Since I opened Macrina in 1993, so many amazing people have helped make the bakery what it is today. In honor of our 25th anniversary, we are spotlighting a few key employees. Each fills an essential role at Macrina. Ariel Singh’s experience and talent make her the perfect person to open our new café on Capitol Hill at 746 19th Ave E (on the corner of Aloha and 19th). She’s as wonderful a person as she is talented with customers and crew alike. Managing a café is a big job requiring superb customer service skills, extensive food knowledge, people management, logistics, administrative duties, and more. Ariel does it all with grace, charm and efficiency.Leslie
Life at Macrina
Ariel started working at Macrina’s Belltown Café in 2012, in the midst of a remodel. She spent much of her first week working side by side with Leslie Mackie, cleaning and scrubbing, before moving into other roles in the cafés.“Macrina has grown, but Leslie is still present in everything we do,” Ariel said. “The breads, the pastries, and the values are the same. In some ways, I’d say Macrina has just continued to grow into itself.”After Belltown, Ariel moved to the McGraw Café where she worked as Assistant Manager. She was promoted to General Manager of our Sodo Café in 2016. This was when Macrina's wholesale production still worked in the space behind the café. About a year later, having outgrown that space, wholesale moved to our bakery in Kent, though you can still watch the pastry team working behind the windows at the Sodo café.“Before wholesale moved, it was so fun to walk back there and see and experience everything being made from scratch, the potatoes boiling for the potato bread, all the dough being kneaded, and teams of bakers hand-forming and scoring every loaf. I miss it and encourage my crew to get out to Kent to see all the work that goes into our products.”There has been one advantage since Wholesale moved out of Sodo. “Without the huge rack ovens running 24 hours a day, the café stays cooler.” Plus, speaking of cool, Gelatiamo, Seattle’s extraordinary gelato maker, now occupies part of the space. Owner Maria Coassin quickly hit it off with Ariel, so much so that she has been helping Ariel plan her upcoming honeymoon!
Opening a New Café
Ariel worked down in Sodo until this past August. When offered the opportunity to open Macrina’s newest café, there was no hesitation. “I’m really looking forward to the challenge,” she says.The location of the café was once home to the Surrogate Hostess. People are still talking about the Surrogate Hostess today, which is a testimony of the impact the bakery made on the tight-knit community. This would be a tough act for anyone to follow, but Ariel is a perfect fit. She is good with her crew, but she truly makes a point to create connections with her customers. “I’ve loved each of the cafés for different reasons,” Ariel says. “Each has a nostalgic feeling for me that I relate to different parts of my life. The best compliment I can get is when a customer from another café comes in and remembers me and say they miss me.” Now she's ready to make new memories at Aloha and excited to get to know new customers in a new neighborhood.“Ariel is incredibly hard working,” says Crystal Kitchin, the General Manager overseeing all of the cafés. “She strives for perfection. Working in food service, you can only control so much yourself. The rest comes from training your crew well. Ariel has risen to the occasion and become a great leader.”But Ariel is just as appreciative of Crystal. “I’m lucky to work for a boss who I really like,” Ariel says. “Crystal is a guiding light. If I’m having a tough time dealing with something, she has an answer. Even to the most complicated interpersonal issues that come up with a big staff. I’ve also learned so much from working with Leslie. She’s the epitome of Macrina and what it embodies, in all the best ways."
The Married Life
Ariel was married to her husband Narayan Singh about a year ago, almost to the day, on Labor Day 2017. The Corson Building, a gem tucked under the freeway in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, provided the perfect setting for a food-crazy couple. If a flaw could be found, it was only that the day was a little warm for Ariel, about 85 degrees. “I was a little hot in my dress,” Ariel says, “but Narayan was happy. The wedding was perfect.” They met in Seattle after both moving from warmer places, Ariel from L.A., Narayan from Las Vegas. Taylor Murphy, a mutual friend, introduced them. She used to work with Ariel. Because of their friendship, and Taylor being the point of intersection, Ariel and Narayan asked her to officiate their wedding. “At work, Taylor was frequently a little late, and I’m a stickler for punctuality. But she was definitely on time for the wedding,” Ariel laughs.Narayan is a Clinical Psychology Doctoral Student at Seattle Pacific University. This keeps him very busy, which was part of the reason why they delayed their honeymoon until this summer.
