November 20, 2024 • 45 mins
Samantha Weiss and Kelly Jacques own AYU Bakehouse, a popular corner bakery in New Orleans' Marigny neighborhood. AYU is an Indonesian term for joy and a nod to Kelly's family heritage. Customers line up for AYU's flakey croissants, pillowy pastries and specialties such as muffaletta breadsticks laced with olives and salami, “shroom boom,” a mushroom-filled crusty pastry, chocolate babka knots and Boudin Boy, a hand-held pastry filled with boudin sausage and hard-boiled egg. Shipping available.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or
products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability
explicitor implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or
it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be
directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W
(00:21):
FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We'd
love to travel the world to bring you the amazing
people we meet and the things we eat and what
we sip and how we explore because our motto is Eat, drink,
explore and SPA. As many of you know and probably
(01:03):
by now that we have chosen the beautiful city of
New Orleans as our current home, and we've decided to
dedicate one show a month to spotlighting the wonderful culinary
treasures that New Orleans offers, hopefully encouraging everyone to come
visit right, David, and those.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
That live here to go venture out.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, but the people who live here we know, we
know it's awesome. We want everybody to come down and
spend money and come all the time. So we are
going to have a really sweet discussion today with the
owners of one of the hottest bakeries in New Orleans.
It's called IU bake House. And it's so funny in
(01:42):
the world of what I call six degrees of separation,
it turns out that the owners actually worked right around
the corner from where you used to live in Lower
Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Crazy, isn't it crazy? And it
was one of our favorite places to go to as well,
which was also great. And now we're together in New Orleans.
We're talking about Samantha Weiss and Kelly Jacques, friends who
(02:06):
are now partners at AU bake House. And let me
just say that the AU Bakouse is located in one
of the coolest neighborhoods in New Orleans, in the Marineam
Frenchman Street. It's a little corner. It's that little corner
bakery that you just want to go hang out and
have coffee and just munch all day on wonderful pastries
and breads, which many people do because it has a
(02:28):
huge following and it's been named, I think, the top
bakery in New Orleans. So awesome. So welcome to you,
Samantha and Kelly, and congratulations on being recognized in a
fairly short amount of times since you opened in twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to
be here.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, let's talk about your stories. Each of you are.
Where did you grow up, what were your early interests.
Let's start with Kelly.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
So, I grew up mostly in the naw Plis, Maryland,
and I mean I was like playing soccer seven days
a week, like two hours a day, but I was
also baking on the side. I would bake like for
my soccer team, you know, a little halftime snack or something.
And that's kind of how it all started. And at
(03:20):
some point, when I was a freshman in high school,
we had to do like a job shadowing program, so
like for a day just go you know, to your
parents or wherever, go work with them and you know,
get out.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Into the world. And at the time, I was pretty
adamant not to go to one.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Of my parents' jobs. My dad was a doctor and
my mom and accountant. But there was this bakery around
the corner from us called Cakes and Confections, and we
would always go there to you know, like get like
birthday cakes and stuff. And I was like, that sounds
so fun, and so I called them up to see
if they'd let me come. And it was a little
(03:57):
skeptical at first, but ultimately the owner, Michael, said okay,
and I I just I showed up wearing like a sweater,
like definitely not ready to like work in a kitchen.
I left with like butter cream from like every on
every edge of my body.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
It was insane.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
And then I just never left. I started working there
on weekends and holidays. Even once I left to go
to college, I would come back and help them out
for the holidays.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And so that kind of like kickstarted at all for me.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I think, how old were you.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
I was like fourteen, It was legal, I promise.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
But you actually came down to New Orleans to go
to Tulane and right got.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Into the restaurant business from there and worked for.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Emeralds Great Chifts.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, people know, So aren't you tell me a little
bit about that journey?
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Totally yeah, you know, my mom kind of jokingly but
kind of seriously, it was like, you can go to
college anywhere east of the Mississippi River, because I think
she's the idea that I, like, ship out to California
or something seems like too far away, and lucky for me,
New Orleans is like perfectly nestled in on the east
side of the river. And yeah, I don't know, I
(05:17):
just got I went to visit Tu Lane. It was
the it was two thousand and five. I visited before Katrina,
and I just really fell in love with the campus.
Like there was like Marti gram beads hanging from oak
trees in the quad, and you know, seventeen.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Year old me was like, oh, hell yeah, this is
this is where I need to be.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And then we.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Were the first class after Katrina.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
So a lot of the people the class right before us,
they shut up for their first day of orientation.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
They were told to leave like, Okay, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We'll see you in a few days.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
And we know what happened next.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
So the class before us, it was so small, it
was like a couple hundred people or something.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So I just made for this very like intimate experience
that stuck with me, and.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Clearly, you know, my love for New Orleans really was
seated then. And so I actually I was studying. I
went to study Reman against my dad's suggestions. He thought
I would hate it. It turns out I really hated
at least organic chemistry. Like by the time I got
to that class, I was just like, this is not fun.
(06:28):
I think I should be having at least a little
bit of fun. You know, we do all this work.
And I was actually in the like communal room in
our dorm. We were watching the movie Stranger Than Fiction.
If you're familiar with it, it's like Maggie Gillenhall is
this like cool baker, and she's got this monologue where
she talks about how she was going to Harvard for
(06:51):
law school, and then soon she was like baking more
than she was studying. And then like that's when it
became clear that she should be a baker instead, and
just the whole room like turned around and looked at me,
and I was like, okay.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Then I went home that that holiday break.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
And I told my parents, like, I don't think I'm
gonna continue at this. I'm gonna do something else. And
they were like, yeah, surem okay, that's fine. But so
I ended up actually leaving tulane with a glass flowing.
I agree, So not exactly what I'm doing now. But
I find threads like common threads all the time. I
mean one is just like the heat, like working with heat,
(07:28):
working with equipment that is like powerful, and learning how
to maintain it, working in a group on very time
sensitive things. There's so many like common threads. And then
like the artistry of it all too. So you know,
my roommates were like working on term papers. I was
like lighting up torches and like welding molds together.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
But I loved it.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I didn't know Two Lane had glass blowing. But we
were just at the NUCAM Institute last night for a
poetry reading. Poet Laurie was in town Ada, Lemon and
the pottery program is incredible. And I went to two
Line back then it was Newcombe, and I remember how
amazing the arts program is there. I mean it is
a liberal arts school with an amazing arts program, also
(08:16):
medical too, so that's amazing. I have to ask this
before we move on to this method. Did you have
an easy bake oven?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Of course.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
You have, probably because I was baking with my mom.
Like I didn't know I needed the difficulty.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
My power was not strong enough.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So let's move on to Samantha, who you did not
have an easy bake oven. But tell us about where
you grew up and the younger you.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
Yeah, so I was actually born in Hundurs and adopted
and then I ended up growing up in Albany, New York.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So I don't have.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
A long history of working in bakeries and Kelly, but
growing up, my parents were great cooks and my mom
would always be baking something, and my grandmother would always
be baking something. So we always had something sweet in
the house and we still do. So I've just had
a suite tooth forever. And so although I went to
(09:24):
college for business administration, good food was always important to me.
And when I was graduating college, I was like, oh boy,
I'm about to be out on my own.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I have high standards for food.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
I need to know how to make this for myself,
and so I did.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Once I moved to.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
New York, I did do an amateur coursework at the
French Culinary Institute for Savory and had like high goals
of trying to work at the food network, but I
just didn't know what capacity. And then it took many
years for me to I guess, all of a sudden,
(10:07):
I switched and said, actually I want to do pastry.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I wanted to start my own rum cake business.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
And I was considering leaving New York City and moving
back to Albany and renting space out of a communal
kitchen to try and do some sort of online business.
