.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Rachel decided she wanted a divorce, but had a hard
time actually leaving her husband. Her landlord also kicked her
out of her bakery, and then she got into a
bike accident while training for an iron Man triathlon, shattering
her pelvis.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It was always something like that, anytime we got a
little bit ahead, there'd be.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Something like that that would pop up.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
That would you know, And yet you overcame all those yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Rachel found a new home and finally left her husband.
She was a single mother working crazy hours, but Montclair
Bread was able to move to a bigger, nicer building
around the corner, a renovated industrial space full of big
windows and spectacular brickwork, and of course, there was a
smell of baking bread. In addition to finding a new
(08:07):
home for her business, Rachel's body healed, though doctors told
her she would never be able to run again. She
clocked her best marathon time ever in the fall of
twenty nineteen, just a year after her accident. I was
on top of the world when COVID hit, and hit
it did.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
At the beginning, I believed it was only going to
be two weeks.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Think all of us did, remember fifteen days to slow
the spread. Now I think, how were we so naive?
While other businesses were closing shop, Rachel was determined to
stay open, even if she was the only one there.
She'd been forced to lay off twenty of her employees,
and without that extra help, she had to work around
(08:51):
the clock.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I worked eighteen hours. I went home, I slept in
the clothes that I worked in. I got up and
I did it again. And it's the same time that
people are on social media talking about how they make
their partner who works at a hospital, you know, leave
their clothes in the garage and come it. And I'm like,
I haven't changed my clothes and days.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Rachel lost big orders and had to cut lucrative items
from her menu, but she was also scrappy and got creative.
She sold groceries and meal kits and diy baking packages
out of the store, and the community rallied around her.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I baked and sold more bread than I've ever baked
and sold in my career because people couldn't get it
at the grocery stores, so they actually bought bread from me.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So you sort of had a little boomlet early on. Definitely,
Definitely she kept going, but it was a lot.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I really didn't think that I could sustain it.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Did you think it was going to kill you? Did
you think the pandemic was going to kill you?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I did. I just reached my breaking point so many times,
and I just would sit there and not know how
to do it again tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
She wound up doing what more than five million other
small businesses did. She looked to the federal government for help.
You know, everybody winds about government spending until they need
help when there's a hurricane or of flood. Who you
going to call when there's a massive economic contraction like
there was in two thousand and eight. Who you going
(10:22):
to call when there's an unprecedented economic meltdown combined with
the historic public health crisis? Who you going to call? Yeah? Washington.
Speaker 7 (10:33):
So what did the federal government do? The federal government
acted quickly, and it made a program which put cash
into the hands of small business owners.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
That's Karen Mills, President Obama's first leader of the Small
Business Administration. She's describing how the Trump and Biden Whitehouses
ultimately channeled nearly one trillion dollars to small businesses. The
main program was an essential, well intentioned, yet chaotic scramble
known as the Paycheck Protection Program.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
I never thought i'd see the day where three hundred
and fifty million dollars was in the same paragraph as
the word SBA. But that's how much money was in
the first trash of PPP that lasted about two and
a half weeks.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That time, and funding went by in a flash, especially
for people like Rachel.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Of course, at the time, we didn't know there was
going to be a second round of funding, so the
funding was gone, and how did that feel?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Defeating oversight and management of the PPP effort was slipshot.
Treasury Secretary Steve Manuchin, who engineered the effort, was reluctant
to be transparent about the process, even when he was
specifically asked about it during a Senate hearing in May
of twenty twenty nearly two months after the legislation providing
for PPP was passed. Here's Senator John Tester of Montana.
Speaker 8 (12:00):
When can we see full information about who's getting the dollars?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, let me just comment. When we negotiated this bipartisan deal,
we agreed to unprecedented transparency, So we agree to release
things that are not required by thirteen to three. So
I don't know why you haven't seen that. We've everything's
posted on our website or the Fed's website.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
They went back and forth a few times. Are you
sure the information is there? Yep? It's there. Are you
sure yep? The Tester wasn't buying it.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
I look forward to seeing that list, by the way,
Secretary Mansion, and I'm going to go online and I'm
going to search it because I'm going to tell you
that as much transparency as you said, are with this program,
as a center from Montana, as a member of the
Banking Committee, I'm not seeing any of it.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Quite frankly, it wasn't clear exactly who was getting the
funding or how it was being used. Rachel couldn't get
PPP money the time it was offered, and she watched
her application stall online. She ended up applying for a
loan four times before she finally got some money one
hundred and five thousand dollars. It saved her business and
(13:13):
then some.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
For the first time in history.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
January twenty twenty one, we officially were one hundred percent
debt free Love Her Bread Company. We paid off all
of our investors, We paid off any debts that we had.
You know, we got a good staff and everything. It
was just like, all right, We're never going back there.
We will never be back in this place again where
(13:38):
we have so much debt on the business. Like it
feels too good to get ahead. What do we have
to do to stay here?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
She started off January twenty twenty one on a new foot,
and there were reasons to think the end of the
pandemic was in sight.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I got my vaccination on January sixth, twenty twenty one.
I was one of the first because at the time
there was a windowwhere anyone who was working in the
service industry in front of people could get in.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Did the vaccines feel like sort of a God send
to you when they came along.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, it definitely just felt like relief because there were
just so many unknowns. No one knew when it would end,
how it would end. I don't think it has ended,
but it just felt like there was progress.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And the vaccines gave you a sense of control over things,
or more control.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Than you had I ever feel, yeah, or you know,
it's just like that peace of mind from having that
PPP loan, you know, sitting in our account as a buffer.
I think the vaccine was that same piece of mind,
like I guess some level of protection.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
That peace of mind was nice while it lasted. When
we get back from the break, I'll take you through
year two of Rachel's experience during the pandemic twenty twenty one,
and the big idea is she had to grow her business.
That's next. The story of Rachel's twenty twenty one might
actually start back in twenty twenty, when Rachel was so
(15:14):
burnt out that she decided to close Montclair Bread for
two days and rent an airbnb in New Pulse, New York.
She knew the area well from when she went to
the Culinary Institute of America nearby, and I.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Went up there and I got to run on the
trails and have a quiet space. At the time, I
couldn't run something that I used to keep my sanity running.
