Glaze Baking Co. now baking in Lubbock, Texas. Vintage recipes, comfort food and real homemade goodness. Go ahead, tell them you made it!

Long Story: After being laid off from a six-year job for an engineering firm at a chemical plant in Pasadena, Texas, I decided, for the first time since I was 14, to take a break from full time employment. After a few months, restlessness set in. I started making cheesecakes in my circa 1940 kitchen, using only my vintage and antique appliances. A 20 lb (!) 1942 mixer, vintage mixing bowls, pans and utensils, and baked to perfection in my 1938 Okeefe and Merrit gas oven. I refused to use new kitchen gadgets. I put the photos on Facebook, and started receiving orders for Thanksgiving cheesecakes.

The orders poured in, and I had over 30 cheesecakes for delivery by Thanksgiving. All the customers wanted to order for Christmas as well! Worst thing happened: My vintage and much-loved O'keefe produced a gas leak, and you cannot find parts for a stove that old. I was devastated, in grief and literally freaking out - how could I handle over 50 orders for cheesecakes by Christmas?

The option of renting a commercial kitchen to get me through the holidays sent me on a quest. I made a lunch date with an aquaintance that I had been in Small Business Development groups with, who "knew everybody worth knowing," hoping he would have some connections that I could talk to. Mike Nebgen - what a guy.

As we sat at lunch discussing my newfound passion and potential business opportunity, he was scrolling through his phone. He made a call, and before I knew it we were on our way to look at a commercial kitchen. So I thought!

We pulled up in the parking lot of a little bakery, not a mile from my house, that I never knew was there. I was so hopeful the owner would allow me to rent some time and get my cheesecakes done.

A tiny lady opened the locked door and let us in. This was a Monday afternoon. The bakery smelled wonderful, but the cases were all empty. We walked in the back of the 1000 sf space, and it was crammed with all kinds of mixers, commercial equipment, some I'd never seen before. There were full sheet pans of bread in the gi-normous walk in, rotating rack oven. The smaller commercial oven also had pans of goods. But something was kind of strange. The lady relayed to us that it was her and her mother that owned the bakery, and that Saturday her Mother had a stroke. This explained the "stopped in the middle of the day" look that was all around.

She was very upset and told us she was trying to sell because she had to take care of her Mother. I told Mike "I can't afford a whole bakery!" We spoke some more to the lady, who had given me a figure of what she wanted for the entire bakery. At that time I just didn't see how in the world I could do it, or if I even wanted to.

History: I grew up baking and cooking, idolizing my Grandma Rowe. I remember about three years old, hanging off the edge of the counter, standing on a stool, watching my Grandma Rowe make pie crust. It didn't take her long to start teaching me, as she had taught my mother, my aunt, her daughter in laws, and five nieces (that I know of) to bake the worlds best creations. She taught us all with a little miniature hand-hammered tin pie dish that belonged to her grandmother. Guess who has it now....

Dinner at my house was usually an event, since I loved to cook, bake, and feed a crowd. If I have one downfall it's I am not happy unless I'm cooking and baking for a crowd. I've always been asked to make dinners and desserts for friends, family, whomever needed it.

Back to the bakery: As I stood there, looking over what was at that moment a foreign landscape it all seemed like a dream state... the lady kept lowering the price, crying, saying she had to do something to sell the bakery, and she had to get back to her mother. I told her I would consider this, and call her asap.

I took a long time going the mile home. I thought of my Grandma, my new husband, all my recipes, my work. My money. What money? How could I buy a whole, entire bakery?

When I got home, my husband and I talked and I told him "I can do this." Naturally he thought I was crazy. Luckily, I had a couple of past businesses I owned and had successfully run, and I knew practically all the business leaders, the government officials, the major businesses in town and also had a great track record with the Small Business Development Center.

My husband backed me, supported me, and agreed to clean out my little 401K and buy a bakery!! I was on my way! I enlisted my father in law, an ex-GM executive that lives for data, to help inventory. If I couldn't pass his muster I knew we were in trouble before we started. We inventoried down to the plastic forks. He came up with a retail value that was literally 10x of what i paid for the bakery. Wow! So, he was impressed. While he and my husband were doing inventory, my new Mother In Law and Aunt and I were testing equipment, cleaning like mad women, and making products. We were going over menus, recipes and costs.

What about a name!!!??? I wanted to name the bakery after my Grandma Rowe, "Viola's", but it just didn't bode well for marketing (my previous profession, luckily.) So, um, DUH???? What is my new last name? GLAZE!!! Glaze Baking Company! What else could it be??

So Glaze Baking was born in December 2016. We perfected our offerings through the holidays, not wanting to open during Christmas, but fulfilling all the cheesecake orders. Second week of January, 2017, Glaze Baking opened its doors to standing room only. My husband was pretty popular at the bakery... flirting with the "ladies who lunched," making them handmade cannoli, and cranking out his signature Gooey Butter Cake. He was alternately known as "The Gooey Man" and "that Italian guy" - he would greet the ladies at the door with his big chef hat and a big bold Italian accent... (I mistakenly ruined his little act by telling one of them he was born in Big Spring, Texas, not a drop of Italy there!) :)

Our hometown really supported us, and I worked myself to death. I knew I could bake. I knew I could market. I knew I had the skills. What didn't I count on? Two things: My age, and Hurricane Harvey.

The bakery closed after a year, in Dec 2017. Even though I was exhausted and defeated at that time, I am still so proud to have served our community and had the chance to do something I had only dreamed of.

Today, my husband and I have relocated to Lubbock, Texas, and I just can't leave the baking alone. Glaze Baking Company now operates out of what was once a small beauty shop room in our house. So here we are!

Glaze Baking Company

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