And they did a number of like informational interviews with
career changers.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Sam is the most thorough person.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
I've never done a single informational interview in my life,
and she's probably done like three dozen.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, because you know, I was at the time, I
was working at Cana Fitzgerald in New York, and so
I knew it'd be quite a different lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And I was able to actually chat.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
With a couple of people that worked at Goldman Sachs
and made a shift and I was like, Okay, I
can do this. So then I yerolled in pastry school
and that's where Kelly and I met. So, you know,
by the end of that, I was no longer necessarily
(11:13):
interested in having a rum keg business, but you got
me on the track to like work in fine dining
and continue to explore like what my place was going
to be within the culinary world.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I think that's great, you know. I think so many
kids try to uphol their parents' dreams of going into
professional careers but may not be the best fit. And
they do it and they spend the time, and then
one day they had that aha moment and it could
be maybe lose your job, maybe walk away from your job,
(11:49):
maybe whatever. You just say, I'm done. I really want
to do something that brings me joy. And when you're
working that hard for that long, you want something that
you're really having a fun time doing. Yeah, because it's
hard running a business, guys, you're doing it. So let's
talk about how you connected and where you connected. As
(12:11):
we alluded to in the intro, we lived around the
corner from bread Spakery, which for us made just the
greatest chocolate bopka in the world, and that was among
other things that was like where I go for lunch
and lower Fifth Avenue. So what were you doing there
and at what point did you say we should do
(12:32):
something together?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
So, as Sam engine, we met in pastry school.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
So after I graduated college, I played around with like
a pop up down here for a little bit. I
was a pastry cook in the French Quarter and then
I was like, Okay, I think I really want to
learn more. I want to like dedicate time to starting
from the beginning. So that brought me to New York.
And then Sam was already there and we met in
(13:00):
night classes at the International Culinary Center, which used to
be French Culinary Institute, and Sam.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Would like show up in like a business suit.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
And I'm pretty sure I showed up in like soccer shorts,
and I was just like, who is this person?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
But we did.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
It was like this intensive class and since it was
by night, I could work during the day and Sam
was still at Canter Fitzgerald. So I got a job
at this like place that posted on Craigslist like that
it was a bakery opening up.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
It had no address, it had no name.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
I remember like I could see it. I can still
see the craigs ad in my head and thinking to.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Myself, what is this girl doing? So she's going to die.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
All hours plus work of like opening this bakery.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Reply, Well, I thought I was gonna die because I
was like, Okay, this sounds too good to be true.
Also like the person I spoke to didn't seem to
understand what was going on. And when I I finally
scheduled an interview, it wasn't at a bakery. And you know,
I was pretty young, I like twenty five, and and
I was like, Oh my god, is this like the
New York CORR story, where like I'm going into this
(14:10):
office building and I'm gonna be murdered. Anyways, long story short,
I'm not murdered. And so yeah, that was Bread's Bakery.
I started like a couple of weeks before.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
They opened as a bread baker, and.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
It was so cool to see like something stark from nothing.
I had only worked at places that it existed for
a long time, and it gave me such perspective on
how systems are built, how culture is built, you know,
for good or for bad. Like it's it's so fluid
and it takes like constant daily maintenance to keep.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
It to the thing that you wanted to be. And
I got to see that firsthand.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
And you know, when I moved to New York, my
thought was like, I just want to learn as much
as possible. I thought I was gonna be there only
for a year. While I was in school. So and
I was twenty five. I felt like my energy level
was limitless, you know, and so working in the morning
and then going to school until like eleven PM and
then taking the train home and waking up at five
(15:15):
to go back to work, like it was just it
was just what I felt like had to happen.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
But I learned so much.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I was able to move from bread into pastry, and
then I got to kind of rise up more into operations,
and by the time I left, I was the operations
manager and that let me hone other skills, like more
of the like systematizing, systematizing of the whole thing, which
I think is you know, I love baking.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I love production, but I'm getting older, you.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Know, Like I think I that helped me learn like
what a more sustainable version of that job could be.
And then like maybe five years in so, you know,
I thought i'd be there a year. I was there
for like nine years, but a couple of years more.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, I don't remember what year joined. I think twenty seventeen.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
Yeah, Bread's Bakery. I would I mean, I don't know.
If we're done with the question was how we met?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Right, Well, so no, actually, how did you get to
New Orleans. I mean, you know you're in New York
and you're both working, and what got you to New Orleans?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Like okay, well she did, Yeah, I'm going back.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
It was always her intention to come back, right. She
thought she was only in New York for a year.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
Right, And every time my lease would be up, I'd
be like, okay, is it this year? And then there
was always something sticky about New York. You know, I'm
soccer team that I really loved, So I was like, okay,
one year it was that, and then I got into
like IMPROVM. Then it was that for a while, and
like it's finally by like twenty nineteen, I was like, Okay,
this feels actually like the like the time to go back.
(17:01):
And Sam had been working at Breads for a couple
of years at that point, and she was heading up
the hatering and wholesale department, so we worked like side
by side, but in different areas, and I think during
that time we got to see how each other worked
and that like, Okay, this is somebody who's gonna like
stay until the job's done and have a high standard.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
And I think that, you know.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
I think anywhere you work, you have those like you know,
water cooler, like if we had our own thing, you know,
I think that's like a natural just reaction to it.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
But but I think for us, we both knew that, like.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
We have this opportunity where like we still feel like
we have a good amount of energy. We have all
this knowledge, all this experience, like we didn't want to
waste it, but we.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Didn't leave New York, both coming Like, so the birth
of this came a year after COVID, but killing moved
back to New Orleans and and actually I moved to
California the same day.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, yeah, it was just coincidentally.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
But yeah, so Sam had moved out to California with
her partner. He wanted, he'd always wanted to move out there.
But of course it's all like coincided with COVID. So
that threw a lot of wrenches and all of our plans.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
Yeah, she was only there for a week, ten days
maybe before Shelter and Place started, and so our plans
basically fell through. And a year later, Kelly was telling
me she needed to figure out what she was going to.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Do remotely for Breads during the pandemic because I was
doing a lot of the digital stuff so I could
still help throw them afar.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
He had already been putting down ideas for a bakery
here and then shared them with me and said, you know,
I think I'm going to open a bakery.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I was like, well, I want to come do
that with you.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Yeah, and so then like maybe summer twenty twenty one. Yeah, yeah,
we had already signed a.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Lease on the space here, but then she relocated with Steve.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
You know, I was wondering as you were talking how
COVID fit in. You answered the question because all this
is gelling. And then basically for many people, including your,
plans had to be shelved for almost two years for
many people. You finally ended up opening IU bake House
in twenty twenty two, which was a fortuitous time because
so many people then were finally getting out in the
(19:36):
world again and New Orleans was actually open for business
in terms of tourism and you You've got a lot
of good press from the very beginning. And it's interesting
because I think it was Ian McNulty said it was
one of the loneliest corners. I don't know what was
what was in and it's a great corner. Listen everybody.
(19:57):
It's a great corner because it's a part the stree.
It's on Frenchman Street, which is one of the coolest
streets ever. But it's especially when corner locations. Location location
very important. What was there before and how did you
come up with the feel of the place, because you
worked with the designer that According to the article about
(20:18):
the opening, uh mimix, you have a display case managing
the shape of a croissant. So there's a lot of there.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
It's subtle, but if you look at it from the
right angle, I read display.
Speaker 6 (20:30):
Yeah, it is an arch what you call sets on
for representing croissant steps.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
So I mean I was basically like scouring the commercial
real estate listings online and then like going to check
out some places. And this is while Sam still lived
in California, so I would like stand her photos and stuff,
and this one on the corner, you know, it was
listed and the second I saw it, I was like, well,
(20:57):
obviously that one would be perfect, but I.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Just never thought it would be attainable.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
I was like, it's gonna go too fast. I'm not
quite ready to commit, you know, Like I just it
seems m.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
I think there was only four summercial robbery even for
us to consider there was not This was like.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Winter two thousand, like the end of the year two thousand.
We were looking yeah, yeah, and it was a very
you know, confusing time. A lot of stuff was up
in the air. I do think not to give a
pandemic credit, but like I don't know that that we
would have been able to open this had we not
both had this you know, like opportunity.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah. I was not working for a year.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
Yeah, and I went from like a seventy hour work
week to all of a sudden this like kind of
nice remote job that I knew like the back of
my hand, with like time to do other things and yeah,
you know, and and time to reflect and like kind of.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Uh digest the last decade.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
But yeah, So then then we saw this space, and
after a couple of months it was still listed.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I was like, Okay, well let's just go look at it.
Look at it.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We might as well. Yeah, I mean, like for me,
my my.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Like experience with Frenchman Street was very much like being
in college and after college and like you know, late
night music scene, and for me, at least at that time,
like Frenchman Street stopped at the park at Washington Square Park,
it was like kind of dark there too, and.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
So you wouldn't really go past there was like the
jump on.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
A couple of blocks down that bar, but like I
was a little worried looking at it, like, you know,
is there.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, how do you get people to go one more block?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (22:48):
In business school that's always like the key, like how
do you get someone to go the extra block?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It's a really good point. And and for our listeners
who are not familiar with the gug funeral and so
you know, there's the French Quarter, which everybody knows, and
then just past that is the Marine and Frenchman Street
what we're talking about, and then past that is by water.
