Bread has long been a symbol of fellowship and gathering. In fact, the word ‘companion’ comes from the Latin ‘com-‘ (with) and ‘panis’ (bread)—“with bread.” Every culture I can think of has a type of bread for which they are known and, at its core, bread is a nutritious staple, requires few ingredients, and can be made using a method that is as simple or as complex as you like. And, let’s face it, there are few things in this world as heavenly as the aroma of freshly baked bread.
Apex residents Paige and Tom Williams have long believed in building community through loaves of bread and this philosophy is what has made their bakery, Great Harvest Bread Co., so beloved for 13 years and counting. The year 2020 has tested them, like it has other restaurant owners, but recent months have proven that it is in giving away that many blessings are received.
Saturday Morning Cinnamon Bread
Paige and Tom were raising four young children—Katy, Claire, Keaton, and Cooper—just outside of Cleveland when Tom, a chemical engineer, was laid off from his job. Weary of the northeast Ohio winters, they started toying with the idea of moving. Paige, who worked for an airline, opened her route map on the dinner table.
“Where do we want to live?” Paige recalled saying that night. “We marked some spots and I put in transfers for North Carolina and Kentucky. A part-time job opened up here.”
The family moved to North Carolina in 2002 but one of the things they missed about Ohio was their local Great Harvest Bread Co. bakery. “We got their cinnamon bread every Saturday and ate the whole thing in one day. Here, the closest one was in Chapel Hill. Tom did not want to go back to engineering, and we had transferred on my part-time job, so we started looking at Great Harvest as a franchise.”
Aside from their enjoyment of the product, Paige and Tom felt drawn to the mission statement and values of the Great Harvest company: “Be loose and have fun. Bake phenomenal bread. Run fast to serve others. And give generously.”
Paige said, “The Great Harvest value system aligns with what Tom and I believe in. We had to meet with the top leadership in the corporation and the marketing director said, ‘What do you want out of this business? What is your goal?’ I remember answering, and it didn’t sound like a business owner to say this, ‘I want to demonstrate community outreach to my children. I want them to be givers and not takers.’ We believe that bread is a great way to bring about fellowship and we would be able to demonstrate community outreach and a giving heart through our business.”
In January of 2007, after four years and different locations in Cary and Apex falling through for various reasons, the Williams family opened the doors to their bakery.
“The Best Form of Advertising Is Bread in People’s Mouths”
It was a struggle in the beginning, and it took more than two years to turn a profit. Some of that, Paige explained, was due to Cary’s strict signage and beautification policies. Great Harvest’s location on Maynard Road wasn’t ideal because the landscaping was required to be at a higher grade level than the shopping center. With potential customers driving by but unable to see them, Paige knew she had to find creative ways to make their presence known to the public. Having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs, she was well-suited to take on the marketing aspects of the new business and be the face of the bakery while Tom managed the baking team.
Without a website and the social media channels business owners utilize today, Paige’s promotion tools were the local newspapers, her entrepreneurial spirit…and loaves of bread.
“We sponsored a lot of 5Ks and YMCA events. I went to the local schools and gave out bread and coupons. We’ve sponsored the Tobacco Road Marathon every year since its inception. It’s grassroots marketing and partnering with people in the community. The best form of advertising—and I still believe this—is bread in people’s mouths.”
As the Williams children were growing up, they attended Apex schools and all four became competitive swimmers, adding an element of difficulty to Paige and Tom’s already hectic schedule. Reflecting on one particular season when Cooper, their youngest, was just finishing elementary school and the older three swam at three different pools, Paige said, “As a business owner and a mom of four kids, I look back and I don’t know how we did it. I did it with amazing friends, and carpools! That’s why community is so important.”
Giving Back
Early on, when money was tight, there came a time when the YMCA’s competitive swim program was financially out of reach for the Williams family. For two years, partial scholarships enabled the kids to continue swimming, and as soon as the bakery was holding its own, Paige and Tom started giving back through a fundraising event they called “Baker of the Day.”
Every year for five years, they set aside a Sunday, when the bakery was closed, and their children’s swim teammates made, packaged, and sold the bread. All of the proceeds, more than $35,000, funded scholarships for families struggling to keep their kids in the swim program.