Although it's therapeutic, it's not therapy, That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
She rented that airbnb once a month for six months.
She went for runs, rested, recharged, and she ended up
writing a book in that Airbnb, We'll Run for Donuts,
The Montclair Bread Company Cookbook. Rachel eventually decided to rent
a cheap studio apartment in New Paults while also keeping
her families rental in Montclair. Although she originally sought an
(16:06):
escape in New Pults, she eventually found inspiration too, in
the form of a new business opportunity. It all started
after she took up rock climbing. Climbing helped her clear
her head and make new friends. So after Montclair Bread
closed on Sunday, she'd head up to New Pults.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And if there were donuts left over, I'd pack them
up and take them to my climbing friends. So then
they started asking for them, then they started ordering them,
and then I was in a parking lot and a
trailhead with donuts in my trunk, like you know, on
Sunday afternoon, handing them out to these climbing friends and
(16:44):
friends and friends. And I thought, there's got to be
a more reasonable way to do this.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
She followed a familiar path. First she gave the donuts away,
Then she found a farmer's market.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
We set up at the farmer's market. In the first week,
there's like couple people in line three. There's a line
all the way across the parking lot and down the
block waiting for the donuts.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Then she opened a new shop in New Pults in
the fall of twenty twenty one, and she felt really
embraced by the community there.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
The first weekend I was open. It was a soft opening.
I never publicized it, and I had every member of
the town council come and introduce themselves and give me
their phone numbers in case I needed anything.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
This was all going on around the time a new
COVID nineteen variant Delta was making its rounds. Even though
infection surged, Rachel was feeling good about the state of
her business until the holiday season came around and pushed
Rachel to her brink because the embrace she felt from
the New Paltz community was sometimes hard to find in Montclair,
(17:48):
and an even more infectious COVID variant Omicron was waiting
in the wings. All of this made the holidays more stressful.
First Thanksgiving holiday dedicated to gratitude.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
You know, we were really short staff on Thanksgiving Day,
but we opened to give out orders and for retail,
and of course we start selling out because it's Thanksgiving
Day and people were just screaming at my staff. Somebody
screamed at one of the retail employees because it took
three minutes to wait for her coffee.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Second Christmas, a holiday dedicated to salvation.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Christmas Eve was when we got the first call out.
We got everything like shuffled around. A couple hours later,
somebody else called out, and then I feel like, well
do we close for the week.
Speaker 6 (18:37):
We can't afford to.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We have to be open at least three days this
week for the orders that we've already taken.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Third New Year's Eve, a holiday dedicated to renewal.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
New Year's Eve, we get the first baker call out,
so we had six people out and two people pending tests,
and we decided to close on the first and second.
Speaker 6 (18:58):
So for two weeks ends in a row, we were closed.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Montclair Bread needed twelve people to open its doors every
day any less, and they were facing major inefficiencies. Orders
wouldn't come out on time. With twenty people on staff
and only twelve who were full time employees, that left
little wiggle room for Omicron infections, so they decided to
close shop for a whole week. Rachel committed to paying
(19:25):
anyone on her staff who was scheduled to work, but
no new money was coming in.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The two weeks that we had to close days the
weekends would have been our busiest weeks of the year,
and they were the worst that.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
We've had on record for December.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So normally that would give us a buffer to get
through January and February where sales are always low.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
We always cut hours.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
And January and February, but there's no buffer, like there's nothing.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
To get us through.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Suddenly, Rachel was at the end of her rope because
Omicron had spent weeks stating her bakery's business. The peace
of mind and protection she felt like she had at
the beginning of twenty twenty one was gone.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
There was definitely a time in my life where I
would have opened at any cost, even if it was
just me. But by December twenty twenty one, I'm like
closed the door, Just lock the door.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Rachel sent an email to Montclair Bread's customers right after
the new year, with the subject line SOOS, she wrote
that she was waving her white flag. When my wife
received that email, I worried a closed sign might appear
in Rachel's window soon, so I dropped by to check
in on her. The pandemic was starting to take its
(20:38):
toll on Rachel, on her staff, her customers, everyone.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Two years ago, at the beginning of this, you had
this incredible community support because we were open when no
one else was.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
But now.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
There's just, you know, overall, a lack of empathy for
what small businesses were going through and enduring. The big
thing that they don't appreciate is that we're not making
up the rules. There's no playbook for us, and there's
no centralized agency either local, state.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
Federal, that's giving us any source of information about how
we're supposed to handle it. Like we're deciding the fate
of everything.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Just like three of us who don't have medical backgrounds,
don't have science backgrounds. We just bake Brett and we're
like trying to make all of these decisions.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
In her SOS email, Rachel asked her customers to contact
their local elected leaders. Montclair's mayor and town councilors, New
Jersey's governor. She didn't feel like local officials were providing
her with clarity or guidance about steps she needed to
take to respond to the crisis, and when she tried
reaching out to them for help, she didn't have much luck.
(21:47):
I tried to interview Montclair's mayor and the town's top
administrative official about their responses to COVID, but they wouldn't
take my call. Finally, a member of Montclair's town council
did return my mind call, Peter Yacobellis. He's the kind
of guy you want in local government, dedicated, friendly, energetic,
(22:08):
and smart. And it turns out he actually spoke to
Rachel about the concerns she raised in her SOS email,
and he told me he brought one of her ideas
to state and local officials, putting together a one pager
with advice for small businesses on how to handle employee
questions about quarantines and vaccinations, basic stuff.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Rachel was the one who set the light bulb off
for me.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Now, why didn't that happen earlier? Why didn't that happen
in mid twenty twenty? Just too many balls in the air,
or just a general lack of clarity.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Yeah, I think a little bit of who's going to
do it too, writ whose responsibility as the CDC, the
federal government stake.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
There to make that call, to make that call.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Right in government, we have a tendency to start with
experts and start with people at the top and let
a cascade and filter through. We should start with the
small business owner. We should start with the homeowner, asking
them what's going to be easier for you, what's going
to show up better for you?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And I had heard other things from other entrepren that
there were just these little tweaks the township could have
done that would have made their lives easier as business people.