But it's it's it's a chunk. I mean, it's a
it's a walk. We've done it, and it's a lot
(23:18):
of really wonderful cottage businesses have opened there, a lot
of restaurants and bakeries and booksellers. It's it's a very
cool I'm not gonna I dare say the word hipster,
but I have to in some way because it feels
like what Brooklyn used to be when Brooklyn Woodley was
fun like.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
An artist community, city, and I think you.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Can argue the same thing is happening that happened to Brooklyn,
you know, like that announced all airbnbs and going through
a similar kind of uh commercialized cycles, you know. But
for us, like what we really saw here was one
like you know, first we were like, okay, we're gonna
be a late night bakery now that we're on Freshman Street, Like.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
How do you justify this? So it was like maybe
that's something.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
A stick.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
Yeah, somebody told us once about this bakery in Florence,
or maybe it's a few bakeries and they run through.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
The night because they're doing wholesale cornettos.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
And everything, and and then if you knock just right
on the right door at like two am, a baker
will sell you a fresh croissance out of the out
of the door.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
So that was always like a little idea in the
back of our head.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Maybe one day we'll still do it, but yeah, we
had to kind of decide like what's our what's our
model going to be?
Speaker 4 (24:33):
How do we justify being on Frenchman.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Street that like the main nightlife you know, hub in
New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
It is definitely a hopping scene at night.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
That's for sure, total literally night and day morning.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So let's talk about the word are you. It's actually
an Indonesian term for joy. So how did what was
the process that you came up with naming it?
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Are you?
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Yeah, it's like it means beautiful or like a term
of joy.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
So, I mean, Kelly said, I'm one of the most
thorough people.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
That she knows.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
So I really wasn't giving up on finding a name
that I just felt was great.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
So we went through hundreds, even like had a friend.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
Of hers that's in marketing, like come up with an
endless list of options for us, and then we had
narrowed it down to five.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Kelly really wanted.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
What were some of the other ones?
Speaker 5 (25:28):
Coco, Drillo, Yeah, yeah, it's also a type of.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah. And then I don't think we had these you.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
Maybe maybe I all sounds so cringe and we had yeah,
I guess, and I think that there hadn't have been
one more, but I can't remember.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
So anyways, we sent a survey the friends and family
and had.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Them voted as well.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
But I mean, the reason I even in my search,
I started to feel very strongly that like I wanted
the I wanted a name that was not generic. It
wasn't going to be like Frenchman Street bakery. It was
going to have some mystare to it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
But what's neat about it is besides i u is
an an Asian term for joy. It's also a great
riff on the word by you, which is.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I was like, we can say ayu like by you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
It's also it's not location specific, so if you ever
did choose to have other locations, you could have it
and it would always bring joy wherever it goes, Right.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
And I think like we also knew that whatever the
name was, it would take on a new meaning with us,
like you know, think of Apple, right, like the company
itself has become something that you don't even think about,
the apples. Yeah, and so we knew that it could
grow beyond the word and I think the word I
(27:07):
you also said it's just not a common word in English,
that it had room to really put our own meaning on.
So you know, so that we could, like you turn
it into whatever our bakery would become.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I think you pronounced. Also, you want something easy to
pronounce because New Orleans has a lot of international visitors.
It's easy. Now let's talk about you. So your unique
selling proposition, the name, the location, you could expand if
you choose. Let's talk about what you bake, because so
how did we discover Iyu Bake House. We have friends,
(27:41):
dear friends in the quarter and they go and pick
up you know, boxes of your products, your pastries and breads,
and they introduced us and we were hooked. And the
other night we were just having dinner with them and
they did the month a lot of food goss. Okay,
that is a unique you probably can't keep it. It
(28:03):
probably sells out immediately. I mean, talk to us about
some of these signature breads. We'll start with breads and
the pastries.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Sure, yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
My approach was like we are coming to this with
a certain set of just technical skills, so like laminated dough.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Sour dough breads, uh, coffee, also like the that.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Was kind of like, okay, these are the tools that
we like spent the last decade kind of honing hospitality too,
and now what flavors do we actually want to be
making and celebrating And so we started like right under
our feet, like New Orleans, what food do we love
from here?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Budan we got we source Budan from best stop.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
So for the uninitiated, it's just like it's the best
like Cajun budan that you can get and muffle out
of sandwiches. Of course, like you know, I would eat
them all the time. I worked at a cafe as
a server for a long time during college. But like
it was always so much bread, Like you can hardly
eat like your way through an entire muffalata.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
And so we just go like whip the ratio.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Make it like more stuff to bread, and like a
breadstick would be the perfect form for that. And then
you could like walk down Frenchley Street with it or
through the quarter or something.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
A major thing that we considered was that we wanted
people to have handheld things that you can have one
hand to eat in one hand for your drink and
just go on your merry do well.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
That's important for New Orleans, whether it's a cup of coffee,
a macha, or a drink a cocktail, and and and
the you do this is interesting. You do a muffleout
of breadstick, which is the traditional with the with the
a meat and olives and the olive and then you
do a vegetarian one, which is great for people who
(29:53):
don't and I because I don't eat meat. I did
nipple on that one the other night. That was so good.
There's something I personally loved called the shroom Boom and
it is gorgeous. Also, I don't know how those layers happened,
but talk to us about that.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Oh, those layers happen with hard work and butter.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
We're gonna post a photo of them on our social media,
the Connected table. They're gorgeous. So what's inside? What makes
it so shreomy?
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:19):
So it's just a very simple filling, caramelized onions, mushrooms.
It's seasoned with little thyme, black pepper, salt, and then
we add grew year when we're filling it into the pastry.
So had a very classic French you know, you had
a lot of fun playing with like French frenchman, you know,
like bullying it. So that's so yeah, we just knew
(30:42):
we wanted a nice vegetarian action. Yeah, it's super savory. Yeah,
and so it's just it makes for a great filling
and that croissanto on the outside, like you get the
get the best of both worlds. It like in case
of it, it's this uh handheld portable pastry. Like we
(31:03):
get to use our croissanto, we actually use it a
little differently in this case where we don't proof it.
So croissant is easted, so a typical croissant would have
time to rise. But when you use it without proofing it,
you get kind of very distinct layers in a different way.
And so it's just a way to also like eke
a little more of a variety out of the out
(31:23):
of our production to keep it like manageable on and
as efficient as possible, but but have as much variety
and options too.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, now we're talking about staples you offer every day,
and so we want to talk a little bit more
about some of the ones that are some of your
most popular, and then we're going to talk about some
seasonal ones. I think that's important too.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
So what else?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
What else are some of your top sellers?
Speaker 6 (31:47):
For savory, it's a muffle lot of breadstick and our
booty and boy are always contacting with one another. And
then for sweet, it's our the chocolate barka not yeah
we got from New York.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Yeah, we got brands of bakeries Bliss to bring the
Bobka down here.
Speaker 6 (32:03):
And also the blueberry lemon butt, yeah, which I always say,
and my selling point is that it's like the little
blueberry pancake, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
Yeah, and so a lot of our pastries, you know,
they play with like using a laminated dough as a
base and then filling it with anything. Like when we
teach baking classes. That's to me, like the thesis of
the whole thing is like, you know, everyone my whole
life tells me that that cooking is artistry, but baking
(32:33):
is science, and I till the day I die, I think,
will push back that, like, no, they are. Actually they
both have this foundation and technique right, Like you have
to cook meat right to be like a super creative cook.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
You also have to know how to make it dough right.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Sometimes they're very complicated, but still like you have to
get that base right and then after that you can
lay around flavors however you like, and it's really really limitless.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
We'll work with two doughs, yes, yes, the Cerissando and
what we call our bob.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Good Ye a bit.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We have numerous things on our patient counter.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah all no, it's great. You are for cooking classes.
We're on your website right now, which is aubag house
dot com. It's currently sold out. But I'm a croissant
free again. I am so particular about my croissants and
the flakiness. I see you do a gingerbread house. That's another.
