Welcome

New Location as of April 1st (in a perfect world)

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We are both pleased and saddened to announce our relocation plans. We had hoped for an April 1st relocation date, but as we aren’t operating “in a perfect world”, we leave it officially as “to be announced” but no later than mid-May.  Hurricane Sandy brought much upheaval and financial hardship to so many of us, both in the business world and in the personal world. But Sandy also presented many people the opportunity to rethink ideas they may have contemplated for years, she created a paradigm shift in which ideas became opportunity.

 The part that saddens us is the ending of our business relationship with Greg O’Connell and the O’Connell organization. I moved my business to its current location on Pier 41 on March 2001. Two years earlier April of 1999, I moved from a studio apartment on Smith Street my first “legal” operation, a small bakery on Columbia Street. Both of those moves were critical to the success and longevity of my little hair-brained idea. Both of those moves were made possible by the generosity of Greg O’Connell Sr. It seemed an appropriate fit; Greg loves having interesting and quirky tenants, and we fit the bill. Things change though, and as Greg Sr. now crafts his exit from the day-to-day workings on Pier 41, so do we. The post-Sandy world has brought many changes to the little corner of Red Hook, and one of those changes will be our exit from the pier that is synonymous with Key Lime Pie. There are many compelling business reasons for this move, and as excited as we all get about the prospects for our future, I was personally tormented to a degree with the exit, with the conflict between moving on and the feeling that my debt of gratitude to Mr. O’Connell should somehow translate into a debt of commitment.

We now stand at the gateway to our future, with the opportunity to reconstruct our operations and take us from a small family bakery to a viable commercial operation. In our future we see the resumption of overnight shipping, broader sales to grocers and the opportunity to find distribution partners in the Tri-State region and beyond. Our new bakery will see close to a 300% increase in footprint. Larger walk-in fridge and a walk-in freezer and the combination of a loading dock will allow purchasing materials in larger quantities and at the same time assist in our capacity to ship in larger wholesale quantities. Upgrades in equipment will increase our production capacity, yet we have no plans of altering our ingredients in any way whatsoever. Primarily we have always operated as a wholesale bakery and will continue to. There will be some changes to our “outlet” operations, and to date we aren’t too certain exactly how those changes will manifest, but keeping predictable days and hours of operations are part of those plans. We’ll keep you updated on that as the time nears. 

A move such as this is not an easy prospect. To those who have made donations to our GoFundMe campaign, please accept our gratitude. With our financial losses after Hurricane Sandy totaling somewhere over $50K we find ourselves strapped pretty hard. Your donations have helped immeasurably. We’re keeping hopeful that our requests for outside financial funding will prove positive. Keep us in your thoughts.

Keep up with our  TWITTER feed and Facebook pages. 

Cheers,  and thank you again from Steve and the entire Steve’s Authentic family.