We recently connected with Coach & JoAnne Tyson and have shared our conversation below.
Coach & JoAnne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
We spent a weekend of watching documentaries on Netflix (What the Health, Forks Over Knives) and never took a bite of meat or dairy again! But we had no clue what to eat after that! For our 1st vegan meal, we went to a local vegan restaurant that we were referred to and it was not good..at all! Over priced, lacking menu variety, no flavor….just no! We started joining online groups & reading recipe books, blogs, articles, you name it & we started testing out the products & getting to learn what vegan products simulate non vegan items and one of the 1st was the chocolate chip cookie! JoAnne’s dad had an obsession with her chocolate chip cookies & after many tries, the Duchess was born! We took them to a few social events & there were always comments about how good they were…vegan & all so we decided to take the steps to a vendor @ Soulard Market.
In February 2020, we registered our business, secured a commissary kitchen & prepared for our 1st Saturday @ Soulard. We got to the kitchen the night before our debut & a local food truck, who utilizes the same kitchen, had some issues with their water lines freezing in their truck so they came to the kitchen @ the same time we were there & they left the back door open. The kitchen got so cold & one of the ingredients turned solid…we were not prepared for this & had no clue how to handle it. We ended up having to remake everything which took several extra hours we had not planned for.
We got to Soulard @ about 5am, followed protocol to get a spot, set up our area & realized the cookies were hard as can be….the cold weather caused the same issue as the night before, our coconut oil got hard. We went with it & just let people know that the cookies contain coconut oil & with the cold outdoor temps, the cookies get a bit hard but a few seconds in the microwave or a few hours @ room temp will resolve the issue & we sold out in less than 2 hours.
We immediately realized the Farmers Market life was not for us so we went strictly online and lucky we did because Covid hit & we were a convenience to many! People were placing orders & we were delivering each & every single order to their doorstep. We decided to start adding a few food items & once we did, we were getting multiple orders each day.
While we both worked full time jobs, we had the privilege of working from home due to the pandemic so we were juggling alot!
Local Feast magazine did an interview about us & we caught the eye of local Grocer Schnucks who invited us to be part of their local program which allowed us to stock their stores with our food & we jumped in full force in July of 2020 & here we are 2+ years later still stocking the shelves weekly or more as well as filling catering and 2 day pre-orders.
We gave the restaurant thing a try but we could not meet the demand with such a limited staff but we hope to revisit that again very soon!
Coach & JoAnne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We are Coach & JoAnne are the owners. We have been happily married for over 10 years, have a 19 year old daughter who is also a part of our operation & 3 dogs. We got into this business by going with the flow of life! We had to intention or dream of this, it just happened & we put our everything into Royally Baked! Currently we stock local Schnucks, supply a few local locations with our goods, we fulfill catered event orders, 2 day pre-orders for any of our menu items from pastas to pizzas, cakes, cookies & so much more, donate goodies as often as possible & we have a special menu every holiday that allows people to order individual items, plates for them to take to their non vegan family events and full meals for an entire family.
We have grown with very little help from anyone! We have learned the ropes almost completely by ourselves. We did have a local restaurant owner provide us with valuable info and they took so much time to break business concepts & strategies down to us which we are forever grateful for. Shoutout to Danni & Ike of The Fountain & Steve’s Hot Dog’s!
We stand behind every product we produce and we LOVE to support local; we try to use as many local items as possible.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Our main goal was to secure our own kitchen. When we started, we were driving from our home to our rental kitchen a little over 30 miles away @ all times of day and night. Loading and unloading all of our items plus the drive cost us an extra hour or more plus the kitchen was not @ the cleanliness standard we liked so we had to bring all of our own supplies and clean the area very well before each use. We felt that having our own place would change so many things and allow us so much growth. We have entertained several potential investor/partner deals and our last one had the biggest impact on us and pivoted our journey in a major way. We had posted in a local restaurant group that we were looking for a kitchen rental & local food business reached out and offered to meet w/us and they saw an interest in partnering so we took the leap & on day 1, which also happened to be the day of our 1st state inspection, the business owner stood up on a crate and began barking out demands and rules which immediately threw red flags. That paired with the unbearably hot kitchen made us walk away very quickly and take a break to gather our thoughts, feelings & gain direction. We discussed walking away from Royally Baked as we were now kitchenless & unable to produce but an email came through from someone we had messaged months before and they let us know there was a vacancy @ their commissary. The price was perfect but the location was not very close but we went for it and on our 1st day there, we realized the kitchen had a bug infestation and there was no way we would even attempt to produce food for our customers there. If I wont eat what I cook, how can I expect anyone else to so we knew then, it’s time to throw in the towel and focus on our current careers. After a few weeks of not producing, we found out a location we were interested in a year ago was back on the market, that the people who had a letter of intent allow a year to pass and backed out so the place was back on the market. We called the realtor daily, sent emails and let them know we wanted it badly and we will do what it takes to get it and we GOT IT!
The place was structurally great but the previous tenants, who left a few years earlier, left the place horribly dirty and after sitting for such a long time, it needed more than elbow grease & TLC. We spent 11 days working 16 to 18 hours each day to get it clean and up to standard and on October 1st 2021 we passed all inspections and opened for business!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
We started a FB & IG account and started posting pictures. We joined online groups, told people about us, what we do and why they needed us in their lives and it flowed to where we are now. We are very interactive with our customers. We want to know what they like, what they want, what they dislike and we want to be available daily if they have any questions, special requests or praises. We make sure they know we are paying attention to them because they are keeping us motivated & in business.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.royallybaked.net
- Instagram: RoyallybakedMO
- Facebook: RoyallybakedMO