We were lucky to catch up with Katie Mertz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

Acquiring my first client was a huge moment of serendipity.

I had been baking a limited selection of pastries for Akron Coffee Roasters and their sister location, Asterisk Coffee Bar, for close to a year, but doing so at home as a sort of pseudo-cottage baker. This situation arose out of necessity (my son, Myles, was still an infant and still home with me), and my boss, Albert Macso, was open to the idea, so long as I stuck to items the Dept. of Agriculture deemed “safe.” This included scones, cookies, pies, bars, and the like. This was the job that brought me back to baking professionally after a few years’ hiatus following the pandemic.

To be honest, after toying with it for a number of years, I had largely given up the idea that I would ever have my own baking business. And here I was, a new mom with a part-time (becoming full-time) baking job; I was busy and pretty fulfilled.

But on a morning off, Myles and I stopped by a fairly new coffee shop in our area, Portal West Coffee, before our hike in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I’d stopped by the shop after their opening maybe six months prior, and the owner, Paul Ortiz, knew who I was and what I did for Akron Coffee. On my first visit, he’d suggested I might be the answer to their difficulties finding a baker to fill their pastry case–he’d approached several in the area already, but none were available in a wholesale capacity. At that time, I’d only been baking again a few months and was far too overwhelmed to even consider it. Fast-forward, and the subject came up again while I ordered my pour-over (and Myles’ cinnamon milk steamer). This time, I gave Paul my phone number and we scheduled a time to talk more about what that could look like.

I left the shop feeling elated. Keep in mind, I didn’t have my own business yet; to take them on as a client, I would have to build one from the ground up. I was already an hourly employee for another shop; I would have to hope he’d be on board to either keep our current arrangement, or start purchasing pastries from me as this to-be business.

But deep down I knew this was my moment. I had been in limbo with this “will I/ won’t I” business conundrum for years, and here was an opportunity that would provide a strong foundation and consistent, guaranteed income. When I’d pictured running my hypothetical baking business, I imagined a constant hustle for customers–starting at farmers markets or a series of craft fairs and working my way into a client base. This would dissolve the need for that. Plus, I already had a notebook full of recipes perfect to adjust for a different coffee shop. There were so many reasons to move forward.

My husband, ever the devil’s advocate (and strong Capricorn), brought me back down to earth a little with some necessary perspective. A big question: where were we going to put all the equipment I’d need to scale up? A work bench, a larger mixer, a table for the larger mixer, fridge space, freezer space, potentially another oven; where was that all going to fit in our 1400-sq. ft century home? My answer: the dining room. His response: “The room with only two outlets and a so/so electrical capacity?” Another question involving finances, another about where all this extra time would come from in our already packed schedule. All great questions to consider.

And we found some satisfactory answers together. But, even though I wasn’t resolute with some of my answers, I still knew, in the deepest part of me, that THIS. WAS. IT. I’m not sure if it was new motherhood and feeling like I desperately needed something that was mine again. I’m not sure if it was a grief response (my mother has passed away the year before), and feeling like I desperately needed something big to provide a bit of joy, purpose, relief. Or even just having a mother pass away at such a young age–if I didn’t get this business dream of mine going, when was it going to happen? (YOLO!) I’ll make sure to note that motherhood was definitely a big thing (the biggest thing!) that provided joy and purpose, but, despite all the love I had for Myles, his first year had really overwhelmed me. This could potentially offer some semblance of my pre-child self to ground me in work that felt familiar.

All of this combined to give me the only answer I really needed to get going: I love you. I hear you. And we’ll figure it out.

I incorporated the business, then called Old Oak Baking Co, as a limited liability company on December 28, 2023. Paul Ortiz, owner of Portal West Coffee, had recommended a business advisor who’d worked with him when he started his shop. I too reached out and started working weekly with Jim Griggy, a counselor at the Ohio Small Business Development Center. Together, Jim and I worked through profit + loss statements, projection spreadsheets, products and costing, and a handful of other things. Since the business was starting small, I wasn’t looking to acquire a loan, but even so, he walked me through what a business plan would look like should I need to draft one in future. I say this with absolute conviction: this business wouldn’t exist without Jim’s financial expertise and the Small Business Development Center as a whole–and I should add: the service they offer is free of cost!