I'm a huge gingerbread I love gingerbread men and gingerbread,
and I like it hear around, So that's exciting. Now
(33:34):
we also attended well before we get to that seasonal
we hear you do a really great king cake. Let's
makes your Marty Garol king cake so special?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Uh, keep it simple.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
That's like the ethos I think, like, you know, we
have some things that are more complicated, but anytime we're like,
oh man, what should we make, the answer is always
like pear it down to the fewest best ingredient and
technique and and so far that has that has worked for.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Us every time.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
And you know, when we were starting that the Big
Book of kin Cake had just come out, that book
by Matt Haynes where it's like, you know, hundreds of
kin cakes all around the city and the state, and.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
It was a little overwhelming.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
It was like, oh shit, like this is proof that
like there are so many options.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Out there, Like how do you possibly stand out.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
And I think it just clicked that, like, it's not
gonna be the that we come up with the one
flavor no one has ever done, because like they had.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
All been done, Like this book is thick, and.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
It seemed more like when was the last time you
had a warm kin cake out of the oven? And
like a fresh kin cake and one that didn't feel
a little dry like by the time you got it
home and wasn't too heavy you have too heavy, too sweet?
Speaker 6 (34:50):
Like how like you want to be able to enjoys
when king cakes through the season is possible.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
So I don't know. For us, I think a lot
of our stuff is a we're.
Speaker 6 (35:00):
A bit I don't know, the less sweet side compared
to our competitors. And I felt like this was a
great balance of like meeting some tradition but reinventing it
in a simple way.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
We we haven't lived through king cake season in New Orleans,
yet we did it in France. We were we had
a million gala at a wa everywhere we went we
were being served gala at a wah. And I said, Wow,
this is amazing. And so when king cake season comes,
why do I think you had to have a kink
cake a day until everybody got the little baby. Once
everybody got the baby, nobody cared about the King cake
(35:34):
in so I. And for the holidays, for like the
Christmas and Thanksgiving and the special holidays here. Do you
have specialties that.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Yeah, I told me.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Every we're about to uh go into pie season full
blast in a couple of weeks. So where you've got
like a nice classic pumpkin and doing pecan with this
kum quat candy kumquat at the bottom, which really just
like elevates it just a little bit, I think, And
we do them all in a croissant crust, so it
(36:09):
has like that flakiness. It doesn't feel too far from
like your classic thing, but it just like pushes up
the flakiness just a little bit. And then we're apple crum,
oh yeah, and an apple crumb pie which.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Can be gluten free.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
Also, you know, we'll just do it no crust so
that you can have more like an apple crisp.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So you have creative sessions to come up with ideas.
Do you ever have guests coming with as creative sessions?
Speaker 4 (36:36):
You're welcome to co hang out.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
It's so great.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
It's more like I'll be sitting in the office and
Kelly just swing open the door. He's coming, and she's like,
what if we do? And I was like, alligator, that's awesome.
So we did. We have something called but in a
half long.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
It's like meant to sit in the middle of your
holiday table.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
And it's just like a gator, you know, made of
hollow that reaches it's a.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Hola gator like al stare. I think you were waiting
for somebody to pick one up when we came and
visited a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
That's true. Yes, yeah, so I mean I think of fun.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
If we are like trying to come up with the menu,
it's like a balance of like you know, what's seasonal
or like what is the holiday we're coming into, you know,
like what's the what's the the need, and then also
like what would be fun also like fun to make,
fun to sell, fun to buy.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Because you do also a lot of production, it can
become very repetitive, and it's nice to like infuse a
little joy into it. I mean that is kind of
like the if that's our north star. Yeah, you know,
like if we've we've all worked in this industry for
so long, and it's so easy to evolve into just
like I don't want to go to where like that
(38:01):
mentality or like everybody kind of working against each other
even though you're literally all on the same team. And
I think that's been our number one focus through it all,
is like how do we how do we maybe it
make sure that this is a place that people including
us like want to keep coming to every day.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
And yeah, and I think so thankfully.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
With our name being AYU and it is an expression
of joy, like, oh, we need to live up the
beam and experience.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
In my mind, well speaking of spready joy. First of all,
for all of our listeners who are salivating and are
not New New Orleans, first come to New Orleans. Yes,
but you do have a program where you can order
and ship nationwide and you can go to the AYU
Big House website and it's a beautiful presentation. Actually you
say orders are made fresh to ship out weekly on Monday,
(38:56):
So place your ordered by eight am on Saturday and
they'll be delivered. So that's a great what a great
gifting for someone who wants something wonderful or maybe homesick
or can't get to new ones and try. So that's
something I think it's important to underscore for our listeners
who are not New Orleans. And then we also want
to talk about a program that you do that nurtures
(39:16):
up and coming talent because you all know where you
started and we love the fact that you are women
entrepreneurs giving back, So talk to us about your your
It's like a it's like a what do you call
that incubator program?
Speaker 6 (39:33):
Yeah, I mean the idea came after I went to
a conference called SAM that's yearly conference in Charleston where
women and the food and beverage world come together to
talk about business or well yeah, there's like numerous sessions
(39:56):
of conversation and so so we were talking about a
desire to potentially have open book management here, desire to find.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
A way to help our staff that are interested in.
Speaker 6 (40:13):
Becoming entrepreneurs like get on the right path to do
so because we hear it all the time.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
We have like regular reviews with staff. And then also
in the interview, it's like so many people said like,
well one day I want to open a business or
like you know, current staff being like what I want
to know what y'all are doing on the other side
of all this, and so we came.
Speaker 6 (40:32):
Was like, Okay, I don't think we're at a stage
yet where we can do open book management, but why
don't we let people. Let's train people on how to
create their own businesses and let them have their own
financials so that they can understand how a business operates.
And then Kelly went home and like wrote me the
next morning saying, I was up all night I put
together a curriculum.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I just had a base up all night anyways.
Speaker 6 (40:55):
And she had mapped out like a six week course
already of topic and like what we could talk about
in each one of them.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
And then I think we.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Must have started it like just a couple of weeks
after that, because we were like, okay, timeline wise, we
want somebody to actually be able to.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Host a pop up at our space before the holidays.
It needs to happen in this timeline. So we did.
Speaker 6 (41:21):
About six classes five classes. The sixth one became the
opportunity for staff to pitch their pop up idea to us.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
But like every week we would work through with the
steps of a business plan and like you know, they
all know like the production and operation side of it,
just from what they do all day, but like the
financial size, a lot of people were less familiar with
and how to like optimize your menu and like really
think about this from.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Like an analytical standpoint.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
And so we would invite guests other people who run
pop ups in the city to come and they gave
their insight and also just like to share how much
work it is. It is so much work to do
a pop up. It's like, you know, it's a lot
of work to run a small business, but at least
we have many people helping us. When it's a pop up,
it's almost definitely just yourself as like the dishwasher, the
(42:16):
delivery driver, the vendor, like the drive, the encounter, the baker,
you know everything, the pr person and I think they
got to see that first hand.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
And you know, Bella, so she won in the end.
Her pop up was Semita.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
Mamita and it was highlighting her kind of dual heritage
of New Orleans and El Salvador. So she has this
menu of items that are inspired by both places. And
she just wrapped up last weekend. She did five weekends
of this pop up and on top of her normal job,
you know, like the team all helped her out too,
(42:57):
and for sure like by the end now she like
ready to get this to pop up other places and
like take.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
This show on the road.
Speaker 5 (43:05):
And I think it's been it's been so satisfying also
on our end, like for people to to have a
little bit more perspective on just how much there is
like beyond just making the thing, you know, like the
production and the service is like a huge part of it.
But but then that's just like the tip of the
iceberg below.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Well, we had the pleasure of meeting Bella mcdowe and
attending one of the Samita Mamita pop ups and it
was a lot of fun and we just felt this
amazing friendship among colleagues' That's what we loved about AU
bacouse you feel like you're going it is that little
corner bakery on the corner where and every every city
(43:47):
should have one, but not every city does. Trust me,
we really want to thank you for all you're doing
to support aspiring bakers and congratulate you on your immense
success in a fairly short amount of time at au
Bakehouse for our listeners before we wrap, First of all,
(44:07):
we want to thank Kelly Jacques and Samantha why Is,
the owners of Au Bakehouse And you can go to
ayubakehouse dot com to see all these beautiful breads and
pastries and also order nationwide to ship if you place
your order by eight am on Saturday. Thank you again
for joining us on the Connected Table. We can't wait
to come get some more yummy breads to nibble on ourselves.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Let us know when you're coming, yeah we will.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
And for everyone listening, we hope that you savored this show.
