Kymberle Kaser officially opened the Bread Shed Market on Saturday morning with a well-known phrase more often associated with powdered wigs than powdered pastries.
“Today was my birthday, so I thought, what the hell. Let’s do it on my birthday,” Kaser said. “A grand opening on my birthday — let them eat cake.”
Kaser’s aristocratic connection stops there, however. True to her word, each person who visited the Bread Shed Market left with a generous slice of homemade birthday cake.
Her bakery, which has been serving fresh baked goods in the Fourth and Gill neighborhood of Knoxville since March, embodies the sense of community missing from most chain stores.
Kaser’s breads may bring in customers, but it’s her personality that keeps them coming back.
“I call them my friends, but they’re my customers,” Kaser said. “You come to get to know them. After three or four visits, they’re no longer a customer. They’re friends or family.”
Libby Alcala, a bakery assistant at the Bread Shed Market, said she also enjoys the small-town feel of the clientele.
“I’m from the West Knoxville, Cedar Bluff area, and it’s cool to see the same people come in all the time,” Alcala said. “You don’t really get that out (in West Knoxville). Every day I know people that come in.”
Alcala responded to a job advertisement Kaser posted on Facebook, and despite being the first interviewee, she got the job.
“She understands my dialect, which is a lot of charades,” Kaser said. “I might be the owner, but there is no way in hell I could do it without her.”
For Kaser, baking has always been her way of communicating her love for those around her.
“My parents were really frugal and stuff, so I didn’t have any money,” Kaser said. “I would just bake stuff for my relatives for gifts, just cookies and muffins.”
Her father, an avid fan of her banana nut bread, is the one who convinced her to open her own bakery.
Today, Kaser has moved beyond simply baked goods and expanded into a full lunch menu. A tall chalkboard against one wall is crammed full of her off-beat creations.
“We just made that shit up,” Kaser said with a laugh. “Half of those sandwiches we made up for our soft opening (in the spring). I was like ‘Throw all the meats together except prosciutto — there’s our Italian,’ and it ended up being a best seller.”
Kaser’s experimental approach appears to have paid off. The supplementary lunch menu has grown to rival the bakery selection.
“We would have a special and it would do so well that it just stays on the menu,” Kaser said. “It was never supposed to be that big, but it just keeps growing.”
At that moment, Alcala brought over a plate of caprese for Kaser and her close friend to share. They commented that it would be better on toasted bread and with a little more tomato.
“We just added the caprese salad today,” Kaser explained. “There’s no recipe.”
Only two months into her lease, Kaser remains in awe of the response she’s received.
“It has been an amazing adventure so far,” she said.
The bakery’s popularity exceeded her expectations, and Kaser has already moved to expand her staff.
“Right now I do the lunches, prepping the sandwiches and the spinach pie and stuff,” Alcala said. “We are actually prepping someone to do my job and then she is going to train me to bake in a couple of weeks.”
However, for Kaser the bakery’s emphasis will always be about the one-on-one experience rather than making it big.
“It’s been fun to watch people experience stuff they’ve never experienced, try flavors they’ve never tasted,” she said. “That’s been the most amazing part.”
Kaser not only has baked goods but also a full lunch menu.