After months of late(r) nights and earl(ier) mornings testing new recipes and crunching endless numbers–not to mention a last-minute name change to Jamtooth Baking Co.–I gave Paul my first date of operation: Valentine’s Day, 2024. I put together a menu for him to order from, he placed his order, I prepared and baked his order, then packed it away for him and the staff to stock in their pastry case the following day.

I won’t lie. Even though I had been stocking a pastry case for over a year at Akron Coffee Roasters, I was still SO ANXIOUS. This was a new client, new customers, and this was the first time I was operating as me; not behind-the-scenes as an in-house baker. Jamtooth Baking Co was such a new concept that I wasn’t sure who I was yet. And, ever the perfectionist, I found a number of things to change with the pastries going forward.

But, another truth: as I stood back and took in the boxed pastries, I felt so much pride. It didn’t quite feel like the culmination of all my years of hard work in this industry, but it felt like I was moving in that direction. I called my husband downstairs, held my toddler in my arms, and we huddled around this first big step before I packed it away in the hatchback. We didn’t have all our questions answered, we weren’t even sure all the questions we’d have, but there in that moment, I had more than I’d ever dreamed. That might sound corny as hell, and it is, but when I look back, that’s exactly what I know it to be.

Katie, 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?

My name is Katie Mertz, and I own and operate Jamtooth Baking Co., a bakery I run out of my century home in the Goodyear Heights neighborhood of Akron, Ohio. I live here with my husband, our almost three-year-old son, an older cat, two kittens, and a small aquarium of fish. My bakery currently services the daily pastry needs of one main account with Portal West Coffee in Akron’s Merriman Valley, but I take on smaller wholesale accounts and custom orders if I have time. A goal for 2025 is to build a website, but currently I receive order inquiries through Gmail and Instagram.

Jamtooth Baking Co. is part-home bakery, part-local food champion, part-poetry–an amalgam of all the things I truly love. But, I suppose my menu revolves around the broad genre of breakfast pastries. My style has been described by a friend as “that grandma who’s a really, really good baker.” Taste, texture, and flavor are my tops. And if the ingredients are local, all the better. If I can grab a few of them from our home garden, even better than that. Most of my work experience has been in artisan bakeries, and most of the bakeries I frequent are artisan bakeries, so I would say I’m creating my baked goods through that lens. Though everything I produce is made in a very low-tech way; since it’s in my home (which is lovely but not very big), I don’t have the luxury of professional baking equipment aside from a half-sheet convection oven and 20-qt mixer. Everything is made by hand because it has to be, but I think the products benefit from it.

My background is in writing, not marketing, but I’m fortunate to have very talented, generous friends, who have helped me establish the very basics when it comes to branding. My friend, Hannah Minks (who owns The Monastic Home and East York Street), helped me build a Pinterest mood board that gave me something concrete to work with in terms of styling, to make the general aesthetic of the business more cohesive. It was this work that made me realize the first name of the business, Old Oak Baking Co, wasn’t quite right for the concept I was trying to render. The board she created was bold, with stark lines, bright color–taking inspiration from pop art of the 60s and 70s. There were images of fruit, backlit bakeries, still-life drawings of everyday items blown up to comic proportions. The art was unctuous, sensual, bold; simple but elevated. Jamtooth was a name that came from this exploration, and it felt inherently correct.

As far as specific products, I’ve really grown to appreciate the humble handpie, as it’s such a perfect (and delicious!) vehicle for not only sweet fruit and berries, but savory foods, as well, and very doable in a home production setting. And after years of tweaking, I’ve developed an all-butter pie crust that really sings to me. So the handpies I make for the coffee shop have become really strong sellers. My background in sourdough rears its head in the muffins I make, which have a bit of sourdough starter and local spelt flour in the base. Most of my recipes work that way–strong bases that can be manipulated with different spices, add-ins, fruits based on the season (or what’s been squirreled away in my freezer).

