09/25/2026
Thursday morning, 8am, adorned with head lamps, scaling plant protein bread by candlelight, another unexpected power outage in bread land (yes, we’re actively looking into generator options).
The orchestral music of a bakery is machinery harmonizing into a single hum of mixers, mini splits, fridges and ovens. A power outage brings everything to a halt, including the noise. There’s a dystopian silence and stillness to a bakery brought instantaneously to its knees.
Dough in process either needs refrigeration to pause its progress or an oven to bake in. When the power went out at 7:15am, I had been awake for 3+ hours, 6 mixes into my day with 70 pounds of brioche in the mixer on full tilt developing strength awaiting the addition of 10 pounds of butter. I also had 6 more mixes on the horizon that morning.
Our days run on a tight mixing, shaping, fermentation and baking schedule, relying on efficiency, teamwork and proper planning to execute. We sacrifice minutes of margin in order to maximize our output. Small space and small ovens make for Tetris time stamps on every part of the process and as minutes turned into hours, the silence of the room became what felt like a death knell for that day’s work.
When the power went out, we had 200 preorders for the following day and a commitment to making over 600 already sold products. With power, this amount of work in our space feels like a heavy lift and in the absence of power, it feels like a tidal wave of pressure. These aren’t just inconveniences for our bread shop, but the threat of real financial loss.
There isn’t a contingency for losing power for 3 hours, it’s easy to feel like throwing in the towel and succumbing to the inevitability of failure.
After allowing for this emotion to subside, we focus, pivot, triage and honestly, pray…if ever there was a metaphor for needing power outside yourself…
The power came back on momentarily at 9:30am and then disappeared again, like a single sip given to a man needing a gallon of water.
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