We were lucky to catch up with Megan Campbell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Megan, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

While working at our cafe’s front counter the other day, I overheard two customers commenting about “how fun owning a bakery would be!” They were discussing the pros of quitting their current 9-5’s and doing something “simpler, and more enjoyable.” I was struck by my initial reaction to immediately dispel their assumptions…to prove to them just how difficult owning a small business actually is and that they should DEFINITELY not quit their day jobs with their ample work-from-home options, paid vacations, and general flexible work options. That immediate need to tell them just how HARD owning my business is made me wonder — do I enjoy being a business owner or is the yearning for my previous corporate marketing career something more?

Being a business owner is challenging. Right up there with becoming a first time parent. There’s the extremely steep learning curve of not only being the “boss” but being the one that everyone comes to for the answers and fixes for every problem. And when you’re the one learning the answers at the same time, it is stressful. As a bakery/cafe owner, you’re also in charge of doing this for your customers — making sure they enjoy their experiences and giving them reasons to continue to come back. There are systems that have to be developed, processes that have to be created, software and hardware and accounts…there is never a day when someone or something does not break or break down. It’s virtually impossible to not think of work 24/7 (add in that I own my business with my husband and co-parent and that is just another layer of crazy that makes my position…“unique”.)

But the joy I get from seeing a happy customer. Seeing them share their excitement with us, and their friends and neighbors, and social media profiles. Seeing them happy about something that my husband and I did — that my TEAM did…

Seeing a happy team that feels supported and fulfilled. A team that we created — attracted the talent, interviewed, hired, trained, listened to. Seeing them grow and flourish in an environment we created. And seeing them just as attached to the business and our mission and products…

I often describe the bakery as my third child. In so many ways it is. The pride I feel for, and commitment to, this place is unmatched. No ‘regular job’ can even compare to that level of connection and it makes everything I do here so special. Even hard days feel good because you know you are learning and making progress. And I get to create the environment I want to work in. I get to create the company culture. I get to teach and espouse the type of service I want. I get to create the answer to, “what’s your favorite local business?”

So yes, I often wonder what it would be like to go back to a ‘regular job.’ It is 1000% times harder to own a business. It is also 1000% more enjoyable, even on its hardest days.

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?

We’re Ben and Megan Campbell, the husband-and-wife and business partners behind Ben’s Bread Co! We’re a small, family-run community supported bakery (CSB) in Seattle, WA. We are a small-scale bakery with an emphasis on naturally-leavened sourdough breads and other baked items, prepared in small batches from locally-grown and milled grains.

After hosting our pop-ups for six years, we opened Ben’s Bread Co. in July of 2023. Ben Campbell is the baker. He’s the former head baker for Sea Creatures restaurants as well as Lark – all in Seattle, as well as Seattle’s 2020 Rising Star Baker and 2024 James Beard Foundation semi-finalist for Outstanding Baker. I, Megan Campbell, am the business side of the operation. As Ben likes to say, “Essentially, I make the bread delicious, and Megan makes everything else about Ben’s Bread awesome,” and I don’t disagree. After almost 10 years in the corporate world, I packed up my digital, social, and event marketing expertise and leaned into the food and restaurant world.

From the beginning, our goal has been to make delicious, flavorful breads with flours and grains grown as close to home as possible. We’ve developed relationships with farmers and millers in the region (such as Cairnspring Mills, Small’s Family Farm, Fairhaven Mills, and Skagit Valley Malting) that strive for excellence and consistency, and it shows in their final product.

We’re proud of the ingredients we use and are always amazed at how well they compliment our style of bread. When it comes to our bread philosophy, we take it slow, letting our dough gradually build flavor through natural fermentation. It’s this hard work behind the scenes that helps our loaves taste better, last longer, and truly stand out from the very first bite.

Ben’s Bread Co. is open 8-3, seven days a week. We offer breakfast and lunch, as well as a rotating selection of loaves, pastries, and other baked items daily. We will soon offer our hot food kitchen to pop-up chefs in the evenings, as well as host our own themed-dinner service a few nights per week…we recently hosted weekly collaborative pizza nights with other Seattle-area restaurant friends of ours and they were a SMASH!

We try to make our bread as affordable as possible while keeping in mind that our methods are a labor of love and we use only the highest-quality local ingredients that we can get our hands-on. Additionally, we believe that it is important to give back to our community. They’re the ones that support us, and besides supporting local businesses in our sourcing, we can and should strive to always do more.

Ben’s Bread has always been a community-focused bakery. “CSB” for Community Supported Bakery is a term we embrace. We love that we are small, know our customers, source locally and have strong relationships with our growers and millers – and we are huge proponents of giving back to the community. We’ve always donated a portion of our sales to local non-profit organizations, and we’ve organized and co-hosted citywide bake sales for women’s reproductive rights, natural disaster victims, and more.

Our bakery space is a continuation of our emphasis on supporting our community and having them feel welcome. The layout allows foot traffic to look directly into the bakery and customers coming into the space are literally inside the bakery kitchen itself! We want people to see the ingredients that go into their food, know where it comes from, who grew it, and who processed and baked it, and feel like they have a real relationship to the end product.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Ben and I met in college in 2007, and remained friends until our first date in April 2009. We got married in 2013, and right after that Ben had started a bread program at the restaurant he worked at. Ben was working mostly nights, I was mostly days, and I had the bright idea to start doing these little bake sales called “pop-ups” I had heard about. I spun up an e-commerce website, an email distribution list, and an Instagram profile, and started taking pre-orders for “Ben’s Bread.” We hosted pick-ups on our front porch, and then at the restaurants Ben was working at.

As our customer list grew, and more people found out about us, we slowly scaled up production as we grew our family to include one fur baby and two children. We never intended Ben’s Bread to be our “day job” nor did we intend to ever open a bakery. But after 6 years and hosting pop-up days with 3 pick-up locations and delivery, we realized we needed to go big or go home. So we signed a lease, went through an excruciating 2.5 year build out, and finally opened our doors in July of 2023.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When we signed on to open the doors to our brick-and-mortar, the space we signed on to was a new build. It was supposed to take five months for our build out. The building itself was riddled with setbacks and we continually got hit with construction delays. Each time, it was always “one more month” or “two more months”…this happened for nearly two years before we were able to begin our own Tenant Improvements. It was awful. We had already taken out a loan for the business, purchased equipment, launched and funded a Kickstarter campaign (funded by 435 individuals), put out press releases…you name it. Each time we received “delay news,” it was not only a major downer for ourselves, but we also knew we had to share the news with our community and let them down as well. We continued to stick with it because, what else were we going to do? We took a short-term lease on a temporary kitchen where we could continue to produce as a pop-up. We were able to hire our bakery manager and pastry manager, and develop recipes for when the bakery opened. We were able to hire our staff prior to opening and give them on-the-job training prior to having our space. It ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise — one we would have never received if we threw in the towel. We opened our doors in July 2023 with a large following, lines out the door every day, and a team who were primed and ready to meet demand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bensbread.com
• Instagram: @bensbread_co
• Other: personal instagram: @megloflincampbell

Image Credits
Brooke Fitts