There are many circumstances that can lead you to the path you are actually supposed to follow. These are the stories we love to hear, being able to pursue your passion and do something entirely different from where you started. Denise Assad, Owner and Baker of Bountiful Bakery, has just that story. Having worked in the design industry for many years, she opened Bountiful Bakery just a few months ago on North Verdugo Road as you head into Montrose.
We sat down with Denise to talk about her one-woman bakery and the future growth on a less frantic Tuesday. Oh, and to possibly eat some of her delicious salted chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. She gives tastes if you happen to swing by!
Tell me how you got your start in the Bakery business.
Well I always baked as a child. I learned from both my grandmothers, my maternal and paternal grandmothers. One was Swedish and one was Syrian and both were great cooks. My Syrian grandmother taught me both sweets and savory baking and my Swedish grandmother was a huge pie maker/casserole maker and just loved the art of cooking and serving family. Both of them did. And that’s where I learned and have always baked ever since but I never was even interested in opening a bakery. I baked for gifts and I baked to relax.
You have been at a few different farmers markets selling your goods, was that a good intro into deciding to open an actual bakery?
It was perfect. After the 2008 holiday time when I realized, with all the special orders, that it was such a good crazy great time that there wasn’t really another option except to give it a go into the farmers markets. It was relativity inexpensive to get in there and I felt that I had a good product so I did. My first farmers market was the Brentwood Farmers Market on the west side of Los Angeles and I sold out the first day. I think then I realized that I might actually be able to do this as a job. Something I enjoyed. I mean, I enjoyed doing design, but it was very different. Baking is truly something from the heart.
Why did you choose to open in Montrose?
Well, I’ll admit it wasn’t my first choice. I would say 95% of my customers were on the west side and I struggled with the idea of location for a very long time, for at least a couple of years. I initially looked on the West Side, hard, hoping to get into a raw space and build out. It was just too expensive to afford as a really small cash strapped start up. Also, we live up here in La Canada already where my son attends school; it would of meant an entire relocation for both of us. When this spot popped up I snapped it up right away. It was a catering kitchen before so it had the kitchen space. We had to start over though, new plumbing, electric. It took a solid year to get it going.
It feels like you have a great following already, and seems to me like you already know a lot of your customers. Did that happen pretty quickly?
Yeah, they have already become real regulars in the month we’ve been open. I’ve seen most of these customers almost three of four or more times. It’s really great as they come in often. I do feel, even from the Facebook community page (Sparr Heights Community page), that we are being really well received.
Tell me about your vintage Pie Plate policy, the Bountiful Circle of Trust.
Oh yeah, I do love everything vintage, including textiles, ceramics and glass. I already had some old pie plates available to me when I first started. When I began I could barely put two pennies together so it just made sense to me to bake in the plates and glassware that I already had rather than go out and buy something else. I was never really fond of the pressed aluminum pie-tin; it just didn’t feel like what my grandmother would of used. It bakes differently; the glass bakes the crust much more evenly and thoroughly. I always wanted to and continue to bake in the glass pie plates. So we’re like a library of pie plates. If you buy the pies you have the plates on loan and it works. My customers bring them back, so far so good. I’m sure I’m missing a few but that’s okay.
We loved your chicken potpies, great for dinner. It feels like you have a bit more to offer to customers than baked goods…do you feel you would like to continue towards more a bakery café type place with Bountiful?
Yeah, I guess. It is a bakery but I really do have high hopes of turning into a café when all is said and done. I’d love to serve my chicken potpies and pot roast for dinner and the quiches’ for lunch. At this stage though, since it’s just me back there, it’s really impossible to do everything. So I’m just focusing on getting out the sweets and savories that I know how to do well and quickly, that I’ve gotten into a routine with and when I hire somebody to help me in the back, then we’ll continue to expand. We probably won’t be able to do that though, at least not until the New Year.
Was it a surprise to you how quickly and how busy it could be on certain days?
Yes! Oh my gosh, I thought, to be honest, I thought I’d just have the shop open but I could bake all day in back and if somebody comes in I could just sell them what I have. I really did not think it would be that busy, not at all! It’s like craziness just to get the doors open. It’s harder on Saturdays but I like it because families come in and sit at the big family table and go outside, not as much of a hurry.
What are your immediate plans to keep growing? Any plans for the next three years?
In three years I want love to be in the Palisades. Caruso, the developer, bought the main street in Pacific Palisades and is redeveloping it but I’m hoping to present to him the bakery and it’s success here and try to get a small space there. I have always had a ton of customers in the Palisades and Santa Monica so I’d also like to be able to get back to the West Side.
Bountiful Bakery
3527 N. Verdugo Road
Glendale, CA 91208
(818) 795-8580
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Photos: Kelly Norris Sarno
