Our Story
Where It All Started
Ben and I first met in 2015 when I was a Chef and he was a Head Baker. At that point, we had both worked in the food industry in other businesses. For Chrissy, it was over a decade in various food businesses, strategy, and chef positions, Ben was a baker rising through the ranks of some very established high-end NYC bakeries.
We were working at a busy restaurant in Brooklyn when I signed on to help an orchard establish their food program in the Hudson Valley. Every weekend, I would drive up and stay on the farm for several days, setting up systems and menus, foraging the property for ingredients. Ben would join me for his days off and we found a sense of peace we didn’t find in the city.
Crossing the bridge back into the city was always a little disheartening and we’d look at each other and be like, “here we go again,” with a heavy sigh. We got married and started looking for a new home and the next part of our journey outside of the city.
The Property That Changed Everything
In our search, we kept going north until we found the town of Cairo, NY. We stumbled on an old property, with a modest, drafty boarding house dating back to the 1800's and a restaurant/bar from the 50’s.
In its heyday, as the Pixie Motel, they sold 10¢ hamburgers and collected chatchikis like it was their job. We were in love and bought the property knowing we could revitalize the business and open something that was just ours.
A Name Born Over Scrabble
After we moved in, we played with what exactly we were going to open. Our experiences were wide and it took time to narrow it down. We threw out weird ideas like “Itafrique” a new Italian and African fusion cuisine.
Then one night while playing scrabble, Ben came up with the punny idea of “See and Be”. Chrissy and Ben. What you look at and who you are.
We would base our business around Ben’s sourdough and my creative dishes. It sounded like a good fit!
Starting With $10,000 and a Lot of Hustle
We started humbly with a $10,000 buildout over a year, doing much of the work ourselves and salvaging what we could of what was already on the property, the rest coming very second, third, or fourth-hand.
And while we built, we hustled. Ben mucked pig stalls at a local farm. I took on a chef position at a resort. We baked out of our house and started selling breads off a neighbor’s dining room table.
As the weather got warmer, we joined the Catskill Farmers Market with our breads and foods. That was the very beginning of what we do today.
Opening the Doors
We knew that we were going to make really simple food really well and we were going to do it in a way that respected not only the source of the ingredients, but the process, and, to us most importantly, the people that were producing it.
In 2019, we opened our first physical location.
I’ll never forget the best feeling in the world – standing at the back door and looking into the cafe, seeing folks we didn’t know meet each other at our little one-room cafe, laughing and sharing, holding a loaf of our bread in their arms.
It meant we had really made it.
The Great-Grandmother Rolling Pin Era
Ben really loved making laminated pastries and one day he said he was going to make some for us to sell! Only we didn’t have a sheeter.
So he did all the lamination 100% by hand using my Great Grandmother’s rolling pin.
It lasted that way for a few months until we saved up enough to buy what I humbly refer to as “The Marriage Saver” – our dough sheeter we still use today!
Meanwhile, we picked up one of our first wholesale accounts, Taste of New York. They had just opened a new rest area on the freeway and were looking for good local croissants that could be delivered on a regular basis.
Baking Through the Night
And deliver we did.
He would stay up all night baking and I would come first thing in the morning to pack piping hot baked goods into boxes, while our part time delivery driver would wait impatiently to take them away.
As the business grew and our family’s needs grew, we made the decision to stop baking to order and instead baked for the next day. It took a lot of trial and error to get it right so that the products we were making would still be just as fresh the next day without any preservatives, but we found just the right ways.
This was a major shift towards a wholesale-focused bakery following the natural growth of the business.
When Growth Outpaced the Building
Our business was doubling year over year.
At one point, we couldn’t keep up with the growth and had totally run out of storage space, both cold and dry. Looking at the permitting and time needed to get a building erected, not to mention the cost, I had a bright idea.
We bought our first shipping container and set it up as a mobile building. The quick expansion possibility allowed us to grow at the pace of the demand.
