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

Hi Kathleen, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Last July, I took my baking partner with Maritime Bread Co., my first bakery business, to the Kneading Conference in Maine. As you can imagine, we had a good bit of down time in the car. I don’t remember what we were talking about (odds are our next meal as we ate full dinners every 2 hours), and the phrase “all or nothing” kept popping up. We’d been talking about making bagels for farmer’s markets here in Nashville and I said, “You know, that would actually be a great name for a bagel company. And we’d only make everything and plain bagels.” Not too long after that, all or nothing came to mean more to me: it became a reminder of how to let people, particularly significant others, treat me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi! I’m Kathleen, and I, along with my co-owner Kaye Whitacre, am the main owner/operator/baker at All or Nothing Bagels. We are the only exclusively sourdough wood-fired bagel shop in Tennessee, and to my knowledge, the entire southeast. We make just two kinds of bagel: All (everything) and Nothing (plain), and three specialty schmears. We are loud and obnoxious and deeply committed to bringing the highest quality bagel at the best price to our community in East Nashville. Honestly, I want to be making the best bagel in the U.S. here in Nashville.

I come from a lineage of tremendous workaholics. My family – we love conquering the impossible, or at least feeling like we have. My maternal grandfather was a farmer and tobacco buyer, and my paternal grandfather still is a lawyer. I’m the middle child of three girls so I have a decidedly unattractive obsession with standing out. I learned early on that if I have any great talent in this life, it isn’t intelligence or humor or even baking, it’s my capacity for work. I’ve worked in restaurants, bars, and cafes for about 15 years now, and it can be every bit as addictive as you’d imagine. The cycle of stress and relief, the (often toxic illusion of) camaraderie, the heavy physical demand, alongside the daily changing problems that can also mostly be solved by end of shift, all keep me coming back for more. I actually tried to escape by becoming a licensed attorney, yet here I am again, solidly in the trench.

All that nonsense aside, the thing I am most proud of about this business and this brand is how I have actually curtailed my compulsive work habits. We have managed to streamline a truly excellent product, limiting our specials, our hours, and the hits on our bodies. I designed this brand almost in the opposite ethos as Maritime, my former bakery. At All or Nothing, I decided we would start by paying ourselves and working reasonable (-ish!) hours. This is our recipe for longterm success and growth.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Kaye and I met in an almost romantic-comedy-esque way. I was looking for help with the 2022 farmer’s market season. Maritime was going to 5 markets a week, and I knew that there was no way I could keep producing all items and setting up, selling, and breaking down at markets anymore. I posted a hiring ad on our instagram, and Kaye responded.

If I’m honest, it really was nearly love at first sight for me. Kaye was positive, composed, meticulous, and quietly hilarious (though now she’s just constantly hilarious). She was raised on a farm in Virginia, and I recognized a work ethic, mettle, and profound kindness in her immediately.

Fast forward to November 2022, after I had taken Maritime straight out to the kill shed, and I managed to convince Kaye to start doing All or Nothing pop ups with me. We rolled bagels in our friends’ kitchens and a local pizza kitchen, really anywhere we could get a few feet of space. By then, Kaye had become my closest female friend in Nashville, so when Bryson at Nelson Drum Shop offered me the airstream, I said yes on the spot. I asked Kaye to officially be my business partner shortly thereafter.

It is no small thing to entrust someone with your business but I can’t imagine a world in which this would be anywhere near as successful and fun as it is without asking Kaye to be a co-owner. She is a perfect foil for my frenetic energy and near constant ideation. I could go on about this for the entire interview, but my GOD how lucky I am that we found each other.

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

My story is not so uncommon I think, especially in a town of musicians and tour widows.

In August of 2022, my devoted husband of 5 years left me. He changed everything about who he was, who we were, with absolutely no warning, no room for counseling or compromise. He was just…gone. At that time, I said that he destroyed my family and stole my future. And those things are true. But the future we were working towards maybe wasn’t the best future for me.

For over 2 years, I had been working a full-time legal sales job while growing Maritime. By 2021 Maritime, and my corporate job were both full time jobs, and I didn’t have a way out of the pattern of constant work I was in. When my husband left, it was easy. I quit my job, suspended operations at Maritime, and sold all the assets off. My friends were all radically gracious, allowing me to house hop for several months since I couldn’t stand to be in the house I’d shared with my husband anymore. (By the way, the bakery was in the garage of that house.)

I pulled the plug on everything. I laid under my friend Amy’s pugs for about a month. First I starved. Then I ate. A lot. And I drank. A lot. Then I spent thousands of dollars in therapy. Then I spent thousands of dollars on a trip to Italy. I went through periods of restraint and recklessness, but both were always extreme.

It’s strange that this interview should come at the one year anniversary mark of that cataclysmic event. In August of 2022, I thought I was moving back to North Carolina, probably to live with my parents, as an unloveable wreck of a woman. It was all very street urchin chic. Today, I feel like one of the best versions of myself I can be. I have a deeply cherished community, and am building a business that I am absolutely obsessed with. The brand feels like a place where I can safely be who I always have been: a feral, utterly ridiculous, disco-but-put-it-in-a-cabin, earthbound idealist.

I am truly happy as a single woman in her mid-thirties.

But if you know anyone looking….

Contact Info:

• Instagram: allornothingbagels

Image Credits
Manuel Lagos Leah Horne