On weekends, our 
Most of our customers never see Alfredo Machorro, but without him we’d have a hard time making a single product. Alfredo is our Steward Lead and Receiver. He greets each of our suppliers at the loading docks, checks in their deliveries and carefully ensures the quality and contents of each order.
Mike Johnson loves to drive. So much so that he spends as much of his free time as he can watching the races at Skagit Speedway. “Dirt racing is my passion,” Mike says. “I just got a car that can race in the tuner class, the slowest type of cars. I hope to start racing soon.”Fittingly, when he joined Macrina in 2013, it was as a delivery driver. If Mike wasn’t so observant of company policy, we might worry about him screeching around corners. “Mike is a man of rules and likes to run a tight ship, he works by the book enforcing company policies,” says Sergio Castaneda, the Delivery General Manager. “He is very thorough and organized, which helps ensure that orders aren’t missing items.”From the beginning it was clear that Mike was ambitious, had a positive attitude and wanted more responsibility. Impressed with his work, Sergio promoted him to lead driver and then soon after to assistant manager.
Nothing beats a pastry still warm from the oven, or the smell of fresh baked goods that permeates the café. Our cafés in Belltown, Queen Anne, and Sodo each have a team of pastry chefs preparing baked goods specifically for that café. Rebecca Gutierrez is not only one of our most talented pastry chefs, but she has also become a great teacher of the craft.She grew up in Bellevue and went to pastry school at South Seattle College. After a short stint at a small wedding cake company, she discovered Macrina. Over the last seven years, she’s worked at all of our cafés at one time or another. If you’ve ordered a custom cake from us, chances are she made it. She also helps develop new products for our pastry case.“When I interviewed for the job, I was impressed with how cool and down to earth and nice Leslie was,” Rebecca says. “If I didn’t already know, I never would have guessed she was the founder. Since the first day, I’ve liked Macrina a lot. The people are the main reason. I’ve made a lot of friends and management takes really good care of us.”Erica Olsen, Macrina’s head pastry chef and Rebecca’s supervisor, says, “Rebecca is one of the hardest working people I know. She’s a phenomenal mentor. I enjoy working with her not just to witness her mad skills, but because time goes by so quickly when you’re working with her because she’s super funny.”Because the pastries must be ready when the café opens, the morning pastry shift starts early. Rebecca often arrives at 4:30 a.m. She enjoys the relative calm in the kitchen before the café staff shows up. “It’s a pretty fun way to start the day,” she says. Working when others are sleeping means that sometimes you’re sleeping when they’re still playing. “I’ve had to say no to things my friends invited me to do, but they understand. They know my job comes first.”But starting early means getting off early. And Rebecca lives near Discovery Park where she loves to go running with her dog while most others are still working. If the weather is beautiful, she likes to take an adventurous hike.
Bay Phan joined Macrina in 2009, shortly after arriving in Seattle from Vietnam. Her friend, Phuong Hoang Bui, our head baker, encouraged her to apply. She began in the wholesale pastry department and proved herself to be a quick learner and a hard worker. Nearly nine years later she’s become one of our leaders in the tight-knit group.Speaking through a translator, Bay says, “There are about 20 of us, and most speak Vietnamese. We work together like a family. They know everything about me, me about them.”“Bay is one hard worker,” says Tramy Le, the manager of the wholesale pastry team. “She’s very nice to everyone at Macrina and I am so happy to work with her.”In 2016, Macrina’s wholesale pastry production moved from behind the Sodo café to a much larger facility in Kent. Bay says, “We were getting way too crowded there. Here we have the space we need to spread out. It’s much more comfortable.”With growth comes new challenges, one of which is navigating the new food safety regulations. “Learning all the new rules is probably my biggest challenge, but it’s necessary,” Bay says. “But as I get used to them and all the new records I have to keep, it is getting easier. It’s a good thing!”Training new employees who don’t speak English is another challenge for her. “Teaching employees who can’t read the recipe takes some time, but if they’re determined to learn and listen carefully, it’s rewarding. I always remember that I was like that when I started here. Once the new employee masters one pastry, we can move to the next. They become part of our family. I’m so grateful to Scott and Leslie for welcoming so many from the Vietnamese refugee community.”
