We recently connected with James Priest and have shared our conversation below.

James, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Financial struggles are real. Almost everyone is feeling them these days, my family and I are no exception. Unfortunately, financial struggles have become an all too familiar occurrence. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old special needs son who was born with a terminal rare genetic illness called Menkes Disease. Our little guy doesn’t know any schedule. But that’s okay, Mom and Dad didn’t need one.
We have worked from home as SEO writers for the last decade. Unfortunately, work in the field has slowed down considerably. This left a need to generate more income to help with the financial strains of bills that just seemed to continually pile up. Finally, the bills had piled up so much that the power company gave us one of their disconnect notices. We still had 10 days to come up with the money. I have been in and out of kitchens since I was a young teenager.
I’ve worked for Dunkin’ donuts, Cracker Barrel, Ruby Tuesday’s, and a handful of mom-and-pop restaurants over the years. Through all this I learned my way around the kitchen pretty well. I’ve always been the one who does the cooking for family and friends as well as special occasions and such. I decided to take the skill set and see if I could do something with it.
Terran Baked Goods was born. I came up with the name for my Cottage Bakery out of my love of sci-fi. The term Terran means human derived from Terra, another name for Earth. Terran Baked Goods is baked goods, made by a human, for humans. My goal is to be the neighborhood baker.
I’m here to provide my local community and surrounding communities with an option for made from scratch baked goods made using quality ingredients. Baked goods, minus the preservatives, color enhancers, and other unnecessary ingredients found in the food on grocery store shelves.
I made an announcement on social media that I would be holding a bake sale the coming weekend. Unfortunately, our son and some breathing complications related to this medical condition and had to be life flighted to a nearby Children’s Hospital. Thankfully, this trip was short-lived, and he was back home in just a couple of short days. The following weekend I set up in the driveway and introduced the community here in Miami Oklahoma to Terran Baked Goods.
It all started in the beginning of November of 2024, with a 6 ft folding table with a tablecloth. Will I sell anything? What will people think? If they ask why I’m selling things, what do I say? What am I doing? All of these questions and more swarmed me.
That first Friday answered it all. I sold stuff, lots of it. People seemed to love the bake sale and yes, they did ask if there was a reason behind the bake sale. I did the only thing I knew to do and that was to be me. I thought for sure this would scare people away, but it didn’t. I let folks know that I was doing this because the power company was about to shut my power off. After every sale I would thank them and let them know the power company thanked them too. People really seem to understand that and got a giggle out of it.
That first weekend I made enough money to cover the power bill. I really enjoyed the experience and wanted to do it again. The following weekend, I sold out again. People started asking if I was going to be here each weekend. I told them that I was working on making that happen. That exactly what I did.
It was great to cover the power bill, but I knew there had to be some sort of legal issue to it and that I needed to get my things in order. I filed the LLC paperwork, applied for my tax ID number with the federal government and the state, secured my food handlers certificate, and started build the Terran brand.
The second week I was able to purchase a canopy tent to go over the table. This helped in so many ways. This is also what I sold bread out of until the start of the new year. Thankfully, December had mild temperatures averaging between the upper 40’s to lower 60’s here in Oklahoma.
However, that wasn’t going to be the case come January. After a little bit of brainstorming and I decided that one of those portable buildings would be a great idea. Without much research, I went ahead and ordered one. I was excited expecting it to be here at the start of the new year. However, that wasn’t the case either come January.
Without a building, and temperatures dipping into the upper twenties and thirties thought I was done for. Then, I had the bright idea of using some old camping gear. I had a huge 10×12 cabin tent. I figured if I could keep the wind off me it would stay warm enough, and it did.
I ended up getting one of the propane heaters to use and was able to keep the temperature inside the tent in the upper 40s even when it was 19 out. Surprisingly, people were intrigued by the bread tent, and I sold out each weekend. Finally, the building arrived. I got it set up and was so excited. People absolutely loved it! The first weekend I sold out and received many compliments. That following Monday morning I got a knock on the door.
It was someone from the city letting me know my building had been reported for violating City code. Long story short, they made me move it to the backyard destroying the dream of the bread shed. The original bread tent was destroyed by a snowstorm. I had a smaller backup tent for camping that attached to a canopy, so I started using it.