Turns out, one wasn’t enough and for the next three years, we added another container building each year until we landed where we are today. I think we’re done, but who knows!
The Pandemic Bread Boom
Our business grew and grew and grew, even, and especially through the pandemic bread-boom.
By the time the pandemic “was over” people were asking to come back inside of our cafe, but we had ripped out the beautiful local ash countertop and turned it into a full-on production space to handle the volume.
Folks were lining up outside daily for bread and the retail side moved to a separate location on Main Street in Cairo. This would give us more opportunities to cook food, host folks, and create community engagement.
Building a Community Hub
With the storefront, we were able to get even deeper with our local community too and put our money where our mouth was – carrying local products, one-of-a-kind food items from independent producers, and sharing things that we thought were really really special.
I personally curate and vet every item we bring into our store and our kitchen to make sure it’s up to snuff.
You can walk into our store and without screaming about it, know for sure that there are no artificial preservatives, no soy additives, no high fructus corn syrup, and no nasties in general.
We brought our vibes with us – a 16 foot communal table, no wifi, and a level of hospitality and generosity this town hadn’t seen in a very long time.
The Question Every Founder Eventually Asks
Our wholesale was booming, our retail store was always busy, our employees were happy, we were living the dream.
But then came the quiet question that always comes at the end of the day.
Now what?
Rethinking Growth
We talked about growth and set some clear parameters.
What made us unique was that we had a people-first, artisan-quality product with enough systems to make it really consistent. We didn’t want to sacrifice any of that equation.
So vertical integration into bigger machinery and a mass-produced product was off the table. But the demand for our products kept coming in from all over – far beyond the areas we could reasonably service.
The Hard Lessons of Building It Ourselves
Being fully transparent, building the way we did was exhausting and I wouldn’t recommend it.
Our success was due in large part to pure determination, grit, dumb luck, focus, and sacrifice with a singular goal in mind – build something better than we had ever experienced.
We learned the hard way what to focus on, what you need to operate at max capacity, and how to access capital to get everything you need ready, before you even open. So, maybe we should just open more locations knowing what we know now?
Discovering a Different Path: Franchising
As we looked at it, we realized we don’t want to move our family or spend every day driving over an hour each way to our next location – because it would have to be that far away to spread out the territories for wholesale – so we started looking at different ways to grow. We wanted to replicate, but how?
Hiring an operator felt risky because what if there’s turnover at their level? We would be pulled right back in. Licensing didn’t feel right because we weren’t just handing over our brand, but all of the systems, logistics, and methodology that truly has led to our success.
That’s when we found franchising.
A Bakery Network, Not a Franchise
I almost hate to use the word franchise because I think it has such negative connotations.
I like to think of us as a co-op or a network of bakeries.
A collective working together so that we can purchase larger quantities of really high quality, local products at a more reasonable price, share knowledge and technology tools for systems and success, and learn from each other.
Instead of using the rigorous franchise system to suppress the workforce and stifle creativity, we could use it instead to guarantee the well treatment of employees, partners, and guests. Instead of creating mass produced products that are standardized, we could leverage our combined purchasing power to drive down raw ingredient costs and share labor on service contracts, technology platforms with custom buildouts, and compliance and legal review.
The Mission Now
Now, that’s our focus. Every time something happens in our business, we ask ourselves:
“How is a franchisee going to deal with this?”
Then we build a system or a plan. We create safety nets, redundancies, workflows, compliance reviews. Ways to go faster, lighter.
Bread is one of the oldest foods on the planet – we’re not reinventing anything here with our product and we don’t want to. Keep it as simple and straight forward as possible. But we want to make a lot of it.
We want to retire comfortably someday from this dream, while employing and upskilling people in the community, supporting the local sports teams, youth projects, food access, farmers, and other makers in the process. And we only do that by sharing our business with others.
What started as a dream of doing it better in one small town has grown. We want to see really good food on plates, in homes, and independent food establishments, all over America. We believe that really good bread and a really good attitude can do that.
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