In restaurant years, ten makes you a veteran. For Skillet, the ride has been adventurous. Skillet’s wild years began in a renegade Airstream trailer, involved a few skirmishes with a health department unfamiliar with food trucks, and a couple of run-ins with aggressive tow-truck drivers. But ambition, talent, and a few unforgettable dishes have carried Skillet to a successful but never dull maturity.In 2007, street-food trucks weren’t a phenomenon. You could actually find downtown street corners without one. Beyond taco trucks—fabulous, yes, but one dimensional—there wasn’t much. Then Skillet’s pioneering street-food truck came along. People stood in long lines to eat the Fried Chicken Sammy, the Bacon Jam Burger, Poutine (not at all ubiquitous then), and the Kale Caesar. When discussing local food trucks, it’s fair to divide the conversation into Before Skillet (the dark ages) and After Skillet (the enlightenment).
Fast forward ten years, Skillet has grown into a Seattle institution. There are four brick and mortar restaurants—Capital Hill, Ballard, Denny Regrade, Seattle Center—and two food trucks. What hasn’t changed is the food. Skillet’s chef-driven take on American-inspired classics has become a brand unto itself. Their greatest hits—the chicken sandwich, the burger, the Caesar, the waffle with braised pork belly, the griddle cakes with compote—couldn’t be pulled from the menu without risking insurrection, maybe a little like a Pearl Jam concert in which the band refused to play "Evenflow." It’s not that the new stuff isn’t worth trying—it is—it’s just that Seattle fell in love with Skillet’s classics first and won’t let go. And that’s just fine with Skillet. They continue to source great local food, fix it up, and serve their favorite dishes to customers, many of them long-time devotees.
The diners are spacious, light and airy, with a menu that expands upon the original food truck menu. To celebrate their tenth anniversary, Skillet is featuring a throwback menu all year that features recipes culled from old newsletters. March features the Lemongrass Pork Sammy with pickled ginger slaw. April features the Porchetta Sammy with hazelnut gremolata.
That catering plays a role in Skillet’s middle-aged evolution should come as no surprise. Skillet’s burgers, fries, and milkshakes were first introduced at founder Josh Henderson’s wedding. Now, with a team of over 100 talented people, Skillet can cater up to six simultaneous events. Hundreds of brides and grooms have chosen Skillet to cater their weddings.Catering Manager, Jessica Paul Jones, says that in addition to weddings, private parties and corporate events make up the bulk of their catering. But they can handle just about anything in Pacific Northwest. They’ve even have a china box that can roast a whole pig. One memorable catering event was a party at the top of the Smith Tower. Jessica remembers carrying food and equipment up the stairs (“My legs hurt for days”). Then there was the one at a ‘huuuuge" house in Laurelhurst that sat above the lake with 103 slate steps winding down to the lakeside tables (“My legs hurt even worse”).When major life events occur, some Skillet fans rely upon their favorite restaurant. One such customer is Brian Benjamin, a weekly food truck regular since 2009. His go-to item is the Fried Chicken Sammy. His parents met his fiancé’s parents for the first time at the Skillet restaurant in Ballard. And guess who’s catering their wedding?
