By year three we realized that labor-intensive wood oven baked bread alone couldn’t provide enough revenue to survive on, so Kay’s pastry skills were pulled back into play. Cookies and scones were some of the first supplemental offerings and, of course, required another oven. Bless John and Nancy Edney (Tropical Dreams owners) for ALWAYS finding a little more space for us to work in their factory!

Our bakery sprawl continued as the years passed; turnovers, strudels, baguettes, lavosh, bars and tarts were added to our repertoire. Our tent footprint expanded from one and a backup to four! Tables and tables of baked goods shuttled to the farmer’s market, load after load as we strove to supply our community.

And then the proverbial “other shoe” dropped. The Edneys and Tropical Dreams, our landlord, faced a zoning crisis. John Edney had given many people a place to start their businesses. The Tropical Dreams property had become an entrepreneurial incubator and had finally crossed some zoning line in the sand. The county insisted that most of his tenants, us included, had to leave.

That could have been the end of our little endeavor. Our hearts skipped more than a few beats. Did this mean a return to the dreaded underbelly of the hotel bake shops?! NO! Serendipity stepped in again and an old family-owned bakery in town quite suddenly (and sadly) became available! In a frenzy of unpolished typing I threw together the first business plan that we’d had since beginning our adventure, and the landlords of the shop liked what they read.

And so, after many months of renovation, updating, painting, plumbing and furious practice runs, the door opened to Sandwich Isle Bread Company’s first bakery with walls.