Email
Print
Top chefs: Concord bakery owners share passion
Photo by James Nix
Tim Mills prepares a cake at Chef's Choice in Concord.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: January 5, 2010
Concord residents are lucky enough to have two world-class bakeries just feet away from each other.
Each bakery offers something special to a hungry customer wanting to splurge.
Chef's Choice, located at 11 Union St., is the passion of Tim Mills, owner and baker.
Mills graduated from Johnson and Wales University with a culinary degree and immediately began a successful career as a top chef, which even included cooking for the elder President Bush.
Cooking isn't just a talent with Mills; it's a passion.
After returning to Kannapolis he worked three years as executive chef at the old Kannapolis Country Club, before making the decision to open a bakery of his own.
Success in a commercial kitchen takes a team, and Mills explains that not having a lot of life experience frustrated him. He just expected everyone to care as much as he did.
It wasn't until he owned his bakery that he realized that good leadership brings the team together.
"As life goes on, you learn," Mills said. "I wasn't really ready. I didn't understand that customers are the bosses. I was cooking for exclusive country clubs in Florida, before coming back here. I was cooking for some places that were $300 a plate. In Kannapolis, all they really wanted was fried chicken. Now I am old enough to realize customers are the ones who pay me, instead of me trying to be such a snob."
The bakery first opened up to be a gourmet pastry shop, making fancy tarts and such, but Mills soon realized what the community really wanted at that time was not a fancy pastry shop.
"It didn't take me long to figure out what the town really needed was a bakery," Mills said. " I have built a clientele over 15 years that I never want to cross."
How tough is it to hang on to a business that means so much, in this rough economy?
"Business is slow, but I make lemonade out of lemons," Mills said.
Coca-Cola had a cooler in Mills shop. When business got slow, they removed it and paid him for the contents.
"It was enough for me to buy a dart board. Now we have dart tournaments in the building. Ironically, enough people now come in and buy Cokes or coffee, and sit around. We have a plate that is a trophy, and we trade it back and forth," Mills said.
The businesses in the building are a tight group, and help each other survive in these rough times.
Mills thinks no one in the building has had to lay off anyone yet.
"I think there is enough business for everyone if we share," Mills said. " I don't want to cast a bad light on anything. The power of positive thinking is the way I run my business."
He realizes even working with those you consider your direct competition helps during these tough times. The businesses in the building send customers each other's way, depending on what the customer wants or needs.
Mills believes it's ultimately about making the customer happy and having them return. He feels a responsibility to create a pleasant experience not just for the bakery, but also for the whole downtown area.
Being a small business owner these days encompasses so much more than before.
"I have also had to be more creative," Mills said. "With children that come in, I do a bit of magic. It's kids stuff. I've had to become essentially an entertainer as well as a baker."
The bakery has expanded into corporate catering and wedding cakes.
Mills has a steady stream of clients who wouldn't have a birthday without one of his cake creations.
"I thank the Lord everyday that I get to do what I love to do," Mills said. "There are only a few people on the planet who get to do that. Granted it's not all roses there are some thorns in that bush, but I really love what I do."
Ann Marie and Jean-Luc Barrucand tell their tale of their pastry shop ownership as a love story, not a business story.
Some would argue that anything dealing in chocolate, French pastry and a French pastry chef could only be a love story.
They explained their meeting as unlikely, since Ann Marie grew up in Owego, New York, and Jean Luc is from Lyon, France, but the love of pastry brought both to the area.
Ann Marie mentions destiny in her story, and when asked what brought Jean Luc to our area from France, she laughs and says "me."
The two owners of Chocolatier Barrucand, a gourmet chocolate and pastry shop at 1 Union St., met when fate brought both to Myers Park Country Club in Charlotte.
Jean Luc was the pastry chef at the club, and Ann Marie his assistant.
"It's a love story," Ann Marie said. "We've been together for 17 years."
Passion is the main ingredient not just for each other, but also for their business.
After working most of the country clubs around the region, they dreamed of opening their own business,
"It seemed like it took forever to open our business," Ann Marie said. "We wanted to be in a nice little area with foot traffic and no crime. There is crime everywhere, but this was just a nice area."
The Barrucands looked everywhere, including South Carolina, but chose Concord.
"You have to get the right spot," Ann Marie said.
The space was completely gutted when the two first saw it. There were no floors or walls.
The owner was about to begin work on the building.
Ann Marie and Jean Luc could see in the space exactly the store they imagined.
"We came in at just the right time," Ann Marie said. "It was perfect timing in a perfect spot. It was right on the corner, in a quaint little town with beautiful houses. A very nice place."
Timing is everything as Mills said earlier.
"We knew enough people that we could just get out there," Ann Marie said. "We just wanted our own business, and this was a beautiful store front."
The shop opened for business two years ago.
Originally, they thought catering would be the major part of the business.
"It's not. It has worked out better than we had hope for," Ann Marie said.
Most of the business comes from customers who sit and enjoy the rich desserts, chocolate and wine.
"It's retail, most of the people coming in off the street. That's our business," Ann Marie said.
"Most our business comes between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.," Jean Luc said.
The pastry shop is open most days from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Most businesses in the downtown area close in the evening, Ann Marie explains, and on Saturday some close even earlier.
"It a weird little area for traffic at night," Ann Marie said.
She hopes new businesses that come to the area will keep the downtown open later.
It takes three things to run a successful business dreams, drive, and passion.
Both businesses, located feet from each other, possess all three.
Entrepreneurs usually possess a sense of passion, a feeling that there's a business to be built, and nothing is going to stop it from happening.
"We'd like to expand our retail," Ann Marie said. "But we cannot do that yet."
"We bake all day. It's only the two of us," Jean Luc said. "During the holidays, the hours are longer."
It's that passion that drives the momentum and eventually drives the business.
Contact reporter Robin L. Gardner: 704-789-9140
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Click a region for news specific to that area.
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
Advertisement