In a world of coincidences, one that isn’t all that surprising is that Brian is also a Macrina fan. He explains, “My fiancé, Jilian, used to live right behind the Macrina Bakery on Queen Anne. I always loved waking up on a weekend morning to walk over to get a ham and cheese brioche or Morning Glory muffin. We still swing by from time to time to pick up a loaf of rosemary semolina bread. I’m often more excited to eat the bread than I am the rest of the meal.”Maybe that isn’t such a coincidence after all since Macrina’s potato roll has long been an essential part of Skillet’s Fried Chicken Sammy. At Macrina, we’re proud to be a part of one of Seattle’s favorite sandwiches.What’s next for Skillet? Ani Pendergast, Skillet’s Director of Marketing, says, “Our focus is on maintaining the same kind of consistency we’ve always had. We’d love to open more neighborhood restaurants. But first we have to feel that we have the capacity to do it, then we need to find the right location. Our primary focus has always been on the food and the service. Whether you hit the restaurants, the trucks, or catering we want to be sure you get Skillet food and Skillet service. So we don’t spread ourselves too thin, we’ll only grow when we’re ready for it.”
A great extra virgin olive oil is as different from the typical pale yellow stuff sold in supermarkets as pure maple syrup is from Aunt Jemima’s. Good olive oil is alive and peppery, not bitter, and taken straight can make you cough. If you’re accustomed to bland commodity olive oil one spoonful of the real thing will transport you to another gustatory plane where flavor defies known parameters.That’s sort of what happened when Seattle resident Sheila Fitzgerald was hiking through northern Portugal en route to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in 2012. In the high hills above the Douro Valley, a soaring majestic patchwork of cultivated agriculture and natural, craggy slopes, she found herself in a grove of olive trees. Some had massive trunks, their limbs twisted and magnificent with age. She introduced herself to the property owner, Henrique Cardoso, a fourth-generation farmer, who then introduced her to his olive oil.
“I knew good olive oil, but I’d never tasted anything like his,” Sheila says. “The golden-green oil had a peppery spiciness to it, no bitterness, and a complexity and balance that I’d never experienced.”That revelatory moment kicked off Sheila’s four-year journey to become the sole US importer of Henrique’s olive oil. The first challenge was winning Henrique’s trust, persuading him that she would uphold his fierce commitment to quality. Next came an extended process of gaining FDA approval, an involved study of the existing US market, selecting bottles, and designing a label.Since that first visit, Sheila has been back many times, including at harvest time, which starts in November and goes through January.
“Henrique picks his olives early and makes Azeite Esplendido from the first harvest,” Sheila says. “That means the olive is picked when they’re very green. Most farmers wait until the olives get plumper. That way they get more oil out of it. But the olive loses flavor as it ripens. My oil has a peppery spiciness to it. That’s indicative of an early harvest. It can bring tears to your eyes, even make you cough. That’s a good thing.”Harvest is a time of celebration. An autumnal chill in the air, the groves often laced with tendrils of fog, pickers go from tree to tree using long rakes to pull the olives into nets. An old tractor hauls them to the press, no longer one of the picturesque stone mills, but a state-of-the-art stainless steel centrifuge.
“The olives are washed then ground into a mash before they’re dumped into the centrifuge,” Sheila says. “Henrique continually adjusts the revolutions per second, which changes the oil. He’s always testing it.”Before the bottling, which is done within twelve hours of pressing, comes the blending. Azeite Esplendido is composed of first cold-pressed oil from four types of olives: Transmontona Verdeal, Cobrançosa, Cordovil, and Madural.Sheila says, “Henrique guards the percentage of each olive in the blend. It’s the secret to his recipe. Along with picking at the right time, carefully monitoring of the oil extraction, and cultivating the best trees.”
