Success Story

At Sunflour Baking Growth & Success Comes From Putting People First & Systems, Systems, Systems

At Sunflour Baking Company, a family-owned bakery and cafe dedicated to daily scratch baking in small batches, owner Jack Parrish knows that systems and training are essential "so the owner can step away. Work on, not in the business makes all the difference."

Parrish's instincts have paid off handsomely.

At Sunflour, food is prepared on site without artificial flavorings, preservatives, dough conditioners, bleached or bromated flour. The establishment only uses ingredients "with names you can pronounce" on a menu that is adapted seasonally to support local produce vendors. As the company makes clear, "Sunflour embraces transparency... where you can step right up to the glass and see how we create your food."

"Like the old real estate adage, running a restaurant boils down to three rules: systems, systems, systems," Parrish explains. "When we opened our second location in January of 2016, the best decision I made as an owner was pulling completely out of day-to-day operations. Although things were running pretty smoothly at the original site, it became clear that the only way to manage growth was to focus on designing and implementing systems."

Parrish explains that conceptually, he views his operation as two distinct businesses - a manufacturing facility and a restaurant. "Although we pride ourselves on baking from scratch and in small batches, we still put out a high volume of product. It is complicated running five or six stations simultaneously in a busy bakery, let alone serving cafe food all day in a hectic front-of-house operation."

Parrish and his team took over Sunflour as a going concern in 2014, he recalls, "and many of the early days were spent perusing RestaurantOwner.com, as well as a number of other resources, searching for best practices."

The emphasis on systems has been successful, and has allowed his team to refine what they do "as opposed to just trying to keep up with it. Of course, all of this is predicated on having great employees who are happy and enthusiastic about performing every day. We follow Danny Meyer's (the famed restaurateur behind restaurants like Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe and Shake Shack) philosophy of putting employees first when it comes to the stakeholders in the business." Empowering staff to make decisions and take action "is liberating for everyone, and results in smoother operations."

As a result of this strategy, sales more than doubled in 2016, and employee satisfaction has improved greatly, as well. Having clear guidelines and expectations about how to run operations "lowers the stress level for everyone involved in the business," Parrish has found. "Happy employees make for happy customers, which in turn keeps everyone coming back for more."

With the opening of his second location, complications from running two interdependent manufacturing sites required Parrish and his team to systematize all aspects of the business. "You can't focus on anything if you are distracted wondering how things will get done without you. Create the systems and let go. You can always come back later to refine and improve on them."

Sunflour's third location will debut later in 2017, and management is looking forward to continued growth.

According to Parrish, RestaurantOwner.com has proven "a treasure chest of good ideas and condensed advice. It is a great starting point to answer most questions that come up in the restaurant business. I also like the focus on practical advice and concrete examples of solutions to the most common issues and problems."