News
photo courtesy of Everett Herald, photographer: Jim Leo
Taken from The Herald, Around Everett section, June 26, 1985.
Photo by Jim Leo, written by Kristi O'Harran
Judy Bacon sleeps in until 5 a.m. on Sunday mornings.
After starting work between midnight and 3 a.m. Monday through Saturday, 5 a.m. is a big treat.
Bacon owns Karl's Bakery and Coffee Bar, Inc. on Wetmore in Everett.
Her pre-cock-a-doodle-doo hours mean evening bedtime falls somewhere between local and national television news - not the 11 o'clock news - the 6 o'clock news.
She can't gossip about Alex Carrington or Sue Ellen Ewing. She has never watched "Dynasty" or "Dallas." What she does watch is a booming business. She trains a satisfied eye on happy customers and growing accounts that fancy Karl's staff's careful cooking.
For Bacon, cake decorating evolved into supervising a staff, preparing foods from muffins to sweet rolls, catering, supplying commercial accounts and running a three-child household. "Coming to work, though, isn't work," Bacon says. "Anybody who owns a bakery does the same thing."
She chose this bakery because she liked the idea of an Everett location. "I grew up in Seattle. I worked in a bakery when I was 16. I figured I could do it, though I'm not really a good cook."
This self-described ho-hum baker has garnered commercial accounts from banks with standing orders for Friday goodies to Baskin-Robbins stores in several cities. Karl's makes the cake and frosting part of the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream cake confections.
Bacon takes pride in the bakery's cakes. "We go through 700 pounds of icing a week and 450 pounds of cake," she says. "Our icing is very good."
She credits the expensive shortening used and the fact that some of the ingredients are heated before mixing. "We don't throw it into a bucket and mix it like some do. We heat some of the ingredients and mix. It comes out smooth and nice. The cheaper shortening can come out soupy."
Nice muffins bring in many repeat customers to the coffee shop. "A specialty? I think we make a good bran muffin, from scratch. We go through 150 pounds a week. They're made with honey, rather than sugar. We have salt- and sugar-free breads. Our Danish is make from scratch too, and we sell a lot of it."
Bacon is tinkering with a health-food line. She realizes however, that old-fashioned sweets are her bread and butter. The post-Johnny Carson crew begins the wee hours preparing Danish. The bakers use doughnut mixing that need to sit for an hour before cutting. Butterhorns set cold all night and then go into a proofer - a walk-in closet-sized area that employs moisture to make the dough rise.
Meanwhile, the rye and French breads are prepared. "We work as hard and fast as we can until we're done. Mondays and Wednesdays are heavy days. On a normal day, if I'm lucky I get out of here at noon or 1 p.m. This is really not an 8-to-5 job."
On Sundays, Bacon does needed maintenance on her business. "That's just part of owning a place," she says. The work goes much smoother because of her staff. "I can't say enough about them. This store isn't a one-baker store. It takes three to make it a go. It's like a puzzle. We drink coffee and talk."
At 1 p.m., Judy turns around her white baker's hat to a homemaker's cap. She has a salad for lunch, grocery shops, fixes dinner, does laundry, "just normal stuff."
Bacon says she never bakes at home. "I'm an average, typical, homemaker-type baker. I learned as I went along. I've seen how things go in and what they come out looking like and that's a tremendous help."
Help also comes from her children. Her son enjoys waiting on customers at the front of the bakery. Her daughter enjoys coming into the shop on Sundays. "My girl takes the best interest. We don't have much time together. Here we can work and discuss problems together," Bacon says.
Her schedule keeps her from enjoying one pursuit, soccer. She has played on a ladies' team and said she does miss the camaraderie. "I enjoyed the gals. It was a lot of fun. I miss being around everybody. There's just no time. It's best I work, though. It suits me best."
A best dinner at her home might consist of ethnic food. "Other than hamburgers," she laughed, "I enjoy cooking Chinese food just to do something different." She occasionally brings her work home with her in the form of cookies and pastry. "I forget to bring things home a lot. They get upset when there's no bread," she says wryly. Bacon can't nibble all the bread products she produces daily. "I fight my weight constantly. It's funny. It's not that I like or don't' like sweets, it's just that they're easy to reach."
Reaching a repetitive point in her job does not affect this bakery. "It gets repetitious. You do some things automatically. But you don't do one thing at a time. There's three mixers going, two or three things on the bench, the proofer is full, you're scheduling."
She says there is nothing she is sick of making but admitted "I can't say pies or fruitcake because it's not the holidays."
Bacon closed the bakery for a few days last Christmas. She came in one day to do some work and heard the front door rattling. Some customers who found the shop locked were screaming, "Oh no, they're closed."
Bacon's business is baking on Wetmore.