Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Warner.
Hi Megan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started baking at home, like most of the bakers I know, and it turned into a career. I originally was going to school for chemistry, but dropped out and moved to San Francisco on a whim to enroll in pastry school. I have a very analytical way of thinking and so the processes behind different baked goods really interested me. Once I decide I like something I hyper focus and learn as much as I can about it, so I figured that jumping straight into it was the best course of action. After pastry school I worked in fine dining doing plated desserts in San Francisco, before moving back to Salt Lake City and working in bakeries and restaurants. I had never had the desire to open my own bakery before the pandemic. The amount of capital you need to start a brick and mortar right off the bat was an overwhelming thought to me. Then the pandemic happened and all of a sudden all of these non traditional businesses started popping up. I met my partner Tripp Mims (Mims Bakery) doing artisan sourdough out of his garage, and he encouraged me to take the jump into starting my own bakery. He kind of opened my eyes to the fact that you don’t have to do things the “traditional” way. You can operate in a way that makes sense for where you are in life. So with his support I left my restaurant job and started Tomodachi Bake Shoppe, and here we are almost 4 years later still making pastries and bread.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not always been easy. I started out with only one tiny oven and a wooden table, laminating all of my croissants by hand. I have had to pivot a lot, especially in the early days. I started out just making cakes to get my name out there and then I started making boxes of assorted specialty pastries. From there I started doing Pop Ups around town and then people started asking me to work with them. With more work means needing more equipment to be able to produce more things quickly, so I gathered what used equipment I could find, piece by piece, off of Facebook marketplace. I had about 5k dollars to my name when I started Tomodachi so I was really just putting every bit of money I earned back into the business.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in laminated pastry, which most people know of as croissants. Lamination is when you create layers of butter and dough on top of each other. These layers of butter create pockets of air in the oven from the butter melting, and the water evaporating helps leaven the dough. The end result is flakey airy delicious croissants. I have spent years perfecting my technique to create what I think is an exceptional product. Along with technique comes the creative aspect. I work with what is nostalgic and meaningful to me. I use mainly Japanese ingredients and flavors to create my favorite pastries.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My family would take a roadtrip from southern Utah to Tacoma Washington every year during the summer to visit my Japanese Grandma and Aunt. We would spend 2 weeks exploring tide pools, eating Japanese food and stuffing our car full of all of the Japanese snacks we couldn’t get back home.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @tomodachi_bakeshoppe
