‘Dabbling’ led to B&S Express Sourdough Bakery and now a Bread Barn

Tim Harty, The Business Times

The day Emily Pinneo started B&S Express Sourdough two years ago turned out to be a good day this year to debut the next evolution of her business.

Pinneo marked the second anniversary on March 7 by opening the B&S Express Bread Barn, a little pink shack next to her home-based micro-bakery at 158 29 1/2 Road, where she will sell her sourdough breads and pastries two days per week.

She’s starting with Wednesdays and Saturdays, opening at 10 a.m. each day and remaining open until 6 p.m. or until she sells out. The latter is the more likely, so monitoring her Facebook page is a good idea to avoid a trip that ends in disappointment.

“I would love to say 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and have set hours, but I’ve been selling out quickly,” Pinneo said, “so I’ve just been saying 10 a.m. until sold out.”

She said things have gone well at farmers markets, and she was doing three farmers markets per week last year, but that can get hectic, especially with her two children, who aren’t school age yet.

“I figured: Why not bring the market home and have something here?” Pinneo said. “I’m utilizing my space and access to Highway 50 here and trying to be more visible to drive-by customers. That way I could spend more time with my kids, and then it alleviates some of the travel and stress of having to be other places all the time, and I could just be working from home.

“So that’s kind of what led to the idea of the Bread Barn.”

Where it all really started, though, was at a daycare where Pinneo was working.

She had some interest in baking as a child. Then, when her kids were born, Pinneo got thinking about making healthier breads and pastries for them, so three years ago she “kind of started dabbling in sourdough.”

It was more than dabbling, as Pinneo said, “I made my own starter from scratch, so that took, I want to say, about two months to start my starter completely from scratch. And then everything else has been self taught, just practiced in the kitchen, repeating, trying recipes again. It’s all been self taught, just as a hobby.”

The results of her baking ended up at the daycare where she works. And where her co-workers and mothers of the kids found out how good her “dabbling in sourdough” had become. Or maybe obsession is a better word.

“I was going crazy; I was baking like six loaves a week,” Pinneo said. “And I was like, ‘I can’t eat this much,’ so I started bringing it to the daycare, and they were like, ‘Wow, this is really good. Like, can we buy more from you? We’ll pay you to make more.’ I was like, ‘OK, yeah, everybody let me know your orders, and I’ll make more.’

“And then they started sharing it with their friends and family, and then my family started spreading the word about it, and eventually I did my first market at Blaine’s (Farm Store).”

Ah, Blaine’s Farm Store. Where hobby met business and B&S Express Sourdough soon after was born.

After Pinneo did her first market at Blaine’s, 3419 Front St., where she showed up with nine loaves of sourdough, she was contacted by Smith Family Orchards in Palisade, and it began selling her sourdough products.

“And then everything blew up after that,” Pinneo said. “It was an official business after that Blaine’s market.”

Pinneo said she takes 40 to 50 loaves of sourdough bread to Smith Family Orchards during the peak season.

She has gotten to the point where she can make more than 100 loaves for a day when the Bread Barn is open or at a farmers market. Pinneo said she had 109 loaves at the grand opening on Saturday, March 7.

“I definitely stretched myself as far as I could on Saturday,” she said.

And for Grand Junction’s Market on Main one time, she made 150 loaves.

If there’s demand for her sourdough, Pinneo wants to be up for the challenge.

“I think this is definitely gonna test my abilities. I’m gonna see how much I can actually do,” she said.

She said her best-selling loaf of sourdough is the garlic Italian, and the plain sourdough is a close second.

When it comes to the pastries she will sell at the Bread Barn, they will rotate. She knows better than to try to do too much, and a rotation will limit chaos in her kitchen.

“What I’ve been trying out this year is a rotating menu,” she said. “I offer over 30 flavors of sourdoughs, so I offer typically three to four different flavors a week. And then one to two extra items a week.”

The extra items are cookies, cupcakes, rolls, etc.

“And that’ll change every single week,” she said. “I rotate, so this week was cookies. Next week will be cupcakes. The week after that will be the Irish sweet cream rolls.”

She made a Guinness Beer bread leading up to St. Patrick’s Day.

If the Bread Barn goes well, Pinneo could be staring at expansion, either buying a home with a large garage that she can renovate into a bakery or possibly getting a storefront.

“I don’t know if I’m quite ready for that jump, that leap yet, and to get employees and such,” she said. “So, right now, I think we’re just gonna see how this works, play this out, and then just grow from there, see what the next year holds.”

Set up for self service

The Bread Barn is a little pink shack in an open lot next to Emily Pinneo’s home at 158 29 1/2 Road, so Pinneo will frequently be around to help customers on the two days per week it’s open.

But it also is set up for self service with a variety of ways to pay, such as Venmo, CashApp, credit and debit cards, etc. Plus, customers can order online at www.hotplate.com/bsexpress.

Pinneo acknowledges she’s “kind of relying on the honor system,” but she’s trusting only to a point. She pointed to security cameras as one of the security measures and said, “We definitely took our precautions.”