yearofplenty

Rocket Bakery Expanding and Thriving in Tough Economic Times

I recently sat down with Jeff Postlewait, who started the Rocket Bakery in Millwood in 1992 with his wife Julia, and since then have opened 6 additional locations including the Rocket Market on the South Hill. A little over a year ago they diversified by opening Bottles right next to the original Bakery location where they offer killer deals on a great selection of wine and beer and also have regular tastings in the evenings. They also have a large wholesale operation for baked goods.

Jeff explained that they just purchased a new facility in the Valley on Trent near Sullivan to expand and move their baking operation and administrative offices. This will allow them to open up more seating at the Millwood site and even more at the Bottles location.

It's no secret that the Rocket is a great Spokane success story. They are the perennial choice for "Best Bakery" and "Best Locally Owned Coffee House" in local publications. There aren't too many home grown Spokane brands, but "the Rocket" stands up there as one of the most recognizable and well regarded. But what intrigues me most about the Rocket is that in this down economy when coffee shops are dropping like flies around town the Rocket is expanding.

Based on my experience with Jeff and Julia their key to success seems to be a focus on nurturing relationships. I don't think Jeff does much with computers but he's one of the best social networkers I know, the face to face kind of networker that Twitter will never rival. This shows in customer loyalty and their staff. And they also obviously have a good handle on the business side of things.

I reported earlier in the week on the 4x greater economic benefit of locally owned stores as compared with nationally owned chains. It would be a great case study to compare the economic impact of the Rocket compared to Starbucks in Spokane. I'm guessing in their case it may even be more than 4x. Jeff said that they've always taken the approach of putting money back into the business instead of cashing in assets, which means they're putting the capital proceeds from the business back into the community.

Go here for the ever expanding list of locally owned stores to purchase from this Christmas season and let me know if you know a good one to add.

Spokane County Fair Deadline is August 5

Last year the girls and I entered a bunch of stuff in the fair including our 80 pound giant pumpkin. We're hoping for something over 100 pounds this year. We also entered some sunflowers, and other items from the garden. It was a great shared experience for me, Noel and Lily and they even got $25 out of the deal.

The Deadline for getting in your entry form in is August 5 and you turn them in at the Fair office right by the main entrance to the fairgrounds. Just enter everything that you think you might conceivably have to offer in early September and you can sort it out when you arrive with your items. The entry form is here.

Here are some of the categories: Food Preservation, Floral, Baking/Cooking, Wine, Beer, Fruits/Vegetables (including the Giant Pumpkin contest.)

Go here for the full list. Good luck

Real Bread

With wheat fields as far as the eye can see and grain silos standing like towers of Babel all over Spokane, it's no surprise that there is a lot of locally made bread in the Inland Northwest. There are huge operations like Franz in Spokane Valley and medium sized bakeries like Hearthbread Bakehouse north of the Gonzaga campus. But until I got involved in the Millwood Farmers' Market last summer I had forgotten about the joys of "real" bread. I'm talking about bread with crust that bites back at you and with texture and body that speaks of hands that have worked the dough.

We've started making a couple loaves of whole wheat honey bread each week and I would put it in the "real" bread category. On a side note, we bought a flour grinder on ebay to grind our own flour. We plan on getting our whole grains at URM Cash & Carry. Spokane Bakery Supply also sells them but you have to order it in bulk. Maybe someone knows more about locally sourced whole grains. I've been surprised how many people in Spokane grind their own flour.

While it's great to make our own bread, there is something really satisfying about buying a freshly made loaf a "real" bread. Tom and Louise Tuffin of Arabesque Farms & Bakery are the deans of Spokane's artisan breadmakers. They add a little extra "realness" to every loaf. 

"Flour is Flour."

We stopped by the old Centennial Mills ADM flour mill today on Trent Rd. It's one of many old mills in the Valley that we pass by everyday without giving a second glance. We did a little investigating and were able to get the scoop on Indland Northwest flour. It turns out almost all the flour in the Spokane area is processed at this one mill. It has storage capacity for 4 million bushels of wheat. Its largest customer is Snyder's bakery in Spokane Valley. They package the flour for retail use as Western Family, Fred Meyer, Albertsons, Stone Buhr, and on and on.

Birthday Cake from Scratch

Here's Nancy's first stab at a cake from scratch. No more box cakes. The Krusteaz factory is over the mountains in Kent, and we thought about that as a possibility for baking mixes, but it's not Eastern Washington so it's out of the running. She got the recipe here from Family Fun magazine. Ingredients: Flour from Missoula, eggs from Reardan, skittles left over from halloween.