An artisan bread maker has opened a new bakery in Newcastle after the Coronavirus crisis led to a switch in business strategy.
Shynara Bakisheva had been supplying her ciabatta, sour dough loaves and other artisan breads from a bakery in Wallsend, North Tyneside, to a long list of customers including House of Tides and French Quarter when she struck a deal to open a shop in Fenham, Newcastle.
However, when the Coronavirus pandemic arrived almost all her wholesale customers closed – and with no date fixed for their reopening Shynara has pivoted the business to become a purely retail operation.
The FAB Bakery operation – FAB standing for Fresh Artisan Bread – is now based in Fenham, Newcastle, after she took over an empty shop, and the move has created a sense of excitement in the community, with regular queues forming to snap up bestselling sour doughs, baguettes and cinnamon buns.
Over the last few weeks, the FAB menu of goodies has just been available at Saturday pop-ups having been pre-ordered during the week before, but last Thursday, saw the first full day of operation for the shop. Customers were already waiting outside, an hour before its official opening time.
Shynara said she has been blown away by the response to the bakery’s arrival in Fenham.
She said: “I’ve transitioned from wholesale to retail because this pandemic has forced the situation really. Most of my wholesale customers had had to close.
“We were actually trying to get a retail unit and we did, we found the Fenham shop just before all of this happened.
Most Read
“The idea was to carry on with that wholesale operation and have this operation but everything changed and we had to change with it. We’ve adapted and moved everything to Fenham.
“The response we’ve had has been quite humbling really. The opening has been supported by everyone and it feels like we’ve been a bit of a talking point in the community.
“So many people have come in to our pop up on a Saturday asking ‘are you staying? Please stay!’.
The loaves stacked neatly onto the shelves represent a very long shift at work for Shynara, her sister Leila and architect husband Russ, who has joined the operation while he is on furlough leave.
Shynara starts work in the bakery at 11pm the night before, before being joined a few hours later by Russ and Leila, the trio then baking right through the night and are still there the next morning to greet customers, staying until the last loaf is sold.
FAB Bakery is a world away from her former career.
Born and raised in the coal mining city of Karaganda in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, she worked as a Russian-English interpreter for the Chevron oil and gas corporation before meeting her husband.
Don’t miss
When she moved here 15 years ago she was shocked how reliant we are on convenience meals, and how far removed the modern loaves we buy in supermarkets are from the traditional loaves she baked at home.
Following a diploma in artisan baking with the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire she worked for Newcastle’s Fenwick and at the Vallum food hub in the Tyne Valley, before setting up her own venture in 2017.
She said: “I used to have nail manicures, heels, hair – but I don’t miss it it. I think the reason I chose this job is for the instant gratification. When you bake a loaf for someone and they tell me they love it, that really matters to me.”
The impact of the Covid-19 crisis and continuing social distancing measures means FAB Bakery’s opening times are yet to be firmed up.
She said: “The opening times are a bit up in the air, but we’ll be open here Wednesday to Saturday. And now have a new front of house member of staff and barista, William, so can start selling proper coffees and teas too, and perhaps local produce like honey further down the line.
“For now, we are a small team – and we’re doing quite a lot! We want to see when customers want us to be open. Everybody has busy lives, so we are trying to keep the golden ratio – opening for customers and not killing ourselves in the process.”