Nonprofit bakery Bridge Bread has sat on Cherokee Street for more than a decade, steadily providing “restorative employment” to the tenuously housed, often people experiencing homelessness or formerly incarcerated people. People who otherwise have difficulty finding a job can find steady work there, learn transferable skills as a baker, and get support in finding long-term housing.
The bakery has helped around 150 people since its inception, including helping more than 100 sign leases. But Fred Domke, who founded Bridge Bread with his wife, Sharon, in 2011, thinks more can be done. While bakers at Bridge Bread learn to bake staples, like loaves of bread and cinnamon rolls, he believes the nonprofit could better train its star employees in advanced baking skills and management.
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To meet that need, Bridge Bread is opening a new bakery in the Loop, in three adjacent storefronts at the northeast corner of Skinker and Delmar boulevards, that will train some of its highest-performing employees in kitchen management and artisanal skills. That new bakery—equipped with a new commercial kitchen—is set to open in January.
Unlike the Cherokee location, which stopped running a retail component around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Delmar Loop location is counting on heavy foot traffic for retail sales. The storefront at 616 Skinker will sell entirely fresh baked goods, made and sold the same day. Any leftovers will be frozen and go to Bridge Bread’s wholesale business.
“We will be really upset if we don’t get a ton of foot traffic,” Domke says.
Bridge Bread has brought on “experienced artisan baker” Teddy Key to lead that bakery, and bring a more seasoned food industry veteran into the organization. Key previously worked at the local Baileys Restaurants empire, and has been with Bridge Bread for around six months.
Key is eagerly awaiting the launch of the Loop bakery, which they hope will greatly expand the opportunities afforded to the people Bridge Bread employs, and tries to uplift.
“The idea is people will be able to start here and get stable,” Key said of Bridge Bread’s current facility on Cherokee Street, “and once they are stabilized and show promise, then they’ll be able to come to the Loop, and I can teach them how to maximize their skills.”
He describes some of the new items bakers could learn to bake in the Loop, going beyond the basic loaves, cookies, and other items offered by Bridge Bread’s flagship: a Japanese milk bread; corn, rye, and polenta loaves; and a cinnamon roll made with Chinese five spice instead of cinnamon.
The goal is to help the people that Bridge Bread employs to become “professional bakers,” and open up advanced employment opportunities as kitchen managers or shift supervisors. Bakers currently make around $14 an hour, slated to increase to $15 with the city’s minimum wage increase next year, but have an opportunity for wage growth of up to $4 per hour. The new opportunities in the Loop could allow for wage growth of up to $21 an hour.
The ambitious expansion comes at a time when nonprofits are facing uncertainty surrounding federal grants and financial hardships. Domke says he was challenged by a donor to do better.
“We were telling them all about how we’re helping them to be stable and get housed and all that. and he says, ‘So what do they do after Bridge Bread?’” he says. “We didn’t have an answer. It was just shocking, because, you know, I’ve been so focused for 14 years on getting people from having nothing to being housed and employed and stable.
“This is the sucker punch. Then he said, ‘So what would you do if I gave you a quarter- million dollars? I said, ‘Well, you know, we would like to provide some kind of a career path. … We could open up an artisan bakery, and if they had a couple years in at that, they could probably get a job, at a fine hotel or fine restaurant, as a pastry chef. He never came up with a quarter-million dollars, but we went forward anyway, and ended up raising the money mostly through our fundraising galas.”
In addition to employment, Bridge Bread also offers a housing incentive program, which covers the initial move-in costs for people to find their own home, and then partially covers some of the rent for subsequent months.
“When you’re asking them to save up money for an apartment, you might as well be asking them to save a million dollars,” says Mike Heeley, who oversees the operation of the bakery as managing director of Bridge Bread.
Bridge Bread also provides bakers with the opportunity for free dental work through a relationship with a dentist; Domke says he personally drives bakers to dental appointments. Services like that, and sometimes tapping ArchCityDefenders for legal help, came as Bridge Bread grew to offer its employees assistance beyond just housing.
Along with those external programs, and the new location, some changes are coming to the way Bridge Bread does business. Domke retired from leading the nonprofit in September, staying on as a board member to focus on helping bakers in a more case management-focused role. Heeley is more tightly focused on leading the bakery side as managing director.
One of those bakers is the easygoing Mickey Hart, who started working at Bridge Bread around four months ago, after a referral from a fellow resident of sober living facility Harris House. Speaking fondly about his job, Hart was in charge of making gooey butter cake this past Tuesday.
The 54-year-old grew up in the region, fondly remembering spending time on Cherokee Street when there was much less to do there and listing off a number of now-shuttered or relocated businesses. “I really like Cherokee Street; I consider myself kind of an artistic person, and this was just kind of an outlet for me.”
Before his return to St. Louis, Hart lived in Naples, Florida, but said he got “bored” of living so close to the beach, likening it to the Arch: “You don’t go to the Arch every day.” Returning after around 15 years for a “girl,” his fortunes changed after she suddenly passed away.
“She just died in her sleep,” he says. “She, you know, had a good job, home and stuff like that, and she died, and then I had to leave. So, basically, this time last year, I was homeless; I was sleeping on a front porch. I had never experienced that before my entire life.”
He says the Bridge Bread opportunity fell into his lap, and allowed him a chance to build his nest egg, learn a trade, and forge new friendships. He was also able to get some dental work done. He speaks fondly of the other bakers, calling the team, which he says currently consists of six bakers, “a group of brothers.”
“Moving back here to the Midwest, it was a little depressing,” he says. “A lot of things have changed, it’s a whole different animal. The places I used to hang out aren’t there anymore. All my friends who I had, they’re not here anymore. … But I’ve developed new friends here.”
Hart describes himself as content to stay in Harris House while he can, rather than taking advantage of Bridge Bread’s housing incentive program just yet. He says some of the people he works with are in greater need than he is. He sees the value of Bridge Bread as teaching people a trade and considers it one of the best parts of coming back to St. Louis, adding, “And then the Harris House has been a real blessing.”
With the new opportunities coming through the Loop bakery soon, Domke handling case management work, and the external services, Heeley sees a clear path for people to go from homelessness to earning a middle-class living.
“What we’ve added to our mission statement recently: a path towards economic mobility through all these channels,” he said. “[They will be] on their way to making what, in Missouri, would be considered middle class. That’s what we’re trying to get.
“Not everyone’s there, of course, but that’s the goal, is to put them on that path.”
