Specialty Online Bakery - Double Batch Bakery

Team Subkit -

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food & beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Rachel & Angel Hidalgo, Founders of Double Batch Bakery, located in Bayonne, NJ, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Double Batch Bakery is an online bakery offering a daily-changing menu for local pick-up and delivery. We bake a new menu from scratch every day. Our menu is a melange of American and French pastries, with influences from Filipino and Latino backgrounds. We serve Bayonne and some of Jersey City (a 3.5-mile delivery radius).

Tell us about yourself

We're a husband-and-wife team. We each started our culinary careers at a young age, attending high schools with Culinary Arts programs. We were introduced to C-CAP (Careers through Culinary Arts Program). We were allowed to intern in New York restaurant kitchens and compete for scholarships. We first met at a cooking competition, and we both were awarded C-CAP scholarships to The Culinary Institute of America.

Angel studied Culinary Arts, and I studied Baking & Pastry Arts. We have worked as professional chefs for over 20 years in our fields and have always wanted to open a place of our own. We are parents of twin boys who influenced the name "Double Batch Bakery." We inspire and motivate each other and always bounce ideas off one another. We make a great team!

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Our biggest accomplishment is surviving the COVID-19 pandemic. We had only been open for one year before. I'm in a few Facebook groups of restaurant owners and bakery owners. As COVID-19 began spreading around the northwest, I saw businesses being forced to close to stop the spread.

We quickly decided to shift to an online business model. We added online ordering to our website, and it took off. We have consistently increased sales volume with fewer staff and shortened business hours. Because of this, we've had to reconfigure our space to eliminate seating and retail space to make more room for production. We update our online menu daily.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

One of the hardest things about being a business owner is finding enough time to complete it. We work an average of 16 hours a day, six days a week, and still have to catch up on emails after that. It's hard to find family time since we are constantly working. Our boys spend a lot of time at the shop with us.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Never stop learning and innovating. Always try to improve product quality, processes, and efficiency.
  2. Experience matters. Spend some time working in commercial kitchens before even considering opening a bakery. Get to know the flow, how much space you'll need, and what works and doesn't.
  3. Quality makes all the difference. Make sure to pay attention to cheap ingredients because customers can tell. Put forth the best product and market it well. Just make sure you're charging your worth!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.doublebatchbakery.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doublebatchbakery/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doublebatchbakery/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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