Excerpts from Kilauea Bakery’s Blog:COME, STAY, GO.

32 reasons you may want to reconsider. A tongue in cheek guide for the would be restaurateur.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Everyone has a great novel inside of them and that’s probably just where it should stay.” As novels go so go Restaurants. They say that small business is the engine of our national economy. I say small business is the fuel. People put up their hard earned money all the time to open restaurants. They enrich equipment companies, consultants, service people, banks, commercial real estate owners and insurance companies. They eventually open and keep burning up money until nine in every ten of them go belly up. The economy burps, rarely says thank you and waits for the next small business meal.

Plumbing. A broken pipe is an emergency that can be mopped up but a slow leak can be catastrophic. It’s the drain lines that cause heartbreak and despair. They clog most often during a rush, or they slowly drip. Seemingly too small to fix but over time they cause unimaginable damage. Sink drains, refrigerator drains, toilets, grease traps, cesspools, septic tanks, one of these will get you eventually. One barely visible dripping pipe can cause the deconstruction of an entire business. READ MORE…

So you want the recipe for those Cookies? How do we make that Organic Turkey soup with wild rice and mushrooms so rich? We’ll get to those secrets soon enough but first we’ve got to interview you and get you trained.
You’re one of us now.

The interview

Aloha, how nice to meet you! We’re happy you want to enter into a relationship with us at the Kilauea Bakery. In your case we will be filling the kitchen slave position. Sorry, you’ve got to start at the bottom like everyone else. Let’s begin; Do you have a pulse? Do you have a phone number? A car? Do you live in your car? No? Excellent. Any experience in the kitchen? Yes? How much? We’re hoping for a little but not too much. That’s the kind of experience we need. If it’s actual professional commercial kitchen experience and you actually know something then we may have a problem. We can’t use you. Demographically that puts you into the slot of someone who will only put up with us for as long as it takes you to get a better paying and more prestigious job at a nearby resort hotel. You people don’t take us seriously. It’s as if we’re a small no account Pizza joint. Why is a Bakery or Pizza shop any less respectable than a “fine” dinner restaurant? Maybe it’s the white chef coat or the air conditioning. Air conditioning… wouldn’t that be refreshing. READ MORE…

A story of triumph over weirdness.

Roy Barstow, an auditor for the computer giant Hewlett Packard was laid off from his job in the budget reduction sweep of 2009 along with 30,000 of his coworkers. Roy’s job of twenty years had been to identify cost overruns in the human resources department. Roy was a thrifty man. He lived alone in a square cinderblock apartment building built in the 70’s in San Jose California. He was 5’4” but appeared taller because of his bony stature and platform loafers. Roy had a short self inflicted haircut he administered with a Flowbee™ haircutting system he’d found on the QVC shopping network. The hair behind his ears was shaved close so his glasses fit snuggly. He wore tan slacks and plaid office shirts, even on his days off. He had never traveled anywhere voluntarily. Roy spent 20 years saying yes to every job order, often flying to various countries where he audited HP factories and campuses. Without imagination he’d moved between hotel, office and airport in taxi’s and on buses.

He spent his first year of unemployment getting his apartment organized and continued to dress for work. Roy told me over coffee at the Kilauea Bakery that one morning something in him just snapped. READ MORE…