Okay, that’s the facts. The rest of the story is a bit less buttoned up. The idea to run my own bakery was years in the making. I was a motivated home baker from the time I was twelve. But so many childhood dreams remain so. I was lucky in that this dream of mine was indulged and allowed to grow; my mom never turned down an opportunity to bake something new with me. We had a large, open kitchen, a sturdy oven, and our pantry was always well stocked with everything we would need; creating was only a matter of time and imagination.

Then I got older, and this childhood dream was pushed to the back-burner as I widened my scope of interests. I chose not to study Business Admin and Culinary Arts and instead pursued English and Creative Writing when I reached university. But the fact remained that I loved baking–it was something I did any chance I got, whenever there was a free moment. So, at twenty-two years old, on a winter break from graduate school, I applied for my first professional baking apprenticeship. This little, whispered dream of mine had withstood the test of time–a true miracle for a Gemini sun placement–and I knew I owed it to myself and this bottomless passion to at least see what was up.

Surprise, surprise; from the very moment I stepped foot in the production room of that artisan bakery, I knew that was how I wanted to spend my time. No, the early morning hours weren’t always easy pills to swallow, but once the coffee kicked in and I put my hands in dough, the rest of the world fell away.

It wasn’t a perfect introduction, however. I was totally green, and, with no prior kitchen experience, I got in the way. A lot. I was that moony-eyed, try-hard–took on any task, but worked slow. I’d never worked with pastry on such a large scale before; dough melted in my hands, scones came out over-hydrated and flat. They wouldn’t even let me near any equipment of value. The one occasion they did, I recall a particularly catastrophic Vitamix blender disaster that resulted in chocolate milk EVERYWHERE. Knowing what I know now, I imagine management probably braced themselves before each of my shifts, but still I kept coming back, eager to learn whatever I could, totally romanced by it all. (Please know I don’t say any of this to dismiss or invalidate my younger self; I hold a lot of affection for this past person, and am grateful she was brave and took a risk.)

The apprenticeship lasted a few months, and when it ended I went back to my studies in “real life.” But I wasn’t the same. I knew I had started something that required more attention. So I gave in and made room in my life for two full-time ventures: graduate school and bakery work. And despite some back-and-forth career-wise, in the end, the bakery jobs won out. I spent the better part of the decade that followed working in artisan bakeries, learning their hows and whys, what got them from one day to the next. My hands learned, too, the very specific magic of muscle memory, and became strong and calloused and sure.

This puts us somewhere around 2019, and of course we all know what happened in 2020. The pandemic, coupled with my mother’s terminal illness, put a halt to bakery work for me, to the extent I wasn’t sure I would even return to it. Food service was really precarious in those days, with few benefits and virtually no safety net. So many restaurants, cafes, bakeries were either paring down to skeleton crews or shuttering completely. It was the more pragmatic choice to settle into secure office work with decent benefits, a kind staff, a strong mission, and ride that out to the end. Which is what I’d intended to do with the Ohio & Erie Canalway Coalition.

But I learned early on in that job that I was pregnant, and that changed the game for me. Towards the end of my pregnancy, my husband and I decided I wouldn’t return after the birth; not in a patriarchal “woman-must-stay home-with-child” sort of way, but a practical, “my-job-has-better-health-benefits-and-can-support-us” sort of way.

And while pulling myself from the workforce was hard, having Myles was what ended up bringing me back to baking, as it was a super flexible job I could do from home around his sleep schedule. It began as me baking on-staff for one coffee shop, and resulted in me starting a cottage baking business and sourcing pastries to my first big client. Perhaps this was fated, or perhaps just a scrappy attempt to fit myself back into a job. Either way, I’m grateful for how it happened, and eager to continue exploring Jamtooth’s fullest extent, whatever that may be.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

This answer doesn’t quite include a lesson I had to unlearn, so much as an impulse I had to learn to manage–for me, that was doubt. For years I doubted what I brought to the table in the northeast Ohio bakery scene. Sure, I had a strong resume of previous work experience. I was confident that I could produce quality baked goods. I trusted my sense of taste and felt my aesthetic and creativity had the potential to set me apart from other bakeries in my area.

