Sixteen years ago, Phyllis Enloe traded scalpels and scrubs for bowl scrapers and whites. After a nearly 20-year career in surgical nursing, Phyllis, who always harbored a passion for bread baking, abandoned the chilled environment of an operating room for the heat of a bakery. Yet, the move was less dramatic than one might believe, she says.

“Nursing and baking share a common thread, if you think about it. In each, you serve people, and you care for people,” says the founder and co-owner of Village Bakery Café, Amarillo, Texas. Residents regard it as the source in their city for top-quality artisan breads and viennoiserie, American pastries and French bistro-style breakfasts and lunches.

Phyllis attributes her commitment to baking to her mother, who, “when I was a child, allowed me to cook and bake to my heart’s content.” Yet, before Phyllis graduated from high school, she knew she would go into nursing.

In 1992, the surgeon for whom she worked took early retirement. Phyllis’ choices included returning to hospital nursing, working for another surgeon or pursuing her long-held desire to bake.

She and husband George, a commodity futures broker who works with cattle ranchers and feedlot operators, visited several artisan bakeries across the country. The couple turned the family kitchen into a small artisan bakery. George purchased a 30-qt. mixer and a tabletop sheeter and positioned them in the breakfast room. Heat lamps served as proofers. Their two daughters helped carry made-up loaves to be baked in neighbors’ ovens. In return, Phyllis gave finished product to neighbors, who became her taste testers.

In 1994, George located a 1,700- sq.-ft. storefront in a strip mall in an affluent Amarillo neighborhood. Armed with the equipment from their kitchen, a used rack oven and reach-in coolers, the couple opened for business that December with three employees, including Phyllis and George, who works part time after the futures markets close, managing the financials, including purchasing ingredients.

“I had no idea of how much work would be required,” George recalls. “After a couple of weeks, if someone had suggested that we abandon the business, I might have taken up the suggestion, but Phyllis was staying the course.”

George’s reservations disappeared after the first month, when the couple discovered the bakery had turned a modest profit.

Broad product mix needed

When Village Bakery Café opened, Phyllis focused bakery production on European-style pastries and artisan bread products. Artisan breads and rolls include French baguettes and boules; varieties of ciabatta and focaccia; multigrain country bread with herbs, nuts and cheese; fougasse; cornmeal; rye; whole wheat; challah; and seeded or red curry lavash. Viennoiserie items include plain, fruit and savory croissants; plain and filled brioche; Danish and puff pastries; tarts; and tortes.

All production employees are cross-trained. Here, Carol White trains Jason Anthony on how to run the sheeter to make croissants.

“But we needed products that would attract customers immediately,” Phyllis says. She added more Americanized items, such as biscuits, turnovers, cinnamon rolls and muffins, each featuring a signature touch. For example, she created a sweet yeast dough formula and cinnamon smear for cinnamon rolls, and bakers heat the cream cheesebased icing to a specific temperature so it glazes the rolls evenly.

To capture decorated cake sales, the bakery café introduced decorated dessert cakes and tortes for special occasions, mostly birthdays. Decorators use hand decorating and fresh flowers, finishing cakes in customary decorated cake sizes.

Retail bread and pastry sales, however, comprise just more than one-third of revenue. The store’s nearby affluent consumers provide potential for artisan bread and pastry sales, but the business would not have succeeded without attracting the broader customer base, George explains.

“Bread and pastries would be the draw because nothing like this bakery existed in Amarillo,” he says. “The real money would come from sandwiches and meals. Back then, we could sell good bread for $2 a loaf and a sandwich for $4.50. The math was obvious.”

Phyllis adds, “From the beginning, café sales have been a good thing, but now with the current economy, they are even more important to us and our customers. We offer high-quality food with good value.”

In addition to croissants, brioche, muffins, and Danish and puff pastries, the breakfast menu lists savory panini, croissants, burritos, turnovers and brioche, each filled with varied combinations of bacon, ham, sausage, egg, cheese, peppers and spinach. Saturday breakfast specials include pancakes, waffles and French toast.

Lunch offerings include freshly made deli and panini sandwiches on fresh-baked bread, soups, salads with scratch-made dressings, two types of quiche and a daily lunch special.

Each week, the bakery café posts on its website the $9.80 daily lunch specials (entrée, salad and bread) and soup varieties for the next two weeks. A recent special was broccoli cheese soup, beef tenderloin on focaccia and mixed greens salad featuring strawberries and glazed pecans with a strawberry vinaigrette.

Most bread production goes into preparing sandwiches and accompanying soups and salads. Customers receive slices of baguettes, ciabatta or focaccia– or another variety at their request–with every lunch special. The Enloes give away a lot of bread, in part to educate their clientele about artisan bread.

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