The Tras-os-Montes region, where the farm is located, is one of the six protected designation of origin (DOP) zones in Portugal. The microclimate and soil make it an ideal place for olive trees. On Henrique’s farm, the trees are widely spaced to allow each tree plenty of sun and wind and rain. Some of the trees are five to six hundred years old. These are called the mother trees. Around their base workers mound extra dirt. When new shoots come up they are transplanted, hence the name mother tree. The trees are not irrigated.Sheila says, “Henrique told me doesn’t want to babysit his trees. It’s survival of the fittest. If it can’t grow there, he doesn’t want it.”While Italy’s olive trees suffered through a terrible year in 2016 that halved production, Henrique’s groves fared well.“Olive oil is a live product. It changes over time,” Sheila says. “It’s dependent on fluctuations in the weather. The new harvest is so bright green. Henrique tasted the oil at bottling and said, ‘My olive oil is so good this year we’re gonna blow the dishes off the wall.’ It wasn’t a translation issue. That’s his expression. No one makes olive oil like he does.”Last April, at the New York International Olive Oil Competition, 827 olive oil entries from 26 countries were judged. Azeite Espledido took home the top honor, a gold medal.Macrina is proud to carry this fine olive oil. Buy a bottle and a loaf of your favorite crusty bread, puddle a bit of oil on a plate and dip. Will it blow the dishes off the wall? Probably not. But it just might blow you away.
Out of the Kitchen: Relaxing Stowell StyleEverybody knows running restaurants is not for the lazy or the faint of heart. Add kids and a serious commitment to philanthropy and you’ve got a recipe for a life few would call relaxing. Humble, as Angela and Ethan Stowell both are, they’d be the first to point out that they have the support of a great team in all they do. But even with a strong team, Ethan and Angela work long and hard and are pulled in many directions. Still, they remain deeply committed to spending quality time together with their two young children, Adrian and Franklin.Given their culinary prowess you might expect them to spend their free time teaching the kids how to foraging for chanterelles or morels in the forest, or out on the beach digging for Manila clams. Turns out they’re just like most parents with two young kids, racing home from brunch at their neighborhood dim sum restaurant before their two-year-old, Franklin, falls asleep.Ethan explains, “Because when you’re doing naps—you know what it’s like having kids—after lunch you’ve got to race home before he falls asleep. If you have a half-hour drive, you’re in trouble. The last thing you need is a twenty-minute power nap.”
Because Ethan frequently works in the evening, mornings become family time.“The nice thing about our schedule is we have family breakfasts every morning because we have the luxury of not leaving the house until nine,” Angela says. “Breakfast is our long time together, kind of the reverse of most families.”Ethan gets up with the kids and starts breakfast. When he can he gets them involved, often making pancakes, eggs, or oatmeal.Angela adds, “Well, we try not to do pancakes more than two mornings in a row.”Presently, in fact, Ethan is skipping the pancakes nearly altogether. About a year ago, he lost over 50 pounds through a mixture of diet and exercise and has kept the weight off. He is very careful about what he eats for breakfast and lunch, then lets loose at dinner. And he is religious about getting in an hour of exercise each day. Angela has always been a fitness and health advocate.“Before having kids I did lots of triathlons and a half ironman,” Angela says. “I’ve been a runner for a long time. For me, it’s a stress relief. This may not be the most romantic thing in the world at 9 p.m., but if we’re both home, when we get the kids to bed, we’ll both go exercise. Sometimes it’s the only time we have, especially if it’s a Sunday and we’ve been busy with them all day. We both get our hour workout in.
One key block of time for Angela to sneak in a long run is Saturday mornings when Ethan and a group of dads take the kids out without the moms.“Saturday I just work a half day, so it’s dad and kid time,” Ethan says. “I have a friends’ group of five to six guys. A text thread goes out. Not everyone can make it every time. We meet somewhere at ten, go to the zoo, or the Science Center, or Golden Gardens. Then we get lunch and rush home for nap time.”In the summer, weekends are often spent on Whidbey Island where Ethan’s parents have a vacation home. The island is Angela's favorite place to be.“Our weekends there are kind of always the same,” Angela says. “In the summertime we go to the farmers market in the morning, we go to Primo Bistro, we always go to Moonraker Books to check out what’s happening there and visit the owner Josh, then we visit a couple of farms with stands, maybe grab a loaf of Screaming Banshee bread. The cool thing about Whidbey is that there are a lot of people who knew Ethan when he was five years old. Those people are now super invested in our family.”In Seattle, when the Stowell’s have the occasional night together they frequently go out to eat.“We are definitely a family that doesn't shy from taking them out to restaurants,” Ethan says. “I’m a big believer in bringing kids to our restaurants. You want kids getting used to eating good food, getting used to being out socially.”In fact, this January they will be starting a family dinner night at Rione.“I’m super excited about it,” Angela says. “From five to seven anybody who makes a reservation will be told that there will be kids around. It’s an opportunity for families to come out with their kids. Don’t feel bad if things get spilled. It’s gonna be hard to keep the kids in their seats.”“There’s gonna be spaghetti on the windows,” Ethan says with a smile.Angela adds, “We’ll be there. And at some point our kids will have iPads out. I think it’s good for parents to see that it is okay to do what you have to do to get through dinner at a restaurant. Because it’s not always going to be like this, and sometimes you just need a moment's peace to finish your wine.”