Is that a legit criticism and has that been addressed?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
If it is, it's a completely legitimate criticism, I personally
am trying to address it. I do feel like David
and Goliath when it comes to some of this stuff.
I think we've got really entrenched ways of doing things
and not a lot of open mindedness and willingness to
be dynamic and to try new things and to be innovative.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Entrepreneurs are forced to be dynamic and innovative in order
to survive, but they also need help, because tending to
the needs of small business isn't an abstraction. At the
end of twenty twenty one beginning of twenty twenty two,
Rachel wasn't sure what she was going to do next
in any part of her life. Her children were struggling
(23:54):
in school, and she felt local educators were letting her down.
She felt the town it turned its back on her,
and she wasn't sure if Montclair Bread Company was going
to make it. I wasn't sure either. I had a
feeling of the pandemic and the tough economy, we're going
to force Rachel to make some big changes. And I
was right, but not in the way I expected. I'll
(24:16):
tell you how Rachel made it through the third year
of the pandemic and about the fate of Montclair Bread
Company after the break. In a town like Montclair with
forty thousand people and six shopping districts, every one of
its storefronts matters. Yeah, there's a Lulu Lemon and an
(24:38):
Urban Outfitters and a Whole Foods, But there's also a
Watch hung booksellers, and an Egan and Son's restaurant and
a Montclair Bread A town with just a Target and
a Walmart and deliveries from Amazon loses something. It loses identity.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Yeah, arts, culture, identity.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
I mean, well the place becomes a diamond does you
could be anywhere USA.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
This is Jason Gleeson, head of the Montclair Center Business
Improvement District. The BID is a nonprofit that manages one
of the shopping districts in town. It helps new businesses
get settled in and older ones up their marketing games
while trying to make it easier for both to flourish,
and it plants flowers. Basically, the BID.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
Is there to make sure that downtown Montclair is awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
So Jason is helping the little shop around the corner survive. Why.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
I mean, they're the life's blood, right, I mean, it's
the heartbeat of the town.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
What do they bring to the community that's unique from
your perspective, that would be lost if they weren't there.
Speaker 9 (25:43):
I mean, honestly, it's such a simple answer, and it
probably is going to sound like such a cop out,
But like themselves.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
It's about individuality and how that distinguishes small businesses from
the giants of corporate America.
Speaker 9 (25:57):
You know what Apple is, right, it has a shape
and a color and a feeling.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
There's the product, right, you know, it's Apple.
Speaker 9 (26:06):
You could probably be blindfolded and someone could hand you
a laptop and you could feel it for a second,
be like, that's probably an Apple laptop.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
Right through all their branding and.
Speaker 9 (26:15):
Their marketing exercises and all that, and they spent a
great deal of money doing that.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
But it's not a person. It's not a hug and
a handshake. And I woke up.
Speaker 9 (26:22):
At four o'clock in the morning to bake this for you, or,
in the case of some of our retailers, like I
spent the last three months visiting artisans upstate to curate
these products for your home, because I understand you as
my consumer.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
That's why so much was at stake for small businesses
when the pandemic hit.
Speaker 9 (26:41):
Their hopes, their dreams, their families, their college tuitions they're
saving for.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
All of that was on the line when they were
told to shut down for COVID. Now, as I've told
you all along, and as her journey proves, Rachel Wyman
is a survivor. But even she has had to weigh
whether it's worth fighting. We're throwing in the towel because
COVID nineteen has been an unrelenting opponent.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I can't keep fighting by myself anymore. I just I
don't know if it's worth it anymore. I mean, like
last week I updated my resume. Do you know how
long it's been since I updated my resume? Like that's
that's the kind of place I'm in.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That was Rachel at the beginning of twenty twenty two,
and then she just decided to start over.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I've said it so many times, I think everybody here
has heard me say it at least once. If I
had it to do all over again, I would just
do donuts.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Donuts made sense to Rachel, and.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Then I'm realizing, Wow, the ingredients take up so much
less space, and I can get up at five in
the morning and still have donuts at eight in the
morning because it takes that much less time to do
the donut work, and I can do it with like
me and one other person.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
In donuts cost less to make them bread, So even
though they sold for less, they were more profitable, and
the woman whose identity was wrapped up in bread and
baking shifted gears. Montclair Bread Company was no more. Rachel
became the owner of two storefronts with a new name,
Rabble Rise Donuts. Are you surprised that the bread woman
(28:21):
has become the donut woman?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
No, I think this transition to Rabble Rized donuts really,
Like for a while, I fought it and I was
kind of mad at it, you know that, like I'm
this great bread baker, and you know, people only want
the donuts. But then I decided to embrace it because,
like I said, what do I do better than anyone else?
I make donuts better than anyone else, And I just
(28:45):
really wanted to embrace that. So now we're a donut shop.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Rachel had barely made the transition into donut maestro before
a whole new series of challenges emerged. Supply chain disruptions
and soaring inflation made her so to run a simple
donut shop suddenly complex. The hardships of twenty twenty two
spilled over into the beginning of twenty twenty three. When
(29:10):
I sat down with her again to talk.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I can't even get eggs, like I'm buying them at
the grocery store right now because I can't get eggs
from my vendors. Why is that because they're out They're
out of stock and eggs go in donuts.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
The prices of eggs, flour, and sugar have all soared,
and obviously that's going to have an effect on her
bottom line.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I mean, at the end of the year, I would
be lucky to have like three percent, you know margin,
like the great thing used to be. You know, you
can make a donut for fourteenth cents and then it's
all the stuff that goes on top that costs the money.
And that's why we charge what we charge now. It's
like it costs me a dollar donut before you put
(29:55):
anything on it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So she's had to raise the price of each donut
from around two between three point fifty to five dollars.
