We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cara Vasquez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cara, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

I love this topic because it’s so true, that from the outside, it looks so easy. Like we woke up one day and said, tomorrow I’m going to open a business! and then it all runs smoothly. No one sees the months or years of planning, how difficult it can be to get a loan or a lease for your first business or how many hours go into the day to day. Before, during and after “success” there are bad days, the days that everyone calls in sick or even worse, the days that no customers show up!

The Flour Shop started in my head 20 years ago while I was in culinary school. I then spent 10 years working for someone else learning all the day to day things they don’t teach you in school. Every industry is different so I can only speak for my own but the first thing I tell people who ask about owning a bakery is to go work for someone else first. The experience gained is well worth putting off opening a few years.

We opened June, 2011 in 1,380 sq. ft. and quickly outgrew our space. About 4 years in, we began discussing our options for a larger location, within the same shopping center. After a year or so we decided we were ready to make the move, little did we know that when the grocery store chain moved in a few years after us that they were allowed to put a clause in their lease restricting us from moving to a larger space and ultimately hindering our growth. We fought this for about a year until we realized we couldn’t win against such a large company and decided to relocate the bakery. This was not what I wanted and though I was angry and worried about the move, it ended up being great for business. In our 7th year we moved across the street to 3,100 sq. ft.

Today, we have been in our new location for 4 years and although there will always be obstacles to overcome we are much happier in a space that ws growth and new opportunities.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Cara Vasquez and I am the Pastry Chef and Owner of The Flour Shop Bakery in Flower Mound, Texas. My story begins like a lot of others, I grew up baking with my mom and fell in love with my new hobby at a very young age. What makes my story different is how I turned this new hobby into my career.

After high school I struggled through classes at a traditional four year college and quickly knew it wasn’t’ for me. My mom reminded me of my love for baking and suggested that I look into culinary school, the best decision I ever made!
I attended culinary school at El Centro College in Dallas, Tx and within my first semester, I got my first kitchen job. I worked for a family owned restaurant/bakery for 10 years, with a few side hustles here and there, of course. It was at this restaurant where I gained much needed insight and knowledge about the industry. It’s also where I met some of my best friends who now, after almost 20 years, are more like family.

Leaving the restaurant was a difficult decision but one I knew I had to make. The entrepreneur in me, the dreamer in me, needed to try this on my own. Losing an employee at any level can be difficult on the rest of the team and the day to day production so it was important that I be transparent about my goals and timeline. It was never a secret that this was my goal and as soon as the real planning began I let the owners know. Then, while working on the backend of things for my own bakery, I worked to make sure I was leaving my current team in the best possible position.

Finally, In June of 2011, we opened The Flour Shop Bakery!! From the beginning my goal was to be a staple in my community, your “go to” bakery; a bakery that is around for generations to come. I want to provide desserts that bring comfort and evoke memories of the best times with family and friends. Or, help to create new memories and traditions. The icing on the cake is that we not only provide the community with desserts but we also provide jobs in our community. Through our platform we are also able to give back to the community that has supported us since day one.

Even though I had been baking and managing a bakery for years there was still so much to learn about being a business owner. In fact, I’ve never stopped learning, every year brings new challenges, new lessons and new goals!
In June of this year we will be celebrating our 11th year in business. It feels like 2 years and 22 years all at the same time. This has been the most difficult and most rewarding time of my life. Some days, I wish it would all go away. Some days, I wish I never took that leap. However, most days I am eternally grateful for this opportunity and still find it hard to believe that we’ve made it this far.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The biggest pivot for most businesses that made it through the last two years has been the ability to stay open through the pandemic.

We began 2020 with the resignation of our kitchen manager. We thought this was the big hurdle we had to get through, we had no idea what the next year was going to bring.Turns out that her leaving was a blessing in disguise. Like many others we would be forced to scale back production and scale back our team. This meant me moving back into the kitchen full time and rethinking how we do almost everything. We all put on a mask, closed the inside of the bakery and began offering curbside pick up and delivery. We came up with new menu items such as take home decorating kits and take & bake desserts. We got involved with local efforts to support first responders, hospital staff and our fellow small businesses.

We are fortunate that we can say that we made it through the last two years without missing one day due to the pandemic. Our team and our community showed up, made adjustments and kept our doors open. We are eternally grateful that we are still here today, something too many other businesses can’t say.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Our main source of new clients over the last 10 years has been word of mouth. Being a small business we don’t have a large budget for print advertising. I’ve also found that the prices for this don’t typically fit within my budget.

Our community and our products are our best marketing tools and we rely heavily on both to bring us new clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://theflour.shop/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flourshoptx/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flourshoptx