You come to New Orleans, you visit au Bakehouse, and
as we always like to say when we close a show,
support local businesses. Support your local businesses and your local entrepreneurs,
and always stay insatiably curious. No no, no, no
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or
products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability
explicitor implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or
it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be
directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W
(00:21):
FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We'd
love to travel the world to bring you the amazing
people we meet and the things we eat and what
we sip and how we explore because our motto is Eat, drink,
explore and SPA. As many of you know and probably
(01:03):
by now that we have chosen the beautiful city of
New Orleans as our current home, and we've decided to
dedicate one show a month to spotlighting the wonderful culinary
treasures that New Orleans offers, hopefully encouraging everyone to come
visit right, David, and those.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
That live here to go venture out.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, but the people who live here we know, we
know it's awesome. We want everybody to come down and
spend money and come all the time. So we are
going to have a really sweet discussion today with the
owners of one of the hottest bakeries in New Orleans.
It's called IU bake House. And it's so funny in
(01:42):
the world of what I call six degrees of separation,
it turns out that the owners actually worked right around
the corner from where you used to live in Lower
Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Crazy, isn't it crazy? And it
was one of our favorite places to go to as well,
which was also great. And now we're together in New Orleans.
We're talking about Samantha Weiss and Kelly Jacques, friends who
(02:06):
are now partners at AU bake House. And let me
just say that the AU Bakouse is located in one
of the coolest neighborhoods in New Orleans, in the Marineam
Frenchman Street. It's a little corner. It's that little corner
bakery that you just want to go hang out and
have coffee and just munch all day on wonderful pastries
and breads, which many people do because it has a
(02:28):
huge following and it's been named, I think, the top
bakery in New Orleans. So awesome. So welcome to you,
Samantha and Kelly, and congratulations on being recognized in a
fairly short amount of times since you opened in twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to
be here.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, let's talk about your stories. Each of you are.
Where did you grow up, what were your early interests.
Let's start with Kelly.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
So, I grew up mostly in the naw Plis, Maryland,
and I mean I was like playing soccer seven days
a week, like two hours a day, but I was
also baking on the side. I would bake like for
my soccer team, you know, a little halftime snack or something.
And that's kind of how it all started. And at
(03:20):
some point, when I was a freshman in high school,
we had to do like a job shadowing program, so
like for a day just go you know, to your
parents or wherever, go work with them and you know,
get out.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Into the world. And at the time, I was pretty
adamant not to go to one.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Of my parents' jobs. My dad was a doctor and
my mom and accountant. But there was this bakery around
the corner from us called Cakes and Confections, and we
would always go there to you know, like get like
birthday cakes and stuff. And I was like, that sounds
so fun, and so I called them up to see
if they'd let me come. And it was a little
(03:57):
skeptical at first, but ultimately the owner, Michael, said okay,
and I I just I showed up wearing like a sweater,
like definitely not ready to like work in a kitchen.
I left with like butter cream from like every on
every edge of my body.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
It was insane.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
And then I just never left. I started working there
on weekends and holidays. Even once I left to go
to college, I would come back and help them out
for the holidays.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And so that kind of like kickstarted at all for me.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I think, how old were you.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
I was like fourteen, It was legal, I promise.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
But you actually came down to New Orleans to go
to Tulane and right got.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Into the restaurant business from there and worked for.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Emeralds Great Chifts.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, people know, So aren't you tell me a little
bit about that journey?
Speaker 5 (04:55):
Totally yeah, you know, my mom kind of jokingly but
kind of seriously, it was like, you can go to
college anywhere east of the Mississippi River, because I think
she's the idea that I, like, ship out to California
or something seems like too far away, and lucky for me,
New Orleans is like perfectly nestled in on the east
side of the river. And yeah, I don't know, I
(05:17):
just got I went to visit Tu Lane. It was
the it was two thousand and five. I visited before Katrina,
and I just really fell in love with the campus.
Like there was like Marti gram beads hanging from oak
trees in the quad, and you know, seventeen.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Year old me was like, oh, hell yeah, this is
this is where I need to be.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And then we.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Were the first class after Katrina.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
So a lot of the people the class right before us,
they shut up for their first day of orientation.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
They were told to leave like, Okay, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We'll see you in a few days.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
And we know what happened next.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
So the class before us, it was so small, it
was like a couple hundred people or something.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So I just made for this very like intimate experience
that stuck with me, and.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Clearly, you know, my love for New Orleans really was
seated then. And so I actually I was studying. I
went to study Reman against my dad's suggestions. He thought
I would hate it. It turns out I really hated
at least organic chemistry. Like by the time I got
to that class, I was just like, this is not fun.
(06:28):
I think I should be having at least a little
bit of fun. You know, we do all this work.
And I was actually in the like communal room in
our dorm. We were watching the movie Stranger Than Fiction.
If you're familiar with it, it's like Maggie Gillenhall is
this like cool baker, and she's got this monologue where
she talks about how she was going to Harvard for
(06:51):
law school, and then soon she was like baking more
than she was studying. And then like that's when it
became clear that she should be a baker instead, and
just the whole room like turned around and looked at me,
and I was like, okay.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Then I went home that that holiday break.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
And I told my parents, like, I don't think I'm
gonna continue at this. I'm gonna do something else. And
they were like, yeah, surem okay, that's fine. But so
I ended up actually leaving tulane with a glass flowing.
I agree, So not exactly what I'm doing now. But
I find threads like common threads all the time. I
mean one is just like the heat, like working with heat,
(07:28):
working with equipment that is like powerful, and learning how
to maintain it, working in a group on very time
sensitive things. There's so many like common threads. And then
like the artistry of it all too. So you know,
my roommates were like working on term papers. I was
like lighting up torches and like welding molds together.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
But I loved it.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I didn't know Two Lane had glass blowing. But we
were just at the NUCAM Institute last night for a
poetry reading. Poet Laurie was in town Ada, Lemon and
the pottery program is incredible. And I went to two
Line back then it was Newcombe, and I remember how
amazing the arts program is there. I mean it is
a liberal arts school with an amazing arts program, also
(08:16):
medical too, so that's amazing. I have to ask this
before we move on to this method. Did you have
an easy bake oven?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Of course.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
You have, probably because I was baking with my mom.
Like I didn't know I needed the difficulty.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
My power was not strong enough.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So let's move on to Samantha, who you did not
have an easy bake oven. But tell us about where
you grew up and the younger you.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
Yeah, so I was actually born in Hundurs and adopted
and then I ended up growing up in Albany, New York.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So I don't have.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
A long history of working in bakeries and Kelly, but
growing up, my parents were great cooks and my mom
would always be baking something, and my grandmother would always
be baking something. So we always had something sweet in
the house and we still do. So I've just had
a suite tooth forever. And so although I went to
(09:24):
college for business administration, good food was always important to me.
And when I was graduating college, I was like, oh boy,
I'm about to be out on my own.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I have high standards for food.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
I need to know how to make this for myself,
and so I did.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Once I moved to.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
New York, I did do an amateur coursework at the
French Culinary Institute for Savory and had like high goals
of trying to work at the food network, but I
just didn't know what capacity. And then it took many
years for me to I guess, all of a sudden,
(10:07):
I switched and said, actually I want to do pastry.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I wanted to start my own rum cake business.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
And I was considering leaving New York City and moving
back to Albany and renting space out of a communal
kitchen to try and do some sort of online business.
And they did a number of like informational interviews with
career changers.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Sam is the most thorough person.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
I've never done a single informational interview in my life,
and she's probably done like three dozen.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, because you know, I was at the time, I
was working at Cana Fitzgerald in New York, and so
I knew it'd be quite a different lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And I was able to actually chat.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
With a couple of people that worked at Goldman Sachs
and made a shift and I was like, Okay, I
can do this. So then I yerolled in pastry school
and that's where Kelly and I met. So, you know,
by the end of that, I was no longer necessarily
(11:13):
interested in having a rum keg business, but you got
me on the track to like work in fine dining
and continue to explore like what my place was going
to be within the culinary world.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I think that's great, you know. I think so many
kids try to uphol their parents' dreams of going into
professional careers but may not be the best fit. And
they do it and they spend the time, and then
one day they had that aha moment and it could
be maybe lose your job, maybe walk away from your job,
(11:49):
maybe whatever. You just say, I'm done. I really want
to do something that brings me joy. And when you're
working that hard for that long, you want something that
you're really having a fun time doing. Yeah, because it's
hard running a business, guys, you're doing it. So let's
talk about how you connected and where you connected. As
(12:11):
we alluded to in the intro, we lived around the
corner from bread Spakery, which for us made just the
greatest chocolate bopka in the world, and that was among
other things that was like where I go for lunch
and lower Fifth Avenue. So what were you doing there
and at what point did you say we should do
(12:32):
something together?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
So, as Sam engine, we met in pastry school.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
So after I graduated college, I played around with like
a pop up down here for a little bit. I
was a pastry cook in the French Quarter and then
I was like, Okay, I think I really want to
learn more. I want to like dedicate time to starting
from the beginning. So that brought me to New York.