But still I doubted. I feared failure. The confidence I had in myself as a business operator was minimal. One of my personal weaknesses is a lack of consistency. In my eyes, a leader or founder or face of a business should be able to approach a given situation with steadiness, assuredness. I change my mind a lot. Despite my passion for the work, sometimes I go too hard for too long and burn out. I often avoid confrontation altogether, and this passivity can get me into trouble. Needless to say, all of that compounded in a swirl of inner demons to stop me from even getting started, even though I had friends and industry contacts assuring me to take the leap. Honestly, it wasn’t until I found myself in a situation that was almost guaranteed to be a sure thing that I felt confident enough to do so.

As I mentioned in a previous question, in late 2023, Portal West Coffee in the Merriman Valley was looking to upgrade their pastry situation and searching for a baker who was the right fit. A few friends had recommended me to the owner, Paul Ortiz, and the partnership clicked from the onset. To this day, they remain my flagship client.

But, of course, those early days of baking for a new customer base left me riddled with anxiety. It was a lot of trial and error–again, that doubt–and I remember dropping off pastries on more than one occasion with a stomachache, so nervous that they weren’t up to snuff and my new client would be disappointed.

So far, Jamtooth hasn’t experienced any major upsets, thank goodness. I’ve resigned myself to the idea that doubt will always exist; there will always be a little Imposter Syndrome Devil on my shoulder, whispering little fears in my ear. But now that I’ve taken the leap and gotten the thing off the ground, the daily requirements of the business give me little time to let the doubts have any permeable effect. And I’ve had such positive feedback and steady stream of custom orders (mostly from Portal West customers, thank you!) that my confidence has grown. I’m still very much an amateur on the admin side of things, but it’s actually interesting and affirming to be in a position to start from the bottom and learn something new. It also helps to have a really good accountant, which I do! All in all, I feel very fortunate.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’m building my audience slow and steady, and in a way that feels manageable to me. I so admire the small businesses who can throw together Instagram reels and eye-catching TikTok how-tos regularly. I’m definitely not that person, and the reason I chose this question specifically is to offer this advice: even if you’re not super skilled with social media, or perhaps don’t have the time to invest in an entire campaign, or the money to hire someone to do this work for you, you can still find people interested in what you have to offer. So, I suppose, a talent for social media isn’t necessarily a requirement; or, hasn’t been, in my experience.

My main concern is being authentic–or, as authentic as one can be on an inherently flawed social media platform. I want to convey logistical information (such as what’s on the menu that day, where you can get it, when you can get it, etc.), but also take a moment to flex my writing muscles. Often this means I wax poetic on special ingredients, interesting history of the pastry, a personal connection or anecdote, highlight the grower or grocer if they’re local and that feels relevant. I want to offer kindness and gratitude for support, make the space colorful and fun, and have the pastries look inviting. I don’t have any special lighting, but opt for natural light whenever I can. I take all my photos with the camera on a generations-old iPhone, which is often butter-cloudy. I’m very much still learning what works and what doesn’t. I mentioned one of my weaknesses in the previous question–one of my strengths is curiosity, which means I’m interested in discovering new trends, to see if I can *maybe* pull it off without looking too awkward. I rely on a mix of stories and posts.

I’ll offer this caveat that growing my followers isn’t a main concern because I have more than enough business already with my Portal West account–they order anywhere from 500-700 pastries a week for their cafe! Anything extra is helpful, but just for fun. If I were trying to grow followers because I needed more customers, I might approach social media differently.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jamtoothbakingco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katelyn-mertz-1ab9084b/

Image Credits

Images are my own. The photos taken of me at the Brimfield Bread Oven were taken by my boss, Jud Smith.