But guess what, when your donuts are really good, people
will keep buying them. That's allowed Rachel to dig out
from some of her lingering financial problems. And by the way,
she hasn't totally gotten rid of some of the stuff
(30:17):
I love. When I told her how I missed her
sourdough bread, she let me in on a secret. If
you ask, they'll bake bread to order.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's kind of like a teenager that gets grounded, where
you take away all of their things and then slowly
you can start giving them back as they like earn
your respect and trust. So that's what happened. We took
it all away, and then as our staff and systems
became more and more efficient, we've been able to add
some of the parts back.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
So are you telling me actually that those sourdough lows
are still gettible?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, they're still gettable. In fact, there might be one
out there right now.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Now that I'm going to try to lay claim to
that bread.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, I think having a
whole bread program is, you know, costly if you're not
a wholesale business, if you're not doing volume and bread,
it's costly. But doing what we do, it's nice because
all of the bakers on my team enjoy baking bread,
and so it's kind of fun for us to do
(31:19):
it once a week.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And I would imagine it's this sort of spiritual and
creative connection for you to the roots of why you
started things here.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Oh absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Even so, Rachel the survivor and Rachel the marathon runner,
Rachel the mom, and Rachel the small business owner isn't
the same person she was when I first met her
three years ago. COVID rocked her world, It rocked everyone's world.
But the Rachel who got to this side of COVID
(31:51):
isn't sure she'd do it all over again.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I would never tell a friend to go into this business.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And if you had to walk away from it, how would.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
That feel like a huge weight was lifted off of
my shoulders?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So it would no longer feel like a sense of loss?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
No, no, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So you're staying in it now out of a sense
of duty and obligation rather than joy and fulfillment.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Correct, yes, that is one hundred percent accurate.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Does it surprise you that that's where you are with
it now?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I thought that the rebranding would rejuvenate it enough to
keep my heart and soul fulfilled, but it didn't really work.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I can't tell you how deflating that feels. Rachel was
sort of a COVID north star for me. The business
woman I thought of is unbeatable. While she's not down,
COVID took a lot away from her that she knows
she's not getting back to be sure. She has a
lot of joy in her personal life, her kids, a
(32:51):
happier life in New Pauls and a new marriage, But
on the business side of the ledger, she's also considering
a career change, one that will leave her lesson involved
with her little bakery in Montclair. This is a familiar
story for a lot of other small businesses. So many
of them close their doors in a typical year, and
(33:12):
COVID visited a raft of atypical problems upon all of them.
One of the foundational ideas of capitalism is creative destruction,
the notion that businesses are born and fail all the
time and survival of the fittest is an efficient process.
But that also discounts another truth that great ideas, services
(33:36):
and products aren't always easily replaced, and some magic can
get lost along the way, like a really good loaf
of bread. Here at Crash Course, we believe the collisions
can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising, and always instructive. In
(33:58):
today's Crash Course, I learned and sometimes you can't fix
big problems facing small businesses by simply throwing money at them.
PPP was an epic spending plan, but ultimately it wasn't
enough and it was never going to work if that
money wasn't paired with good global public health policies. In
many cases, COVID turned out to be more powerful than
(34:21):
money and entrepreneurial grit, even when an entrepreneur was as
gritty as Rachel. What did you learn? We'd love to
hear from you. You can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion,
handle at Opinion or me at Tim O'Brien using the
hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course. You can also subscribe to our
show wherever you're listening right now and leave us a
(34:43):
review that helps more people find the show. This episode
was produced by the indispensable Animasarakas and Me. Our supervising
producer is Magnus Hendrickson, and we had editing help from
Katie Boyce, Jeff Grocott, Mike Nizza, Ta of al brun
and Christine Vanden Bilart. Blake Maples does our sound engineering,
(35:05):
and our original theme song was composed by Luis Garra.
I'm Tim O'Brien. We'll be back next week with another
Crash Course.
Hey, this is Tim. We're on vacation this week, but
the Crash Course team wanted to reair an episode we
had fun making about a small business in my hometown.
We published this episode around the third anniversary of the
initial COVID nineteen lockdowns back in March, but the holiday
season is the most important time of year for small businesses,
(00:21):
so it feels fitting to share this episode again. Now,
thanks for listening, and happy holidays. We'll see you next year.
Now here's the show. If you're ever invited to visit
a bakery at four o'clock in the morning, I highly
recommend you do it, but here's a warning. You might
get put to work. I can handle those, okay, I
(00:42):
can handle those, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And you just dip it in. You just don't want
it to get like too much of a globby math,
so you just sort of like there and.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
One of these called strawberry sprinkle donuts.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Strawberry sprinkle donuts.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Amazing, Okay, I'm now I'm gonna dip a bunch of
donuts into strawberry glaze and then put sprinkles on.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Top of it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's my duty for today. However much I enjoyed my
brief internship as a baker with Amy. That wasn't the
main event for me. I was there to talk to
the bakery's owner, Rachel Wyman, and she came bearing treats.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
You want to be ruined for the rest of your life?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeahs ruined me for the rest of my life. Oh gosh,
a hot blazed donut.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I have literally a hot glazed donut that was just
put in my palm on a piece of wax paper
that looks like Nirvana. And I'm gonna go ruin myself
for a minute because Rachel invited me to do that,
and I'm gonna have this donnu. Welcome to Crash Course,
a podcast about business, political, and social disruption and what
we can learn from it. I'm Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash
(01:44):
Course small Businesses versus the Pandemic. Three years after the
COVID nineteen lockdowns, I invite you to think back to
those early days.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
COVID nineteen can be characterized as a pandemic.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
All but promises that the coronavirus will spread. Here today,
I am officially declaring a national emergency.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Only essential businesses will be functioning.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
All businesses will need to shut down.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Remember when practically overnight it seemed that every shop closed
its doors. You remember how all of those small businesses
you might have taken for granted, the ones that gave
life and an identity to your community, suddenly felt essential
to you. I sure do. Montclair Bread Company was one
of those shops. For me. It's souredaugh bread was a
(02:35):
staple on my family's dinner table, and it's maple bacon
donuts are the best in the world. As I watched
lots of small businesses in my small town in New
Jersey struggle, I didn't want the bakery to disappear. I
didn't want any of those stores to close. So I
started writing about them in their fight, just a few
businesses among tens of millions across the country that faced
(02:57):
an existential crisis because of COVID nine nineteen and I
started with Rachel Wyman, the owner of Montclair Brett. I
learned that she'd overcome so much a bad marriage, a
terrible bike accident, and money problems. Yet she found the
strength to leave her husband and raise her three children
on her own. And even though she had very little
(03:19):
Rachel chose just about the riskiest career you could imagine
the small business owner she had Moxie. I kept in
touch with her and watched her take on the trials
and tribulations of the pandemic threw at her. What I
didn't understand when I first got to know her back
in twenty twenty was that I would end up following
her journey for nearly three years through an unimaginable public
(03:42):
health and economic crisis. This is that story.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know. I've been thinking about this so much recently
because you know, we're coming up on the anniversary of that,
and all these pictures are popping up from February twenty twenty,
like me and the kids, and it's like, God, we
had no idea, we had no clue what was going
to happen in just a couple weeks.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
When you're looking at those pictures, are you looking at
like the faces of people on the deck of the Titanic?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yes, yeah, exactly, I am. And I think, you know,
I still think that I suffer like PTSD from that
from twenty twenty, and I just can't let go of
a lot of things that happened during that year. As
you know, an essential service worker. It's been really hard
for me to go back to you know, status quo.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Before we hop back in time to the early days
of the pandemic, we should probably hop a little further
back in Rachel's story so you can understand how much
was on the line for her. She's earned everything she has.
