Please Help Save Proof Bread in Mesa, AZ..
A while back I started up a forum post [1] about Proof Bread, a "micro-bakery" located in a residential neighborhood in Mesa, AZ. Again, all strictly legal due to a local ordinance allowing "cottage" businesses run out of a residence.
All of us have had or know of a disagreeable neighbor who doesn't hesitate for a second to raise a stink about something he or she doesn't want in the neighborhood. Jon and Amanda, the owners of Proof Bread have such a neighbor and due to that person's unrelenting efforts they have to move the bakery they've spent 3 years building and fine tuning for their extremely demanding business to another facility by early January, 2021.
Jon and Amanda did their best to address their neighbor's concerns. The neighbor didn't like 3-4 employee cars parked on the street. So Jon had a parking slab poured adjacent to his driveway extending into his front yard for employee parking and then planted ficus trees in the yard to hide the parked cars from view. The neighbor also objected to a delivery truck parked in the driveway. Jon and Amanda did their best to limit this truck's presence and trusted that the ficus trees would help .
You can easily surmise that all this did next to nothing to satisfy their neighbor. So this person did some research and found a city ordinance that required employees of the cottage businesses to be city residents. The neighbor forced this issue with the city and the city had no choice but to act. Jon and Amanda had always seen that the day would come when the business would outgrow their house but never expected this day would be forced on them so soon. So now they're appealing to admirers of their enterprise and their high standards to support them in this difficult time.
To be fair, this neighbor was probably uncomfortable with a workforce drawn from outside the city, seeing unknown characters, coming and going and possibly causing unwanted mischief. Nobody wants that kind of headache either. I don't want to demonize this person.
But here we are. Moving is a daunting project for this small business with such high standards for quality. Their garage bakery is like a finely tuned watch that required countless, sleepless hours of experimentation and hard labor to manage ambient temp for the bread and pastry products, the extreme at times Arizona climate, refrigeration and plumbing challenges, etc to produce a superior product. The market for commercial space, controlled by heartless real estate corporations is completely stacked against small businesses trying to grow while operating at precipitous margins. To help cover the lease burden, Proof Bread will have to open a storefront to monetize their new facility.
But luck favors the bold. Jon and Amanda found a suitable building in downtown Mesa available for lease and owned by an individual. But they need help.
Proof Bread's youtube channel [1] in my humble opinion is a gift to the world. For anyone who appreciates what baking fresh bread and pastries from the best locally grown ingredients possible brings to your life, I don't think you can help but fall in love with what Jon and Amanda has built and continues to build as related in this marvelous series of youtube videos. And in the following video you will learn they have personal challenges too - a daughter with a recent diagnosis of a very rare genetic disorder. Please consider watching the following:
Fair warning, the video is long. Take your time and skip about if you want. And after absorbing what's presented, if you're so inclined please contribute what you can to their GoFundMe: https://gf.me/u/yzr87v [2]