And then Sam was already there and we met in
(13:00):
night classes at the International Culinary Center, which used to
be French Culinary Institute, and Sam.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Would like show up in like a business suit.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
And I'm pretty sure I showed up in like soccer shorts,
and I was just like, who is this person?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
But we did.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
It was like this intensive class and since it was
by night, I could work during the day and Sam
was still at Canter Fitzgerald. So I got a job
at this like place that posted on Craigslist like that
it was a bakery opening up.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
It had no address, it had no name.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
I remember like I could see it. I can still
see the craigs ad in my head and thinking to.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Myself, what is this girl doing? So she's going to die.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
All hours plus work of like opening this bakery.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Reply, Well, I thought I was gonna die because I
was like, Okay, this sounds too good to be true.
Also like the person I spoke to didn't seem to
understand what was going on. And when I I finally
scheduled an interview, it wasn't at a bakery. And you know,
I was pretty young, I like twenty five, and and
I was like, Oh my god, is this like the
New York CORR story, where like I'm going into this
(14:10):
office building and I'm gonna be murdered. Anyways, long story short,
I'm not murdered. And so yeah, that was Bread's Bakery.
I started like a couple of weeks before.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
They opened as a bread baker, and.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
It was so cool to see like something stark from nothing.
I had only worked at places that it existed for
a long time, and it gave me such perspective on
how systems are built, how culture is built, you know,
for good or for bad. Like it's it's so fluid
and it takes like constant daily maintenance to keep.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
It to the thing that you wanted to be. And
I got to see that firsthand.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
And you know, when I moved to New York, my
thought was like, I just want to learn as much
as possible. I thought I was gonna be there only
for a year. While I was in school. So and
I was twenty five. I felt like my energy level
was limitless, you know, and so working in the morning
and then going to school until like eleven PM and
then taking the train home and waking up at five
(15:15):
to go back to work, like it was just it
was just what I felt like had to happen.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
But I learned so much.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I was able to move from bread into pastry, and
then I got to kind of rise up more into operations,
and by the time I left, I was the operations
manager and that let me hone other skills, like more
of the like systematizing, systematizing of the whole thing, which
I think is you know, I love baking.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I love production, but I'm getting older, you.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Know, Like I think I that helped me learn like
what a more sustainable version of that job could be.
And then like maybe five years in so, you know,
I thought i'd be there a year. I was there
for like nine years, but a couple of years more.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, I don't remember what year joined. I think twenty seventeen.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
Yeah, Bread's Bakery. I would I mean, I don't know.
If we're done with the question was how we met?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Right, Well, so no, actually, how did you get to
New Orleans. I mean, you know you're in New York
and you're both working, and what got you to New Orleans?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Like okay, well she did, Yeah, I'm going back.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
It was always her intention to come back, right. She
thought she was only in New York for a year.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
Right, And every time my lease would be up, I'd
be like, okay, is it this year? And then there
was always something sticky about New York. You know, I'm
soccer team that I really loved, So I was like, okay,
one year it was that, and then I got into
like IMPROVM. Then it was that for a while, and
like it's finally by like twenty nineteen, I was like, Okay,
this feels actually like the like the time to go back.
(17:01):
And Sam had been working at Breads for a couple
of years at that point, and she was heading up
the hatering and wholesale department, so we worked like side
by side, but in different areas, and I think during
that time we got to see how each other worked
and that like, Okay, this is somebody who's gonna like
stay until the job's done and have a high standard.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
And I think that, you know.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
I think anywhere you work, you have those like you know,
water cooler, like if we had our own thing, you know,
I think that's like a natural just reaction to it.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
But but I think for us, we both knew that, like.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
We have this opportunity where like we still feel like
we have a good amount of energy. We have all
this knowledge, all this experience, like we didn't want to
waste it, but we.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Didn't leave New York, both coming Like, so the birth
of this came a year after COVID, but killing moved
back to New Orleans and and actually I moved to
California the same day.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, yeah, it was just coincidentally.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
But yeah, so Sam had moved out to California with
her partner. He wanted, he'd always wanted to move out there.
But of course it's all like coincided with COVID. So
that threw a lot of wrenches and all of our plans.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
Yeah, she was only there for a week, ten days
maybe before Shelter and Place started, and so our plans
basically fell through. And a year later, Kelly was telling
me she needed to figure out what she was going to.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Do remotely for Breads during the pandemic because I was
doing a lot of the digital stuff so I could
still help throw them afar.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
He had already been putting down ideas for a bakery
here and then shared them with me and said, you know,
I think I'm going to open a bakery.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I was like, well, I want to come do
that with you.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Yeah, and so then like maybe summer twenty twenty one. Yeah, yeah,
we had already signed a.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Lease on the space here, but then she relocated with Steve.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
You know, I was wondering as you were talking how
COVID fit in. You answered the question because all this
is gelling. And then basically for many people, including your,
plans had to be shelved for almost two years for
many people. You finally ended up opening IU bake House
in twenty twenty two, which was a fortuitous time because
so many people then were finally getting out in the
(19:36):
world again and New Orleans was actually open for business
in terms of tourism and you You've got a lot
of good press from the very beginning. And it's interesting
because I think it was Ian McNulty said it was
one of the loneliest corners. I don't know what was
what was in and it's a great corner. Listen everybody.
(19:57):
It's a great corner because it's a part the stree.
It's on Frenchman Street, which is one of the coolest
streets ever. But it's especially when corner locations. Location location
very important. What was there before and how did you
come up with the feel of the place, because you
worked with the designer that According to the article about
(20:18):
the opening, uh mimix, you have a display case managing
the shape of a croissant. So there's a lot of there.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
It's subtle, but if you look at it from the
right angle, I read display.
Speaker 6 (20:30):
Yeah, it is an arch what you call sets on
for representing croissant steps.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
So I mean I was basically like scouring the commercial
real estate listings online and then like going to check
out some places. And this is while Sam still lived
in California, so I would like stand her photos and stuff,
and this one on the corner, you know, it was
listed and the second I saw it, I was like, well,
(20:57):
obviously that one would be perfect, but I.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Just never thought it would be attainable.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
I was like, it's gonna go too fast. I'm not
quite ready to commit, you know, Like I just it
seems m.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
I think there was only four summercial robbery even for
us to consider there was not This was like.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Winter two thousand, like the end of the year two thousand.
We were looking yeah, yeah, and it was a very
you know, confusing time. A lot of stuff was up
in the air. I do think not to give a
pandemic credit, but like I don't know that that we
would have been able to open this had we not
both had this you know, like opportunity.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah. I was not working for a year.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
Yeah, and I went from like a seventy hour work
week to all of a sudden this like kind of
nice remote job that I knew like the back of
my hand, with like time to do other things and yeah,
you know, and and time to reflect and like kind of.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Uh digest the last decade.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
But yeah, So then then we saw this space, and
after a couple of months it was still listed.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I was like, Okay, well let's just go look at it.
Look at it.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We might as well. Yeah, I mean, like for me,
my my.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Like experience with Frenchman Street was very much like being
in college and after college and like you know, late
night music scene, and for me, at least at that time,
like Frenchman Street stopped at the park at Washington Square Park,
it was like kind of dark there too, and.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
So you wouldn't really go past there was like the
jump on.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
A couple of blocks down that bar, but like I
was a little worried looking at it, like, you know,
is there.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, how do you get people to go one more block?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (22:48):
In business school that's always like the key, like how
do you get someone to go the extra block?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It's a really good point. And and for our listeners
who are not familiar with the gug funeral and so
you know, there's the French Quarter, which everybody knows, and
then just past that is the Marine and Frenchman Street
what we're talking about, and then past that is by water.