Rachel grew up with little money in rural Maryland, worked
her way through school, and fell in love with bread
and pastries. After a state in France, she went to
(05:02):
the Culinary Institute of America, baked with some of the
biggest names in the bread business, and then decided to
go off on her own. She started by giving away
bread to moms in her yoga class, and then tried
breaking in through local farmers markets. Then one of those
moms told her about a local bakery for sale.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I pitched it to the moms who had been picking
up bread at my apartment, and they gave me the
money that I needed to get going.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So your seed capital were your moms, Yeah, yeah, moms
who were coming off for bread exactly?
Speaker 6 (05:34):
And how much did you raise for me?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was gonna say, when we're talking about seed capital,
forty thousand dollars total is what.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
I had on day one.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
This was back in twenty twelve, she juggled launching her
own shop while still working for another bread company full time.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So the only day of the week that I had
to focus on my bakery was Sunday, and that's when
I would like test recipes and try out new things
and make food for the staff.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
And we made donuts one day.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
And they were gone in a second, and we did
a light bulb go off. Well yeah kind of, I'm like, wow,
that's great, Let's do it again next week. And so
every Sunday we made donuts and the lines got longer
and longer and longer.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
And then it became a thing. Then it was a thing. Yeah,
I mean the donuts saved the business.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Rachel was on the map. It was time to cut
the parachute strings. After two years, she quit her other
job and went all in at Montclair Bread Company. She
had found her place in the world doing what she loved,
and she was good at it, like really good. And
others began paying attention.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
The town starts noticing, the press starts noticing, I'm getting
all of these accolades, get to go on a food
network and in the New York Times, And the better
it gets.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
On the outside the harder it gets.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
At home, she was consumed with self doubt.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So even though everyone else thinks that I'm this like
rock star, I think I'm like the worst mother in
the world.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
And you know that I can't run this business, and
that I've you know.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Ruined our family life and had all of these things,
and it was awful.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
It was awful.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Rachel decided she wanted a divorce, but had a hard
time actually leaving her husband. Her landlord also kicked her
out of her bakery, and then she got into a
bike accident while training for an iron Man triathlon, shattering
her pelvis.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It was always something like that, anytime we got a
little bit ahead, there'd be.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Something like that that would pop up.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
That would you know, And yet you overcame all those yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Rachel found a new home and finally left her husband.
She was a single mother working crazy hours, but Montclair
Bread was able to move to a bigger, nicer building
around the corner, a renovated industrial space full of big
windows and spectacular brickwork, and of course, there was a
smell of baking bread. In addition to finding a new
(08:07):
home for her business, Rachel's body healed, though doctors told
her she would never be able to run again. She
clocked her best marathon time ever in the fall of
twenty nineteen, just a year after her accident. I was
on top of the world when COVID hit, and hit
it did.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
At the beginning, I believed it was only going to
be two weeks.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Think all of us did, remember fifteen days to slow
the spread. Now I think, how were we so naive?
While other businesses were closing shop, Rachel was determined to
stay open, even if she was the only one there.
She'd been forced to lay off twenty of her employees,
and without that extra help, she had to work around
(08:51):
the clock.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I worked eighteen hours. I went home, I slept in
the clothes that I worked in. I got up and
I did it again. And it's the same time that
people are on social media talking about how they make
their partner who works at a hospital, you know, leave
their clothes in the garage and come it. And I'm like,
I haven't changed my clothes and days.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Rachel lost big orders and had to cut lucrative items
from her menu, but she was also scrappy and got creative.
She sold groceries and meal kits and diy baking packages
out of the store, and the community rallied around her.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I baked and sold more bread than I've ever baked
and sold in my career because people couldn't get it
at the grocery stores, so they actually bought bread from me.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So you sort of had a little boomlet early on. Definitely,
Definitely she kept going, but it was a lot.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I really didn't think that I could sustain it.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Did you think it was going to kill you? Did
you think the pandemic was going to kill you?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I did. I just reached my breaking point so many times,
and I just would sit there and not know how
to do it again tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
She wound up doing what more than five million other
small businesses did. She looked to the federal government for help.
You know, everybody winds about government spending until they need
help when there's a hurricane or of flood. Who you
going to call when there's a massive economic contraction like
there was in two thousand and eight. Who you going
(10:22):
to call when there's an unprecedented economic meltdown combined with
the historic public health crisis? Who you going to call? Yeah? Washington.
Speaker 7 (10:33):
So what did the federal government do? The federal government
acted quickly, and it made a program which put cash
into the hands of small business owners.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
That's Karen Mills, President Obama's first leader of the Small
Business Administration. She's describing how the Trump and Biden Whitehouses
ultimately channeled nearly one trillion dollars to small businesses. The
main program was an essential, well intentioned, yet chaotic scramble
known as the Paycheck Protection Program.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
I never thought i'd see the day where three hundred
and fifty million dollars was in the same paragraph as
the word SBA. But that's how much money was in
the first trash of PPP that lasted about two and
a half weeks.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That time, and funding went by in a flash, especially
for people like Rachel.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Of course, at the time, we didn't know there was
going to be a second round of funding, so the
funding was gone, and how did that feel?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Defeating oversight and management of the PPP effort was slipshot.