What I left out during all of this was that we live off of RT 66 and there was an old salon on the property that had been used as storage for years. Little did I know, that’s where I would end up. I cleaned up, painted a bit, and before I knew it, I was indoors. From November I went from a table in the driveway to a canopy tent and table, to a cabin 12 x12 tent, to a smaller 10×10 canopy tent, to the 10×12 bread shed and finally into the brick and mortar store today that is Terran Baked Goods.

James, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is James Priest, I’m a 48-year-old father of 8 with two angels in heaven. I started working at a very early age in life. When I was 13 years old, I worked in a seafood restaurant shucking oysters and cracking crab claws before taking a job at a Greek restaurant as a dishwasher after school. A few short years later I found myself working at a Dunkin’ Donuts where I learned how to do all of the production by hand.

After becoming proficient at hand cutting the production I was taught how to use the fancy machinery in some of the other locations. I worked for Dunkin’ donuts for years before going to a small mom and pop Bakery named Daddy O’s. After about 15 years baking, I found myself in restaurants working as a grill cook and a line cook. I ended up going to construction as it paid better, or so I thought. After a few years of that I ended up stumbling across a job as an SEO writer. I would spend a decade doing this up until opening Terran Baked Goods.

After just a few short weekends of doing this, I quickly realized that people were really into made-from-scratch baked goods, especially ones that were healthier than the what we find on store shelves. This is where my years of kitchen skills suddenly helped out more than I could have ever imagined.

I built Terran Baked Goods from the ground up based on honesty and simplicity. I use natural ingredients like real butter and olive oil instead of margarine and vegetable oil. Ingredients like real vanilla extract, cane sugar, unbleached flour, and more. I offer artisan sourdough and sourdough inclusions along with a variety of yeast bread like rye, pumpernickel, cheddar, jalapeno cheddar, and apple fritter bread.

I also offer French baguettes, Italian focaccia, pita bread, fry bread, flatbreads, and sweet treats like chocolate chip, macadamia nut, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, and red velvet cookies too. I even carry other sweet treats like cookie cream pies, bread pudding, banana bread, and a version of tiramisu I make from banana bread called Bananamisu.

I steer clear from preservatives and unnecessary additives. I’ve been able to take the dilapidated old salon and turn it into a quirky Route 66 roadside Cottage Bakery! It’s been on a budget too; I’m talking to non-existent one. The scary thing is, I currently function week to week. without the support of the amazing community around me, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing.

Knowing this I have already started giving back to the community. I’ve been able to donate 60 loaves of sourdough to a local church for Christmas, $100 gift certificate for the local after prom, $100 gift certificate or local Special Olympics, $100 gift certificate to help revitalize Rt 66 main Street, a donation to help keep our local Elks Lodge going, and a donation of bread and cookies to a local community Roundtable event.

I look forward to doing more. I like to pop in and surprise local businesses, police and fire fighters with sweet treats and breads. Without Terran Baked Goods, without such an amazing community, none of this would be possible. I encourage you to follow my journey on Facebook and to check out our website. Terran Baked Goods is here to stay, looking forward to growing with this amazing community for years to come.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Funding this was great! It has been done robbing Peter (sorry Peter) to put off paying Paul (sorry Paul). Honestly, I’ve been putting most of what I make back into getting the building looking good and to a point I can run with it for the next year or so before needing t o put more into it. I put about 200 into getting things going and quickly made that back along with enough to cover the power bill . The next time it was a pop up canopy, then some table racks, and better packaging.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Its been a roller coaster ride from the start. I though winter was going to do me in. Then I thought the city finished me off. I’m only open on Friday and Saturday but this requires work throughout the week. If sales tanked out one week, it could be the end of me, but I won’t let that happen. I will give people amazing baked goods, at incredible prices with first class service. I aim to provide an experience not just a place to buy baked goods. I embrace the nostalgia that is RT 66 and share it with others. I feel like each week is a near death moment for TBG but, each week an amazing community shows up sharing stories, smiles, and buying me out of baked goods.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://terranbakedgoods.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerranBakedGoods/

Image Credits

Aneye4theshot