While they may be a more high-profile couple than most in Seattle, they both stress that their private lives are much like any other family.“My life isn’t much different than any working mom,” Angela says. “You wake up and someone needs you right away—this morning it was who gets to sit next to mom—then you go to work and someone needs you. Then you get home and they need you again. Then maybe I squeeze in a little workout. Not anything different than any other working mom. We’re just really appreciative of the window of time we get together.”Visit
Sergio started working as a driver at Macrina in 2002, delivering breads and pastries to wholesale accounts. Later, he became a packer, arriving early to bag all the fresh bread and pastries for delivery, was promoted to lead and later to an assistant manager. Having also spent some time as a pastry chef at a previous job, Sergio’s knowledge is broad. “I know all the elements of the business, from mixing dough and baking it, to handing it to the customer.” As the Delivery General Manager, Sergio oversees 23 drivers, seven packers, and an assistant manager. With new accounts being added every day, that number will grow.His work day usually starts early in the morning. Not the sort of manager to sit idly in the office, Sergio can often be found shoulder to shoulder with the other packers, readying the day’s deliveries. Later, when all the deliveries have been made, he tackles his management duties, contacts new customers, works with other departments within Macrina to resolve pressing issues, hires new personnel, and continually looks for ways to improve his team’s ability to excel. He loves to work with so many people from different cultures and backgrounds. “I learn something new every day.”Sergio lives in South Seattle with his wife and three children, ages 13, 11, and 6. By working early in the morning and getting home before the kids are out of school he gets to spend lots of time with them. “They’re growing up fast and family is the most important thing to me,” he says. Both he and his wife have strong backgrounds in food, so they share the cooking duties. His favorite cuisine to prepare is Italian—especially pizza and various pastas.His family moved from Nayarit, Mexico to White Center in 1998 when he was 15. His two older brothers and an older sister helped him adjust to life in a new country. All of his siblings remain in the area.When asked what his favorite thing about Macrina is Sergio paused, thought a moment, then said, “There are many. The Challah bread, the Brioche with Nutella, and the Plain Baguette, certainly. But also the professionalism of the people I work with.”
On my Vashon Island farm, I have plenty of space for my gardens and chickens. But the current trend in urban farming blurs the old line between city and country. Farming used to be something that took place outside of town. Nowadays, many Seattle homes have parking strip planter boxes overflowing with beans, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, corn, and much more. Composting boxes overflow. Chickens cluck proudly in backyards, supermarket eggs are no match to their prize offerings. So it’s no surprise that urban bees should follow. That urban produce needs to be cross-pollinated somehow.Corky Luster started 
(Photo: Seattle Tilth)Corky's love for beekeeping began in college when a German roommate started a couple of hives in their backyard. While working as a designer and contractor building homes in Seattle, he started raising bees in Ballard. City ordinance only allows up to four hives on lots less than 10,000 feet. So Corky began recruiting others to host hives. He manages them; the homeowner gets a dividend of honey and the knowledge that they’re helping our local ecosystem. The hive takes up little space, but its impact is large. Corky combats disease-and-mites by using integrated pest management principles and avoids harsh pesticides, such as acaricides, in his efforts to keep the hives healthy and happy. The city, surprisingly, turns out to be a great place to produce honey since urban trees and gardens tend to be free of industrial agricultural pesticides. With a surplus of fantastic honey, Corky bottled it and began to sell it through a few local stores in 2010.Renee Erickson, chef of Ballard's 
A headline in the recent issue of the Edmonds Beacon declares “Edmonds is no longer ‘Deadmonds." With a growing population and an invigorated downtown, Edmonds is on the rise. Pam Stuller, the founder and owner of local favorite Walnut Street Coffee, is just the kind of entrepreneur that has helped make downtown Edmonds the vibrant place it is today.When she found the space for her cafe in 2006, Walnut Street was pretty quiet. She and her husband, who live in nearby Richmond Beach, were riding their bikes around town and encountered a funky cinderblock building that had originally been built as a boat engine repair shop. Its defining feature was a roll-up garage door. A dream location; downtown, but enough off the beaten track to be the place locals would seek out away from the ferry and tourist crowd. One problem: a flower shop occupied the space. So she sent the letter to the landlord and six months later he called.“People thought I was a crazy to take the space,” Pam said.