Treasury Secretary Steve Manuchin, who engineered the effort, was reluctant
to be transparent about the process, even when he was
specifically asked about it during a Senate hearing in May
of twenty twenty nearly two months after the legislation providing
for PPP was passed. Here's Senator John Tester of Montana.
Speaker 8 (12:00):
When can we see full information about who's getting the dollars?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, let me just comment. When we negotiated this bipartisan deal,
we agreed to unprecedented transparency, So we agree to release
things that are not required by thirteen to three. So
I don't know why you haven't seen that. We've everything's
posted on our website or the Fed's website.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
They went back and forth a few times. Are you
sure the information is there? Yep? It's there. Are you
sure yep? The Tester wasn't buying it.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
I look forward to seeing that list, by the way,
Secretary Mansion, and I'm going to go online and I'm
going to search it because I'm going to tell you
that as much transparency as you said, are with this program,
as a center from Montana, as a member of the
Banking Committee, I'm not seeing any of it.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Quite frankly, it wasn't clear exactly who was getting the
funding or how it was being used. Rachel couldn't get
PPP money the time it was offered, and she watched
her application stall online. She ended up applying for a
loan four times before she finally got some money one
hundred and five thousand dollars. It saved her business and
(13:13):
then some.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
For the first time in history.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
January twenty twenty one, we officially were one hundred percent
debt free Love Her Bread Company. We paid off all
of our investors, We paid off any debts that we had.
You know, we got a good staff and everything. It
was just like, all right, We're never going back there.
We will never be back in this place again where
(13:38):
we have so much debt on the business. Like it
feels too good to get ahead. What do we have
to do to stay here?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
She started off January twenty twenty one on a new foot,
and there were reasons to think the end of the
pandemic was in sight.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I got my vaccination on January sixth, twenty twenty one.
I was one of the first because at the time
there was a windowwhere anyone who was working in the
service industry in front of people could get in.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Did the vaccines feel like sort of a God send
to you when they came along.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, it definitely just felt like relief because there were
just so many unknowns. No one knew when it would end,
how it would end. I don't think it has ended,
but it just felt like there was progress.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And the vaccines gave you a sense of control over things,
or more control.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Than you had I ever feel, yeah, or you know,
it's just like that peace of mind from having that
PPP loan, you know, sitting in our account as a buffer.
I think the vaccine was that same piece of mind,
like I guess some level of protection.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
That peace of mind was nice while it lasted. When
we get back from the break, I'll take you through
year two of Rachel's experience during the pandemic twenty twenty one,
and the big idea is she had to grow her business.
That's next. The story of Rachel's twenty twenty one might
actually start back in twenty twenty, when Rachel was so
(15:14):
burnt out that she decided to close Montclair Bread for
two days and rent an airbnb in New Pulse, New York.
She knew the area well from when she went to
the Culinary Institute of America nearby, and I.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Went up there and I got to run on the
trails and have a quiet space. At the time, I
couldn't run something that I used to keep my sanity running.
Although it's therapeutic, it's not therapy, That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
She rented that airbnb once a month for six months.
She went for runs, rested, recharged, and she ended up
writing a book in that Airbnb, We'll Run for Donuts,
The Montclair Bread Company Cookbook. Rachel eventually decided to rent
a cheap studio apartment in New Paults while also keeping
her families rental in Montclair. Although she originally sought an
(16:06):
escape in New Pults, she eventually found inspiration too, in
the form of a new business opportunity. It all started
after she took up rock climbing. Climbing helped her clear
her head and make new friends. So after Montclair Bread
closed on Sunday, she'd head up to New Pults.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And if there were donuts left over, I'd pack them
up and take them to my climbing friends. So then
they started asking for them, then they started ordering them,
and then I was in a parking lot and a
trailhead with donuts in my trunk, like you know, on
Sunday afternoon, handing them out to these climbing friends and
(16:44):
friends and friends. And I thought, there's got to be
a more reasonable way to do this.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
She followed a familiar path. First she gave the donuts away,
Then she found a farmer's market.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
We set up at the farmer's market. In the first week,
there's like couple people in line three. There's a line
all the way across the parking lot and down the
block waiting for the donuts.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Then she opened a new shop in New Pults in
the fall of twenty twenty one, and she felt really
embraced by the community there.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
The first weekend I was open. It was a soft opening.
I never publicized it, and I had every member of
the town council come and introduce themselves and give me
their phone numbers in case I needed anything.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
This was all going on around the time a new
COVID nineteen variant Delta was making its rounds. Even though
infection surged, Rachel was feeling good about the state of
her business until the holiday season came around and pushed
Rachel to her brink because the embrace she felt from
the New Paltz community was sometimes hard to find in Montclair,
(17:48):
and an even more infectious COVID variant Omicron was waiting
in the wings. All of this made the holidays more stressful.
First Thanksgiving holiday dedicated to gratitude.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
You know, we were really short staff on Thanksgiving Day,
but we opened to give out orders and for retail,
and of course we start selling out because it's Thanksgiving
Day and people were just screaming at my staff. Somebody
screamed at one of the retail employees because it took
three minutes to wait for her coffee.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Second Christmas, a holiday dedicated to salvation.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Christmas Eve was when we got the first call out.
We got everything like shuffled around. A couple hours later,
somebody else called out, and then I feel like, well
do we close for the week.
Speaker 6 (18:37):
We can't afford to.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We have to be open at least three days this
week for the orders that we've already taken.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Third New Year's Eve, a holiday dedicated to renewal.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
New Year's Eve, we get the first baker call out,
so we had six people out and two people pending tests,
and we decided to close on the first and second.
