Carmen Paul isn’t just happy with her work these days. In fact, she’s realizing something she has always wanted.
“This is the dream! I’m actually living the dream!” she said. “As much as I’m only getting five hours of sleep at night, all the physical labor, my body hurts and I’m exhausted, this is the dream; to open a bakery.”
Carmen reopened the doors of the Outlook Bakery on Tuesday, June 20 after the building sat closed for a number of years. Since opening up, the NAIT-trained baker said business has been consistent, and she was happy to see things work out in her favor.
“Everything just worked,” said Carmen. “I saw the ad on Kijiji last fall and made some inquiries, and I didn’t think funding was going to work, but everything just fell into place!”
Paul soon found out that baking enthusiasts in Outlook haven’t forgotten those that came before her.
“The interesting thing I find is that it’s been closed for a number of years, but everybody seems to remember Ed (Li, former bakery owner),” she said. “I actually met with him, and he’s pretty cool.”
Right now, the offerings at the bakery are becoming popular, and Carmen is busy planning the rest of her menu.
“Pizza buns are becoming a staple, and sweet buns come in lemon, strawberry or chocolate,” she said. “There’s going to be focaccia daily, which has been flying off the shelves, which is great. There’s also going to be rye, 60% whole wheat, and raisin bread, as well as cinnamon twists. Those are the standards right now, and pies when I have time to do them.”
For the last few years, Paul had been doing farmer’s markets as well as special order items such as wedding cakes through her home-based baking service, Serving Serendipity. When she realized her dream of taking over the reins of an iconic Outlook location in order to establish her own bakery, it came with its own workload before the doors could even open.
“I did about a month’s worth of renovations,” she said. “It’s an old building that was two years vacant, so there was dust. And when you have a deep fryer running all the time, there’s grease on everything, and then there was dust ON the grease, so everything had to be scraped down.”
Right now, it’s just Carmen behind the scenes, though she has plans to have some help arrive soon.
“It’s pretty much just me right now, though my mother came out and helped for the first few days of opening, and I have a friend who I trained at NAIT with who’s going to be coming and helping out,” she said.
As for what else is going to be offered at the bakery, Carmen says she wants to satisfy Outlook’s sweet tooth.
“Pies are actually my thing,” she said. “The problem with them is that they’re very time-consuming, so I’d like to focus on those a lot more, but I’ll need to wait until I’m in a position to have the staff to help me in the back. I’m trying to appease the sweet tooth of the town. Prior to opening up, a lot of business people I talked to said it’s all about the savories (such as breads), and other people are looking for sweets, so I’m focusing on that a bit more.”
At the moment, Carmen is busy finding her groove in this new venture, but she hopes to be able to host a grand opening event in the near future once the proverbial kinks have been worked out.
“I’m asking for a lot of patience as I get things going,” she said. “This is more of a soft opening instead of a grand opening. I think that when I have a routine and some staff, I’ll do a grand opening event, but that’ll be further down the line.”
You can find the bakery on social media by searching on Facebook for ‘Outlook Bakery by Serving Serendipity’.