Out of college Pam didn’t imagine herself running a busy coffee shop. For ten years she worked in human resources. In 2002, a friend, Michael Prins was opening the first Herkimer Coffee on Phinney Ridge. She was working for Nature Conservancy, an organization she loved. But she was restless.“If you can’t love your job and you're working at an amazing organization what do you do? I felt like I’d already done everything I could to love what I do and it wasn’t working.”So she left her job to help Michael get Herkimer Coffee up and running, focusing on the things she had experience doing, such as hiring a staff. A year and a half later she found herself still working there as a barista.“It was the most fun, most rewarding, most enriching work experience I’d ever had. I loved it. I’d always loved cafes and cafe culture but I’d always been intimidated by the art of coffee. That was where I got to learn the craft and the trade. I knew then this was what I wanted to do. In coffee, you get to know people in such a different way. Most people are pretty routine about their coffee. You have this two-minute touch. Over time you pick up all the little intimate details—a kid is sick, news of a vacation, job changes—and you build a meaningful personal relationship. It’s pretty amazing.”That led her to Edmonds and Walnut Street Coffee. She and her husband did most of the buildout themselves.“My goal was to do one thing and to do it really well and to keep focused on what brings me joy. I figured that if I was happy to come here every day, the customers would follow.”They did, but it took a lot of work. For the first two years, Pam worked seven days a week.“The business almost ate me alive. Around year three I began adding enough staff that I could have a couple of days off a week.”Keeping things simple has been key to her success.“My passion and my love is espresso. But I don’t have experience making pastries. I’ve worked in restaurants and I know how much goes into food service. I wanted to keep things as simple and focused as possible.”Initially, bakery options were few, but as Edmonds has grown so have options.
“I’m so thrilled to have Macrina. Edmonds is enough off the beaten track that deliveryoptions are few. You’re not on your way to anywhere when you come to Edmonds. When Macrina started delivering here, I was thrilled. The caliber and consistency of the baked goods are first-rate. Our customers love them.”Approaching her ten-year anniversary, Pam is lucky to have two baristas who have been with her for over eight years. That’s exceptional in a high-turnover industry where the average barista stays at a job for one year. With her background in human resources maybe it should come as no surprise.“I have a pretty amazing benefits package, especially for this kind of business. I have a retirement plan, profit sharing, health care, paid time off, holiday pay.”She attributes much of the success of her business to her employees.“I never underestimate the value of my people. They’re instrumental in maintaining and in continuing to build our business. Our business has grown every year since we opened, which includes the downturn.”Occasionally she thinks about expanding, but worries she’d wind up doing more of the stuff she doesn’t love doing, like bookkeeping and back of the house work.“I love the connection I have with my staff and my customers, and I worry that would get diluted. I live simply, and I’m happy the way things are. I hike, bike, cross-country ski, garden, walk my dog, I’m an avid reader, and I love to spend time with my family, friends, and my parents. I don’t want to lose any of that.”Her love of the city recently led her to get involved in a business group called the Edmonds Downtown Alliance. She served a stint as president last year.“That was rewarding, developing deeper relationships with the other merchants and finding ways to take what is so great about this town and amplify that so everybody does better.”