Speaker 6 (18:58):
So for two weeks ends in a row, we were closed.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Montclair Bread needed twelve people to open its doors every
day any less, and they were facing major inefficiencies. Orders
wouldn't come out on time. With twenty people on staff
and only twelve who were full time employees, that left
little wiggle room for Omicron infections, so they decided to
close shop for a whole week. Rachel committed to paying
(19:25):
anyone on her staff who was scheduled to work, but
no new money was coming in.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The two weeks that we had to close days the
weekends would have been our busiest weeks of the year,
and they were the worst that.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
We've had on record for December.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So normally that would give us a buffer to get
through January and February where sales are always low.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
We always cut hours.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
And January and February, but there's no buffer, like there's nothing.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
To get us through.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Suddenly, Rachel was at the end of her rope because
Omicron had spent weeks stating her bakery's business. The peace
of mind and protection she felt like she had at
the beginning of twenty twenty one was gone.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
There was definitely a time in my life where I
would have opened at any cost, even if it was
just me. But by December twenty twenty one, I'm like
closed the door, Just lock the door.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Rachel sent an email to Montclair Bread's customers right after
the new year, with the subject line SOOS, she wrote
that she was waving her white flag. When my wife
received that email, I worried a closed sign might appear
in Rachel's window soon, so I dropped by to check
in on her. The pandemic was starting to take its
(20:38):
toll on Rachel, on her staff, her customers, everyone.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Two years ago, at the beginning of this, you had
this incredible community support because we were open when no
one else was.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
But now.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
There's just, you know, overall, a lack of empathy for
what small businesses were going through and enduring. The big
thing that they don't appreciate is that we're not making
up the rules. There's no playbook for us, and there's
no centralized agency either local, state.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
Federal, that's giving us any source of information about how
we're supposed to handle it. Like we're deciding the fate
of everything.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Just like three of us who don't have medical backgrounds,
don't have science backgrounds. We just bake Brett and we're
like trying to make all of these decisions.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
In her SOS email, Rachel asked her customers to contact
their local elected leaders. Montclair's mayor and town councilors, New
Jersey's governor. She didn't feel like local officials were providing
her with clarity or guidance about steps she needed to
take to respond to the crisis, and when she tried
reaching out to them for help, she didn't have much luck.
(21:47):
I tried to interview Montclair's mayor and the town's top
administrative official about their responses to COVID, but they wouldn't
take my call. Finally, a member of Montclair's town council
did return my mind call, Peter Yacobellis. He's the kind
of guy you want in local government, dedicated, friendly, energetic,
(22:08):
and smart. And it turns out he actually spoke to
Rachel about the concerns she raised in her SOS email,
and he told me he brought one of her ideas
to state and local officials, putting together a one pager
with advice for small businesses on how to handle employee
questions about quarantines and vaccinations, basic stuff.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Rachel was the one who set the light bulb off
for me.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Now, why didn't that happen earlier? Why didn't that happen
in mid twenty twenty? Just too many balls in the air,
or just a general lack of clarity.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Yeah, I think a little bit of who's going to
do it too, writ whose responsibility as the CDC, the
federal government stake.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
There to make that call, to make that call.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Right in government, we have a tendency to start with
experts and start with people at the top and let
a cascade and filter through. We should start with the
small business owner. We should start with the homeowner, asking
them what's going to be easier for you, what's going
to show up better for you?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And I had heard other things from other entrepren that
there were just these little tweaks the township could have
done that would have made their lives easier as business people.
Is that a legit criticism and has that been addressed?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
If it is, it's a completely legitimate criticism, I personally
am trying to address it. I do feel like David
and Goliath when it comes to some of this stuff.
I think we've got really entrenched ways of doing things
and not a lot of open mindedness and willingness to
be dynamic and to try new things and to be innovative.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Entrepreneurs are forced to be dynamic and innovative in order
to survive, but they also need help, because tending to
the needs of small business isn't an abstraction. At the
end of twenty twenty one beginning of twenty twenty two,
Rachel wasn't sure what she was going to do next
in any part of her life. Her children were struggling
(23:54):
in school, and she felt local educators were letting her down.
She felt the town it turned its back on her,
and she wasn't sure if Montclair Bread Company was going
to make it. I wasn't sure either. I had a
feeling of the pandemic and the tough economy, we're going
to force Rachel to make some big changes. And I
was right, but not in the way I expected. I'll
(24:16):
tell you how Rachel made it through the third year
of the pandemic and about the fate of Montclair Bread
Company after the break. In a town like Montclair with
forty thousand people and six shopping districts, every one of
its storefronts matters. Yeah, there's a Lulu Lemon and an
(24:38):
Urban Outfitters and a Whole Foods, But there's also a
Watch hung booksellers, and an Egan and Son's restaurant and
a Montclair Bread A town with just a Target and
a Walmart and deliveries from Amazon loses something. It loses identity.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Yeah, arts, culture, identity.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
I mean, well the place becomes a diamond does you
could be anywhere USA.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
This is Jason Gleeson, head of the Montclair Center Business
Improvement District. The BID is a nonprofit that manages one
of the shopping districts in town. It helps new businesses
get settled in and older ones up their marketing games
while trying to make it easier for both to flourish,
and it plants flowers. Basically, the BID.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
Is there to make sure that downtown Montclair is awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
So Jason is helping the little shop around the corner survive. Why.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
I mean, they're the life's blood, right, I mean, it's
the heartbeat of the town.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
What do they bring to the community that's unique from
your perspective, that would be lost if they weren't there.
Speaker 9 (25:43):
I mean, honestly, it's such a simple answer, and it
probably is going to sound like such a cop out,
But like themselves.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
It's about individuality and how that distinguishes small businesses from
the giants of corporate America.
Speaker 9 (25:57):
You know what Apple is, right, it has a shape
and a color and a feeling.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
There's the product, right, you know, it's Apple.
Speaker 9 (26:06):
You could probably be blindfolded and someone could hand you
a laptop and you could feel it for a second,
be like, that's probably an Apple laptop.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
Right through all their branding and.
Speaker 9 (26:15):
Their marketing exercises and all that, and they spent a
great deal of money doing that.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
But it's not a person. It's not a hug and
a handshake. And I woke up.
Speaker 9 (26:22):
At four o'clock in the morning to bake this for you, or,
in the case of some of our retailers, like I
spent the last three months visiting artisans upstate to curate
these products for your home, because I understand you as
my consumer.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
That's why so much was at stake for small businesses
when the pandemic hit.