A more recent Baker of the Day event supported a former employee, Taylor Blanton, and his wife, Melissa, after the birth of their first child. Paige explained, “Luke was born with a catastrophic heart condition and Taylor and Melissa had to say goodbye to their son a few weeks after he was born. At Duke, there was no quiet place for families to hold their child, grieve their child, to say goodbye to their child. So, we had a Baker of the Day to fund a ‘quiet room’ at the Duke Children’s ICU. My team donated their time and helped Taylor and Melissa’s families run the store. There were lines out the door, and I think we raised close to $10,000 that day. Taylor and Melissa dedicated the room in Luke’s name and it’s a beautiful space.”
Over the years, Paige and Tom donated bread and other baked goods to a number of nonprofits that address food insecurity in our area, but with Dorcas Food Pantry they had a long-standing relationship. When the pandemic began keeping customers away, Paige wasn’t sure how their own business would be affected, let alone how they would manage to continue supplying bread to Dorcas.
“When faced with fight or flight, my mode is fight,” Paige said. “I saw the economic toll 9/11 took on my [airline] coworkers in that time and I knew there was going to be an economic impact from the pandemic. Whether my own bakery or the restaurant next door or the pizza place down the road, the economic impact was going to be real and swift.”
With the help of their children and employees, Paige adapted the online ordering template they used for the holidays. Online ordering usually doesn’t account for more than 5% of their business—most is in-store visits—but curbside pickup was about to be their lifeline for an undetermined amount of time. She and Tom added one crucial new menu option and narrowed down their other offerings to those items least affected by supply chain interruptions. Customers responded immediately.
“People who didn’t lose their jobs wanted to do something to help,” Paige said. “And as soon as I set up online ordering, around St. Patrick’s Day, it was a channel for providing food for those in need. I just gave them an easy way to do something.”
That something was a simple mouse-click enabling a customer to purchase a loaf of bread for Dorcas and be matched with a loaf from Great Harvest. Donations of loaves of bread poured in—30 to 50 a week. When Paige learned that the pantry wasn’t getting produce leftovers from grocery stores because there simply were none, she shifted from matching loaves to supplying weekly fresh fruits and vegetables.
Between mid-March and mid-June, Great Harvest customers purchased more than 1,400 loaves of bread for the food pantry, and the Williamses donated close to 1,000 pounds of produce.
Forward in Faith
With new protocols in place, Paige and Tom are doing everything they can to protect their employees and their customers. The bakery is open for in-person transactions and outdoor dining. Online ordering and a dedicated text line for contact-free curbside service continue working smoothly. Operating hours and opening and closing procedures are being refined for better efficiency, and a new electronic rewards system has replaced the stamped cards.
Modified practices aside, when it comes down to it, Paige credits her family and the Great Harvest employees and customers with being the true reasons for the bakery’s success, both in recent months and over the last 13 years.
“Tom and I are always pointed in perfect north,” she said, laughing, “even if we don’t always agree on how to get there. The kids grew up in the business. They have all kneaded bread from day one. Cooper was so little at the time, he had to stand on cans of applesauce to reach the kneading table. [In March,] the kids came home and helped man the store but emotionally, it was great to have them around. Katy helped get online ordering up—she’s a constant. Claire would remind me take a walk because I’m really bad at self-care. Keaton is forever the clown, making us laugh. And my baby, Cooper, is a hugger. He’s also my repair guy. He has crawled into the oven, fixed the freezer…he can fix, literally, everything.”
Talking about her steadfast team and loyal customers makes Paige emotional. “We’ve been blessed so much, and they are amazing, just amazing. The love from our customers kept me going. I’ve felt their support not only in their purchases but in their words, the sweet little notes on their orders. The personal connections we have with our employees, our customers, and our community—that’s what it’s all about. Success is being givers and not takers, and everything else falls into place.”
To donate to Dorcas Food Pantry, and order Great Harvest’s daily and specialty baked goods, visit greatharvestcary.com. Follow them on social media or drop in at 1240 NW Maynard Rd in Cary.