But it's it's it's a chunk. I mean, it's a
it's a walk. We've done it, and it's a lot
(23:18):
of really wonderful cottage businesses have opened there, a lot
of restaurants and bakeries and booksellers. It's it's a very
cool I'm not gonna I dare say the word hipster,
but I have to in some way because it feels
like what Brooklyn used to be when Brooklyn Woodley was
fun like.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
An artist community, city, and I think you.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Can argue the same thing is happening that happened to Brooklyn,
you know, like that announced all airbnbs and going through
a similar kind of uh commercialized cycles, you know. But
for us, like what we really saw here was one
like you know, first we were like, okay, we're gonna
be a late night bakery now that we're on Freshman Street, Like.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
How do you justify this? So it was like maybe
that's something.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
A stick.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
Yeah, somebody told us once about this bakery in Florence,
or maybe it's a few bakeries and they run through.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
The night because they're doing wholesale cornettos.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
And everything, and and then if you knock just right
on the right door at like two am, a baker
will sell you a fresh croissance out of the out
of the door.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
So that was always like a little idea in the
back of our head.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Maybe one day we'll still do it, but yeah, we
had to kind of decide like what's our what's our
model going to be?
Speaker 4 (24:33):
How do we justify being on Frenchman.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Street that like the main nightlife you know, hub in
New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
It is definitely a hopping scene at night.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
That's for sure, total literally night and day morning.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So let's talk about the word are you. It's actually
an Indonesian term for joy. So how did what was
the process that you came up with naming it?
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Are you?
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Yeah, it's like it means beautiful or like a term
of joy.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
So, I mean, Kelly said, I'm one of the most
thorough people.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
That she knows.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
So I really wasn't giving up on finding a name
that I just felt was great.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
So we went through hundreds, even like had a friend.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
Of hers that's in marketing, like come up with an
endless list of options for us, and then we had
narrowed it down to five.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Kelly really wanted.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
What were some of the other ones?
Speaker 5 (25:28):
Coco, Drillo, Yeah, yeah, it's also a type of.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah. And then I don't think we had these you.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
Maybe maybe I all sounds so cringe and we had yeah,
I guess, and I think that there hadn't have been
one more, but I can't remember.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
So anyways, we sent a survey the friends and family
and had.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Them voted as well.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
But I mean, the reason I even in my search,
I started to feel very strongly that like I wanted
the I wanted a name that was not generic. It
wasn't going to be like Frenchman Street bakery. It was
going to have some mystare to it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
But what's neat about it is besides i u is
an an Asian term for joy. It's also a great
riff on the word by you, which is.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I was like, we can say ayu like by you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
It's also it's not location specific, so if you ever
did choose to have other locations, you could have it
and it would always bring joy wherever it goes, Right.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
And I think like we also knew that whatever the
name was, it would take on a new meaning with us,
like you know, think of Apple, right, like the company
itself has become something that you don't even think about,
the apples. Yeah, and so we knew that it could
grow beyond the word and I think the word I
(27:07):
you also said it's just not a common word in English,
that it had room to really put our own meaning on.
So you know, so that we could, like you turn
it into whatever our bakery would become.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I think you pronounced. Also, you want something easy to
pronounce because New Orleans has a lot of international visitors.
It's easy. Now let's talk about you. So your unique
selling proposition, the name, the location, you could expand if
you choose. Let's talk about what you bake, because so
how did we discover Iyu Bake House. We have friends,
(27:41):
dear friends in the quarter and they go and pick
up you know, boxes of your products, your pastries and breads,
and they introduced us and we were hooked. And the
other night we were just having dinner with them and
they did the month a lot of food goss. Okay,
that is a unique you probably can't keep it. It
(28:03):
probably sells out immediately. I mean, talk to us about
some of these signature breads. We'll start with breads and
the pastries.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Sure, yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
My approach was like we are coming to this with
a certain set of just technical skills, so like laminated dough.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Sour dough breads, uh, coffee, also like the that.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Was kind of like, okay, these are the tools that
we like spent the last decade kind of honing hospitality too,
and now what flavors do we actually want to be
making and celebrating And so we started like right under
our feet, like New Orleans, what food do we love
from here?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Budan we got we source Budan from best stop.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
So for the uninitiated, it's just like it's the best
like Cajun budan that you can get and muffle out
of sandwiches. Of course, like you know, I would eat
them all the time. I worked at a cafe as
a server for a long time during college. But like
it was always so much bread, Like you can hardly
eat like your way through an entire muffalata.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
And so we just go like whip the ratio.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Make it like more stuff to bread, and like a
breadstick would be the perfect form for that. And then
you could like walk down Frenchley Street with it or
through the quarter or something.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
A major thing that we considered was that we wanted
people to have handheld things that you can have one
hand to eat in one hand for your drink and
just go on your merry do well.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
That's important for New Orleans, whether it's a cup of coffee,
a macha, or a drink a cocktail, and and and
the you do this is interesting. You do a muffleout
of breadstick, which is the traditional with the with the
a meat and olives and the olive and then you
do a vegetarian one, which is great for people who
(29:53):
don't and I because I don't eat meat. I did
nipple on that one the other night. That was so good.
There's something I personally loved called the shroom Boom and
it is gorgeous. Also, I don't know how those layers happened,
but talk to us about that.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Oh, those layers happen with hard work and butter.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
We're gonna post a photo of them on our social media,
the Connected table. They're gorgeous. So what's inside? What makes
it so shreomy?
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:19):
So it's just a very simple filling, caramelized onions, mushrooms.
It's seasoned with little thyme, black pepper, salt, and then
we add grew year when we're filling it into the pastry.
So had a very classic French you know, you had
a lot of fun playing with like French frenchman, you know,
like bullying it. So that's so yeah, we just knew
(30:42):
we wanted a nice vegetarian action. Yeah, it's super savory. Yeah,
and so it's just it makes for a great filling
and that croissanto on the outside, like you get the
get the best of both worlds. It like in case
of it, it's this uh handheld portable pastry. Like we
(31:03):
get to use our croissanto, we actually use it a
little differently in this case where we don't proof it.
So croissant is easted, so a typical croissant would have
time to rise. But when you use it without proofing it,
you get kind of very distinct layers in a different way.
And so it's just a way to also like eke
a little more of a variety out of the out
(31:23):
of our production to keep it like manageable on and
as efficient as possible, but but have as much variety
and options too.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, now we're talking about staples you offer every day,
and so we want to talk a little bit more
about some of the ones that are some of your
most popular, and then we're going to talk about some
seasonal ones. I think that's important too.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
So what else?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
What else are some of your top sellers?
Speaker 6 (31:47):
For savory, it's a muffle lot of breadstick and our
booty and boy are always contacting with one another. And
then for sweet, it's our the chocolate barka not yeah
we got from New York.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
Yeah, we got brands of bakeries Bliss to bring the
Bobka down here.
Speaker 6 (32:03):
And also the blueberry lemon butt, yeah, which I always say,
and my selling point is that it's like the little
blueberry pancake, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
Yeah, and so a lot of our pastries, you know,
they play with like using a laminated dough as a
base and then filling it with anything. Like when we
teach baking classes. That's to me, like the thesis of
the whole thing is like, you know, everyone my whole
life tells me that that cooking is artistry, but baking
(32:33):
is science, and I till the day I die, I think,
will push back that, like, no, they are. Actually they
both have this foundation and technique right, Like you have
to cook meat right to be like a super creative cook.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
You also have to know how to make it dough right.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Sometimes they're very complicated, but still like you have to
get that base right and then after that you can
lay around flavors however you like, and it's really really limitless.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
We'll work with two doughs, yes, yes, the Cerissando and
what we call our bob.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Good Ye a bit.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We have numerous things on our patient counter.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah all no, it's great. You are for cooking classes.
We're on your website right now, which is aubag house
dot com. It's currently sold out. But I'm a croissant
free again. I am so particular about my croissants and
the flakiness. I see you do a gingerbread house. That's another.
