building project | the bakist bakery ⋆ dez the bakist

In 2022, my dream of owning my own property for my bakery came true. A building just a couple doors away from my original spot here in North Beach, Maryland, became available and I siezed the opportunity.

At the time, I had no idea what I was in for… or how long the process would take. I kinda just dove right in…

June 2022

June 2022 – the purchase of the bakist building and future permanent location

At this point, I had known for a while I wanted/needed to expand my current bakery location and had kept an eye out for property to become available. When the current tennants of 9124 Bay Avenue (aka “the building”) decided to move out, I jumped on the opportunity and soon entered into an agreement to purchase the property.

outside – before

The buidling had a beautiful mural representing the town. After cleaning, we found it would be better to repair the wall and repaint since it had damage due to water leaks on the roof and wall.

inside – before

A local produce store called The Chesapeake’s Bounty occupied the space before I came upon it. They had decided to move out and run only their original location that is located about 40 mins south of north beach. We planned to share the space, at least for a time.

At one point, I had plans for the space the bounty was occupying so we agreed to part ways. A little while later, my plans fell through, but the bounty had started their move out so that was still happening.

outside – after

September 2022

September 2022… We setup some of our swag at the new location for a bit. At this point, we were still trying to get our bearings and figure out the scope of the project.

I knew we would need a grease interceptor, which is a piece of equipement that separates the grease, fats, oils from the water so that it doesn’t drain into the bay water. I found out pretty early in the process that the current regulations required a 2000 gallon tank. To put it in perspective, the current one, that was “grandfathered in”, was a 5 gallon under the sink type. Aa pretty substantial change. Which requires substantial work and therefore the cost is also substantial found in the 40 grand range. Needless to say.. it is very difficult to come up with that amount in one lump sum.

Work was slow going and the required licenses, permits and rules had become very confusing. We had so many extra expenses and each month added more..

During the winter we focused on the work ahead inside. We painted all the ceiling tiles and started getting the walls and floors ready for paint.

April 2023

April 2023 finishing up walls and floor paint

Everything was coming together.. slowly… things were happening. The winter had drained me so I started looking into ways to use our newly setup space for dining and some retail therapy. The idea was, you could pick up some of our food and treats from the original location (that still had our kitchen setup) and dine indoors at our new location while checking out and hopefully purchasing some of our unique giftshop items.

For this setup we had to apply for another set of permit/licenses…

June 2023

After painting/licenses/permits… here we were setting up to have a gift shop and seating.

Through the summer and fall we tried running the gift shop and our bakery location. This ended up probably costing more in the long run between extra staff, stolen merchandise and overhead costs of the building. We tried some winter markets as well but we were shorthanded and struggling.

At this point the realization was setting in that this still a ways off. I had exhausted all my personal finances and had been looking for potential private loans or business partners for a while. As the end of the year and the lease on my current spot were getting closer, I had to decide how to keep going.

While we did our move in January, I had a couple individuals approach me about private loan. After a few meetings and signatures I now had enough to put the deposit down and get the work started for the grease interceptor!

Before the work could begin, I had to start the permit process for adding the kitchen/grease interceptor again.. This took probably a month longer than it should have due to confusion and miscommunication with the permit. But it was finally happening!