For years I bought my supplies the hard way. Tuesday mornings, before opening, I drove a borrowed van to a cash-and-carry warehouse out near Maspeth. I loaded the van myself. I argued, every single time, with the parking ticket I never quite avoided. I came home tired before the day had even started.
Then a friend — a pastry chef who supplies a few hotels — said: “Domenica. Just call Popina.”
Why I had not called sooner
I am embarrassed to write this, but: I thought I was too small. I thought a wholesale supplier would laugh me off the phone. “Two cases of pastry boxes? Sweetie, we sell pallets.” That kind of thing.
I had been told, somewhere along the way, that real distributors only deal with chains. That a one-woman bakery in Jackson Heights was not a real account. I believed it.
I was wrong.
The first call
Alparslan picked up on the second ring. I did not know yet that he picks up on the second ring. I started apologizing immediately. He listened, asked me three or four questions about what I bake and how often I order, and then said something I did not expect:
“You can call us any time and order one box of anything. The truck comes to your block on Wednesday and Friday. Want me to set you up?”
I had to put the phone down for a second.
What changed in the bakery
Real talk: the difference is not just the time saved. It is what I started doing with that time.
The Tuesday cash-and-carry run took roughly four hours when you counted the loading and unloading. Four hours, weekly. That is a full work day every month. I now use that day for: laminating dough properly, training my counter staff, calling regulars about custom orders, and once in a great while, sleeping until six.
I also started ordering things I never used to bother with, because the order took five minutes on the phone. Better foil. Better gloves. Cake boards in the size I actually wanted instead of the size that fit in my van. Eight-ounce coffee cups in a kraft I genuinely like instead of the white ones I tolerated.
The boring, important part
Popina invoices me weekly. I pay by check or by ACH. The driver, Luis, knows where to leave the cases (back door, never out front, customers will ask questions). When something is short, somebody calls me before I even know it is short. When something I ordered is on backorder, they tell me right away and offer a substitute — not after my shelves are bare.
None of this is glamorous. It is the boring, important part of running a small business. The boring, important part is what lets the un-boring, important part — the bread — happen.
If you are still loading your own van on Tuesdays
Stop. Just call them. (347) 990-0309. Tell them Domenica from Panadería Guayaquil sent you. Then go take a nap, or laminate some dough, or call your mother. You have a day back in your week. I have lost mine to a thousand small things, and I do not regret a single one of them.