I'm a huge gingerbread I love gingerbread men and gingerbread,
and I like it hear around, So that's exciting. Now
(33:34):
we also attended well before we get to that seasonal
we hear you do a really great king cake. Let's
makes your Marty Garol king cake so special?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Uh, keep it simple.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
That's like the ethos I think, like, you know, we
have some things that are more complicated, but anytime we're like,
oh man, what should we make, the answer is always
like pear it down to the fewest best ingredient and
technique and and so far that has that has worked for.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Us every time.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
And you know, when we were starting that the Big
Book of kin Cake had just come out, that book
by Matt Haynes where it's like, you know, hundreds of
kin cakes all around the city and the state, and.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
It was a little overwhelming.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
It was like, oh shit, like this is proof that
like there are so many options.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Out there, Like how do you possibly stand out.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
And I think it just clicked that, like, it's not
gonna be the that we come up with the one
flavor no one has ever done, because like they had.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
All been done, Like this book is thick, and.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
It seemed more like when was the last time you
had a warm kin cake out of the oven? And
like a fresh kin cake and one that didn't feel
a little dry like by the time you got it
home and wasn't too heavy you have too heavy, too sweet?
Speaker 6 (34:50):
Like how like you want to be able to enjoys
when king cakes through the season is possible.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
So I don't know. For us, I think a lot
of our stuff is a we're.
Speaker 6 (35:00):
A bit I don't know, the less sweet side compared
to our competitors. And I felt like this was a
great balance of like meeting some tradition but reinventing it
in a simple way.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
We we haven't lived through king cake season in New Orleans,
yet we did it in France. We were we had
a million gala at a wa everywhere we went we
were being served gala at a wah. And I said, Wow,
this is amazing. And so when king cake season comes,
why do I think you had to have a kink
cake a day until everybody got the little baby. Once
everybody got the baby, nobody cared about the King cake
(35:34):
in so I. And for the holidays, for like the
Christmas and Thanksgiving and the special holidays here. Do you
have specialties that.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Yeah, I told me.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Every we're about to uh go into pie season full
blast in a couple of weeks. So where you've got
like a nice classic pumpkin and doing pecan with this
kum quat candy kumquat at the bottom, which really just
like elevates it just a little bit, I think, And
we do them all in a croissant crust, so it
(36:09):
has like that flakiness. It doesn't feel too far from
like your classic thing, but it just like pushes up
the flakiness just a little bit. And then we're apple crum,
oh yeah, and an apple crumb pie which.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Can be gluten free.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
Also, you know, we'll just do it no crust so
that you can have more like an apple crisp.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So you have creative sessions to come up with ideas.
Do you ever have guests coming with as creative sessions?
Speaker 4 (36:36):
You're welcome to co hang out.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
It's so great.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
It's more like I'll be sitting in the office and
Kelly just swing open the door. He's coming, and she's like,
what if we do? And I was like, alligator, that's awesome.
So we did. We have something called but in a
half long.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
It's like meant to sit in the middle of your
holiday table.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
And it's just like a gator, you know, made of
hollow that reaches it's a.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Hola gator like al stare. I think you were waiting
for somebody to pick one up when we came and
visited a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
That's true. Yes, yeah, so I mean I think of fun.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
If we are like trying to come up with the menu,
it's like a balance of like you know, what's seasonal
or like what is the holiday we're coming into, you know,
like what's the what's the the need, and then also
like what would be fun also like fun to make,
fun to sell, fun to buy.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Because you do also a lot of production, it can
become very repetitive, and it's nice to like infuse a
little joy into it. I mean that is kind of
like the if that's our north star. Yeah, you know,
like if we've we've all worked in this industry for
so long, and it's so easy to evolve into just
like I don't want to go to where like that
(38:01):
mentality or like everybody kind of working against each other
even though you're literally all on the same team. And
I think that's been our number one focus through it all,
is like how do we how do we maybe it
make sure that this is a place that people including
us like want to keep coming to every day.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
And yeah, and I think so thankfully.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
With our name being AYU and it is an expression
of joy, like, oh, we need to live up the
beam and experience.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
In my mind, well speaking of spready joy. First of all,
for all of our listeners who are salivating and are
not New New Orleans, first come to New Orleans. Yes,
but you do have a program where you can order
and ship nationwide and you can go to the AYU
Big House website and it's a beautiful presentation. Actually you
say orders are made fresh to ship out weekly on Monday,
(38:56):
So place your ordered by eight am on Saturday and
they'll be delivered. So that's a great what a great
gifting for someone who wants something wonderful or maybe homesick
or can't get to new ones and try. So that's
something I think it's important to underscore for our listeners
who are not New Orleans. And then we also want
to talk about a program that you do that nurtures
(39:16):
up and coming talent because you all know where you
started and we love the fact that you are women
entrepreneurs giving back, So talk to us about your your
It's like a it's like a what do you call
that incubator program?
Speaker 6 (39:33):
Yeah, I mean the idea came after I went to
a conference called SAM that's yearly conference in Charleston where
women and the food and beverage world come together to
talk about business or well yeah, there's like numerous sessions
(39:56):
of conversation and so so we were talking about a
desire to potentially have open book management here, desire to find.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
A way to help our staff that are interested in.
Speaker 6 (40:13):
Becoming entrepreneurs like get on the right path to do
so because we hear it all the time.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
We have like regular reviews with staff. And then also
in the interview, it's like so many people said like,
well one day I want to open a business or
like you know, current staff being like what I want
to know what y'all are doing on the other side
of all this, and so we came.
Speaker 6 (40:32):
Was like, Okay, I don't think we're at a stage
yet where we can do open book management, but why
don't we let people. Let's train people on how to
create their own businesses and let them have their own
financials so that they can understand how a business operates.
And then Kelly went home and like wrote me the
next morning saying, I was up all night I put
together a curriculum.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
I just had a base up all night anyways.
Speaker 6 (40:55):
And she had mapped out like a six week course
already of topic and like what we could talk about
in each one of them.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
And then I think we.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Must have started it like just a couple of weeks
after that, because we were like, okay, timeline wise, we
want somebody to actually be able to.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Host a pop up at our space before the holidays.
It needs to happen in this timeline. So we did.
Speaker 6 (41:21):
About six classes five classes. The sixth one became the
opportunity for staff to pitch their pop up idea to us.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
But like every week we would work through with the
steps of a business plan and like you know, they
all know like the production and operation side of it,
just from what they do all day, but like the
financial size, a lot of people were less familiar with
and how to like optimize your menu and like really
think about this from.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Like an analytical standpoint.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
And so we would invite guests other people who run
pop ups in the city to come and they gave
their insight and also just like to share how much
work it is. It is so much work to do
a pop up. It's like, you know, it's a lot
of work to run a small business, but at least
we have many people helping us. When it's a pop up,
it's almost definitely just yourself as like the dishwasher, the
(42:16):
delivery driver, the vendor, like the drive, the encounter, the baker,
you know everything, the pr person and I think they
got to see that first hand.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
And you know, Bella, so she won in the end.
Her pop up was Semita.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
Mamita and it was highlighting her kind of dual heritage
of New Orleans and El Salvador. So she has this
menu of items that are inspired by both places. And
she just wrapped up last weekend. She did five weekends
of this pop up and on top of her normal job,
you know, like the team all helped her out too,
(42:57):
and for sure like by the end now she like
ready to get this to pop up other places and
like take.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
This show on the road.
Speaker 5 (43:05):
And I think it's been it's been so satisfying also
on our end, like for people to to have a
little bit more perspective on just how much there is
like beyond just making the thing, you know, like the
production and the service is like a huge part of it.
But but then that's just like the tip of the
iceberg below.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Well, we had the pleasure of meeting Bella mcdowe and
attending one of the Samita Mamita pop ups and it
was a lot of fun and we just felt this
amazing friendship among colleagues' That's what we loved about AU
bacouse you feel like you're going it is that little
corner bakery on the corner where and every every city
(43:47):
should have one, but not every city does. Trust me,
we really want to thank you for all you're doing
to support aspiring bakers and congratulate you on your immense
success in a fairly short amount of time at au
Bakehouse for our listeners before we wrap, First of all,
(44:07):
we want to thank Kelly Jacques and Samantha why Is,
the owners of Au Bakehouse And you can go to
ayubakehouse dot com to see all these beautiful breads and
pastries and also order nationwide to ship if you place
your order by eight am on Saturday. Thank you again
for joining us on the Connected Table. We can't wait
to come get some more yummy breads to nibble on ourselves.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Let us know when you're coming, yeah we will.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
And for everyone listening, we hope that you savored this show.
You come to New Orleans, you visit au Bakehouse, and
as we always like to say when we close a show,
support local businesses. Support your local businesses and your local entrepreneurs,
and always stay insatiably curious. No no, no, no
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