Speaker 9 (26:41):
Their hopes, their dreams, their families, their college tuitions they're
saving for.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
All of that was on the line when they were
told to shut down for COVID. Now, as I've told
you all along, and as her journey proves, Rachel Wyman
is a survivor. But even she has had to weigh
whether it's worth fighting. We're throwing in the towel because
COVID nineteen has been an unrelenting opponent.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I can't keep fighting by myself anymore. I just I
don't know if it's worth it anymore. I mean, like
last week I updated my resume. Do you know how
long it's been since I updated my resume? Like that's
that's the kind of place I'm in.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That was Rachel at the beginning of twenty twenty two,
and then she just decided to start over.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I've said it so many times, I think everybody here
has heard me say it at least once. If I
had it to do all over again, I would just
do donuts.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Donuts made sense to Rachel, and.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Then I'm realizing, Wow, the ingredients take up so much
less space, and I can get up at five in
the morning and still have donuts at eight in the
morning because it takes that much less time to do
the donut work, and I can do it with like
me and one other person.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
In donuts cost less to make them bread, So even
though they sold for less, they were more profitable, and
the woman whose identity was wrapped up in bread and
baking shifted gears. Montclair Bread Company was no more. Rachel
became the owner of two storefronts with a new name,
Rabble Rise Donuts. Are you surprised that the bread woman
(28:21):
has become the donut woman?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
No, I think this transition to Rabble Rized donuts really,
Like for a while, I fought it and I was
kind of mad at it, you know that, like I'm
this great bread baker, and you know, people only want
the donuts. But then I decided to embrace it because,
like I said, what do I do better than anyone else?
I make donuts better than anyone else, And I just
(28:45):
really wanted to embrace that. So now we're a donut shop.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Rachel had barely made the transition into donut maestro before
a whole new series of challenges emerged. Supply chain disruptions
and soaring inflation made her so to run a simple
donut shop suddenly complex. The hardships of twenty twenty two
spilled over into the beginning of twenty twenty three. When
(29:10):
I sat down with her again to talk.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I can't even get eggs, like I'm buying them at
the grocery store right now because I can't get eggs
from my vendors. Why is that because they're out They're
out of stock and eggs go in donuts.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
The prices of eggs, flour, and sugar have all soared,
and obviously that's going to have an effect on her
bottom line.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I mean, at the end of the year, I would
be lucky to have like three percent, you know margin,
like the great thing used to be. You know, you
can make a donut for fourteenth cents and then it's
all the stuff that goes on top that costs the money.
And that's why we charge what we charge now. It's
like it costs me a dollar donut before you put
(29:55):
anything on it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So she's had to raise the price of each donut
from around two between three point fifty to five dollars.
But guess what, when your donuts are really good, people
will keep buying them. That's allowed Rachel to dig out
from some of her lingering financial problems. And by the way,
she hasn't totally gotten rid of some of the stuff
(30:17):
I love. When I told her how I missed her
sourdough bread, she let me in on a secret. If
you ask, they'll bake bread to order.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's kind of like a teenager that gets grounded, where
you take away all of their things and then slowly
you can start giving them back as they like earn
your respect and trust. So that's what happened. We took
it all away, and then as our staff and systems
became more and more efficient, we've been able to add
some of the parts back.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
So are you telling me actually that those sourdough lows
are still gettible?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, they're still gettable. In fact, there might be one
out there right now.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Now that I'm going to try to lay claim to
that bread.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, I think having a
whole bread program is, you know, costly if you're not
a wholesale business, if you're not doing volume and bread,
it's costly. But doing what we do, it's nice because
all of the bakers on my team enjoy baking bread,
and so it's kind of fun for us to do
(31:19):
it once a week.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And I would imagine it's this sort of spiritual and
creative connection for you to the roots of why you
started things here.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Oh absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Even so, Rachel the survivor and Rachel the marathon runner,
Rachel the mom, and Rachel the small business owner isn't
the same person she was when I first met her
three years ago. COVID rocked her world, It rocked everyone's world.
But the Rachel who got to this side of COVID
(31:51):
isn't sure she'd do it all over again.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I would never tell a friend to go into this business.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And if you had to walk away from it, how would.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
That feel like a huge weight was lifted off of
my shoulders?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So it would no longer feel like a sense of loss?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
No, no, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So you're staying in it now out of a sense
of duty and obligation rather than joy and fulfillment.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Correct, yes, that is one hundred percent accurate.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Does it surprise you that that's where you are with
it now?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I thought that the rebranding would rejuvenate it enough to
keep my heart and soul fulfilled, but it didn't really work.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I can't tell you how deflating that feels. Rachel was
sort of a COVID north star for me. The business
woman I thought of is unbeatable. While she's not down,
COVID took a lot away from her that she knows
she's not getting back to be sure. She has a
lot of joy in her personal life, her kids, a
(32:51):
happier life in New Pauls and a new marriage, But
on the business side of the ledger, she's also considering
a career change, one that will leave her lesson involved
with her little bakery in Montclair. This is a familiar
story for a lot of other small businesses. So many
of them close their doors in a typical year, and
(33:12):
COVID visited a raft of atypical problems upon all of them.
One of the foundational ideas of capitalism is creative destruction,
the notion that businesses are born and fail all the
time and survival of the fittest is an efficient process.
But that also discounts another truth that great ideas, services
(33:36):
and products aren't always easily replaced, and some magic can
get lost along the way, like a really good loaf
of bread. Here at Crash Course, we believe the collisions
can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising, and always instructive. In
(33:58):
today's Crash Course, I learned and sometimes you can't fix
big problems facing small businesses by simply throwing money at them.
PPP was an epic spending plan, but ultimately it wasn't
enough and it was never going to work if that
money wasn't paired with good global public health policies. In
many cases, COVID turned out to be more powerful than
(34:21):
money and entrepreneurial grit, even when an entrepreneur was as
gritty as Rachel. What did you learn? We'd love to
hear from you. You can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion,
handle at Opinion or me at Tim O'Brien using the
hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course. You can also subscribe to our
show wherever you're listening right now and leave us a
(34:43):
review that helps more people find the show. This episode
was produced by the indispensable Animasarakas and Me. Our supervising
producer is Magnus Hendrickson, and we had editing help from
Katie Boyce, Jeff Grocott, Mike Nizza, Ta of al brun
and Christine Vanden Bilart. Blake Maples does our sound engineering,
(35:05):
and our original theme song was composed by Luis Garra.
I'm Tim O'Brien. We'll be back next week with another
Crash Course.
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