Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Plaisance.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Hi, I’m Sarah, and I’m the baker behind Three Bowls Bakery. I’ve been baking since I was little, and more importantly, I’ve had a love affair with all things “sweet” for my entire life. Cookies and cupcakes aren’t just desserts for me, they’re comfort. Baking is my passion, my therapy and my creative outlet. It’s a way for me to show people that I love them. Who doesn’t feel loved when you feed them?! Our bakery is named for our three boys; Aaron (6), Ezra(4) and Judah(1).
They’ve been helping me in the kitchen since they were each old enough to stand on a chair pulled up to the counter! My husband, Ace, was the driving force behind starting our little home bakery in 2016. He has always believed in me and my baking talents, and I owe everything to him for helping me step outside my comfort zone and pursue something that I LOVE. He is my partner in all of this and we truly are a husband/wife team in our business. My family and my affinity for crafting REALLY delicious cookies and cupcakes are at the center of every single thing that I do.
In addition to our love for serving up amazing baked goods, we also strongly believe in serving our community and make it a top priority to give back. It all started three years ago when our family decided that we wanted to make a difference in our community. We wanted to sell a few dozen cookies to buy blankets for homeless people. My husband took two dozen cookies with him to work as samples, and that day he came home with orders for 30 dozen cookies! At that point, we realized that God had bigger plans than we did. That first year we sold 140 dozen cookies in three weeks and we were able to buy 120 blankets and a plethora of smaller items for a local homeless shelter.
Since then we’ve done two more fundraisers. This year we raised $3300 and were able to provide 168 coats for three different charity organizations across Houston! As a previous stay-at-home mom, I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, but stepping into this role has completely changed my life. I’ve discovered my passion and my purpose and I’m having more fun running our little bakery that I’ve ever had in my life!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has certainly not been a smooth road! The biggest struggle that we’ve encountered so far was actually an internal struggle. This past summer I went through a season of depression when I almost decided to completely quit the bakery. I had been struggling for months to get Three Bowls off the ground, and it seemed like nothing was working.
I even ran a giveaway that only two people entered. I started to tell myself that it wasn’t worth my time anymore, that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, clever enough… etc. to run a business. I felt like an impostor who was pretending at being a REAL entrepreneur. After an almost four-month break, Hurricane Harvey spurred me back into action. Like most people, I was desperate to find a way to help, and I decided to get back in the kitchen to make muffins for my family to take to local fire stations.
It felt SO good to be putting smiles on people’s faces again with my baking. Soon after I jumped back in with both feet, we ran our most recent fundraiser and we’ve seen incredible growth and success since then. Running a business has been FULL of ups and downs, but God has used every struggle to teach us important lessons that have helped us grow into the next opportunity.
Please tell us about Three Bowls Bakery.
Three Bowls Bakery specializes in gourmet cookies and cupcakes. We offer a wide variety of popular flavors and have had MANY people tell us that we make the best cookies they’ve ever had. Our chewy chocolate chip cookies are what started it all, and I have been perfecting that recipe for over 10 years. I feel like our heart of generosity and desire to help the community is what sets us apart from other bakeries and local businesses.
We have built our bakery on our desire to help others, and we base everything we do around that. As a company, I am most proud of all the people that we’ve been able to help over the years. Knowing that there are fellow Houstonians out there keeping warm in the winter wearing coats that our cookies bought fills me with pride! Also, the fact that we have over 50 five-star reviews on our facebook page!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over, I think the only thing that I would have done differently is learned to say “no” to things that don’t fit well with what I do earlier on. I’ve wasted a lot of time and money over the past year and a half trying to please everyone who comes my way.
I’ve recently discovered that there are enough people out there who love what we do, and we don’t need to branch out into so many different things in order to be successful.
Pricing:
- Gourmet Cookies $15-$21/dozen
- Gourmet Cupcakes $34-$40/dozen
Contact Info:
- Website: www.threebowlsbakery.com
- Phone: 8326080032
- Email: info@threebowlsbakery.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/threebowlsbakery
- Facebook: facebook.com/threebowlsbakery
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