John and Vanessa O’Connor hold some of their creations at SLO Baked Bakeries in San Luis Obispo.
In the wee hours of the morning, when the rest of us are asleep, John and Vanessa O’Connor of SLO Baked Bakeries are already well into a full-tilt day that begins at about 1 a. m. and runs the gamut from baking to delivering that day’s fresh product.
The list of goodies available from SLO Baked is impressive, especially considering they’re all “baked to order and made from scratch,” said John, “even the croissants, which gives us more flexibility in the fillings. When it’s made by hand you can really personalize it for yourself and your customers.”
Other handcrafted items include everything from cheese Danishes to bear claws, chocolate chip cookies to Mexican wedding cookies, lemon bars to brownies, cream puff swans to fruit tarts, quick breads to several organic breads and rolls, and seasonal items.
Most of the SLO Baked clients are coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores, but the O’Connors also have a growing retail customer base, particularly for items such as holiday dessert trays, or a dozen of the bakery’s signature muffins, or even smaller orders. In addition, SLO Baked offers exquisite wedding cakes decorated by John’s brother, Dan O’Connor, whose work has been featured by Martha Stewart.
SLO Baked was founded in 1985; the O’Connors bought it from the original owner in 2006.
Though the couple both had experience in the food industry— Vanessa in baking, John in retail organic produce —they admit that “we didn’t realize how hard this was going to be.” But neither has any regrets.
In fact, they are looking to further expand their production (having already doubled it since they took over the business) while keeping quality first and foremost.
“We’re trying to cater to the people who care,” said Vanessa. “If we can’t do something well, we don’t want to do it.”
McClatchy Interactive is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since The SanLuisObispo.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not SanLuisObispo.com.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
Print
E-Mail
