S2 • E6 May 5, 2022 41m
Father and daughter Mike and Danika grew up in the family business, Mike's Old Fashioned Bakery, Coffee Shop and Pizzeria, located in the small, tight-knit community of Nashwaaksis in Fredericton, NB. The business opened in 1992 by Mike's mother, he who inherited it from her ten years ago. Close to retirement himself, Mike was initially surprised that Danika wanted to take over the business from him when that time comes, she having quit her full-time, pensionable job to work in the bakery in that goal. While it was once a thriving business, it has lost steam where they are barely breaking even. Mike has yet to relinquish any control, he admitting that he is true to the business name in being old fashioned in many aspects, including still using many of his mother's original recipes, including for their best selling molasses cookies, running the business the way she ran it, and doing things without even knowing their profit margins on an item-by-item basis in focusing on the final products in and of themselves. Danika wants to update everything about the business and Mike wants her to succeed when she takes over, they just not seeing eye-to-eye in the way things should be done. Mike is somewhat caught in a catch-22 in that he wants to pass to her a success but doesn't see what she wants to do as leading to that success while what they are currently doing isn't working. Steve sees that Mike knows how to bake but has to make him buy into his way of doing things both in knowing what is profitable while keeping to the philosophy of the business, and knowing how to make their product more smartly. While Steve has problem with all their product looking literally and proverbially "beige", Tiffany too sees the same problem with the space, her goal to make it look more like a cafe bakery that doesn't actually serve pizza (the business sign which Mike just hasn't seen worthwhile to change) instead of a grocery store that looks like it brings in all its baked products as opposed to having it baked fresh on site.