If you don’t already spend time in the seaside town of Edmonds, it’s time to make a trip. There are a couple of breweries, a distillery, a movie theater, lots of shopping, a bookstore, tasty restaurants. Most shops are small and owner-operated.“You wouldn’t have to leave Edmonds if you didn’t want to. We kind of have it all in this little pocket, and it’s so scenic. It’s very Mayberryish in a way, but it also has an authenticity to it that I really enjoy.”Start with a caffe latte and a treat from Walnut Street Coffee and take a stroll down 5th Avenue towards Main Street and you’ll discover that “Deadmonds” no longer exists.
I didn’t intend to get into the business of wedding cakes, exactly. I wasn't particularly averse to it - it’s just that when you’re busy with the daily routine of bread and pastries, throwing a wedding cake into the mix sounds complicated. And wedding cakes can be pretty show-offy, lots of frills and sugar flowers, with a greater focus on glamour than taste, and as subject to the vagaries of fashion as bride’s dresses are. I worried it was too far from my focus to keep up. But when my sister Allison and brother-in-law Marty asked me to do their wedding cake, I jumped on the opportunity.
Their wedding was January 22, 1994, just six months after I’d opened Macrina. They needed a cake to serve to 250 guests. Amidst the chaos of running a new bakery, I set to work making a large cake with four tiers. The bottom cake was 16” in diameter. I vaguely remember each layer being a different type of cake. The wedding was in Portland. I loaded the layers flat into the back of our delivery van. Fortunately, the weather was winter cold. Heat is not good for the cakes and the icing. I worried that the cakes would get damaged, but everything survived the journey. I assembled the cake there, decorating it with a white-chocolate, cream-cheese buttercream, edible gold flakes, and fresh flowers. I was so proud of the way it turned out.
Since then Macrina has done hundreds of wedding cakes. The style is much the same as the one I did for my sister—simple, fresh and elegant. Once I’d done a few, word of mouth brought in newly engaged couples. For years, I coordinated and delivered the wedding cakes. I made many a cake delivery with my daughter Olivia. Her baby backpack had a frame that allowed it to stand and she would sit patiently while I stacked, finished, and decorated the cakes. In 2002, our pastry department took over the wedding cakes. Significant improvements were made to the wedding cake department. Our decorating got more creative while remaining simple, fresh and elegant. About ten years ago we added wedding cakes to our website. This has been a great discussion opener for interested couples.
Today, Anna Moomaw-Parks is our wedding cake coordinator. She gathers details, manages the schedule and delivery and is the point of contact for couples and wedding planners, all to make sure our customers get the best possible service. Anna says, “Wedding cakes aren’t the primary focus of Macrina. They are a special thing we do, and we work hard to make them special. We don’t have a team of people producing them. One of our pastry chefs, Mariah Eubanks, makes and decorates the cakes. We’re careful not to take more orders than we can handle. It is an important day for the customers. We want to be sure we do all we can to make it wonderful." About a year ago we had the pleasure of making a cake for Anna’s wedding.
I love the way our tradition has evolved while holding to its roots. Mi Kim, our head pastry chef, baked and decorated all the wedding cakes for several years. A couple of years ago she trained Mariah, seamlessly passing the tradition to another talented pastry chef. Now Mariah is designing a Macrina wedding cake for her own nuptials this coming October. She's leaning towards the almond torta cake with the same white chocolate cream cheese buttercream I made for my sister’s cake. Of course, she won’t be making her cake. Superstition says the bride who bakes her own cake is asking for trouble.
We are currently in the midst of wedding planning season. Quite a few engagements happen over the holidays, with weddings planned for the summer. Mariah has been busy meeting with couples to design their cakes.Looking through pictures of the cakes we’ve done over the last 20 plus years makes me so proud of our tradition of fresh baked, delicious and beautifully decorated wedding cakes. And I am very pleased that and so many couples wanted to include us in their special day.LeslieFor more information on our
