DeLuxe Cakes and Pastries in Iowa City, IA

Jamie Powers, Owner

Origins

I had worked in professional kitchens in bigger cities previous to the bakery. I was in a French restaurant called Bistro 110 in Chicago. I was a bartender and worked in the back of the house. And then my husband and I moved to Denver and I worked at Wolfgang Puck when he first opened there. I was the garde manger in pastry. Then I worked at the Brown Palace Hotel and I was all pastry. I did all the pastries for their three restaurants in the five-star hotel. We were making every single thing in-house from gingerbread houses to wedding cakes to high tea pastries to big banquets.

Then I wanted to see what it was like to work in a small shop. And so I went to this beautiful bakery in Denver at the time called Gateaux Bakery. They were serving the community. It was great. Eventually I landed where I envisioned myself in the future. And that is doing life moments for other people; birthday cakes, baby shower cakes, breakfast pastry, coffee in the morning, wedding cakes, bridal-shower cakes, cookies, holidays. I loved being at that small bakery because I got to know families and I got to hand over food to a community.

When I moved back to Iowa City, I noticed there was not a place I could work that had done the pastry level that I was used to in the larger cities. I decided to make the food I know how to make, but I needed to find a place to make it. My mother is a numbers person — she ran all the payroll at the University of Iowa — and we both decided if we could find something cheap that we could buy with a loan, it was better to pay mortgage than downtown rent, which I could not afford.

Throughout my culinary career before that in the cities, I really enjoyed going to neighborhood places. And I noticed that in towns like Iowa City, the gathering place was going away, replaced by malls, box stores, chains. I was making food out of my basement and selling it. I thought, people will come to a bakery if it’s good. I got a low-interest loan from the city and then I got a women’s business loan. With the money I made in my basement. I was able to put down a down payment and I started the shop in 2003.

Once I got into this tiny, but mighty, bakery, I knew this was my home.

Company Mission

We’re a full-service bakery, and those are hard to find anymore. When you walk in the door, we have something for everybody; as simple as a cookie for a kid on a bike to a quiche and a salad for a couple coming for lunch to an elderly person coming in for a sweet roll. If you’re celebrating your life events: Passover, Christmas, birthday, wedding, the bakery is there to represent how you want to host. We have gingerbread houses, yule logs, cookies. You can get a black cup of coffee and stare out the window, or you can walk in and get a lemon curd fruit tart to celebrate March Madness. It’s kind of old-school European, but it’s integrated in the town now in so many ways.

I’ve been employing adults with disabilities since I opened 22 years ago. It’s not necessarily what their disability is when they step in the bakery, but their ability. That has resonated through all 22 years. It’s a no-brainer for me. It’s just what we do. I don’t understand any other way.

Signature Products

My favorite, which I consider the jewel of the bakery, is the raspberry scone. When I first opened, I was so proud to make it, but nobody cared about it after about ten years; everybody wanted the croissants. Now all the proceeds from those scones go to the free lunch program of Iowa City and it’s doing well.

We have four different kinds of baguette sandwiches that people love. We have a sesame brie; an everything seeded baguette BLT; ham and gruyere and a sopresatta butter lettuce. The other sandwich that we have is a zaatar on sourdough focaccia with honey, balsamic, arugula and Gouda in it. I order all the zaatar from Lebanon.

Our cakes are magical. We sell about 80 to 100 in a normal [non-holiday] week. And I love the croissants. They’re a symbol of how the bakery really evolved. I started doing just two different flavors when I opened, and now, we’re doing 3,000 croissants a week out of a 450-square-foot space.

Equipment Must-Haves

I have a baker’s wood top that’s really special to me. I got it before things were on the Internet, I had to drive places to find used equipment I heard about through the grapevine. I found this amazing table in Minnesota. I threw it in my car and drove it back, and I still love that wood top. I see I’ve seen 22 years of bakery life on that table and 22 years of amazing bakers at that table.

Production Tip

[From General Manager Heather Frost Hughes]

Stay organized with all of your products. Ask a lot of questions to mentors and be a very good teacher to your staff. Help your staff figure out how their production list is going to go at the beginning of the day to the end.

Secrets of Success

For me, it is hospitality. I’m already assuming you’re working with beautiful ingredients and you’re turning out a delicious food product. But that human connection brings people back. They want to feel like it’s their bakery, their other home. It’s that human connection and the deposits that you make to other people that need it. If somebody’s going through a hard time, send them out the door with something. If you know a school is struggling, get involved. If you know a family in the area that suffered something, reach out. Food really does go straight to the heart. Figure out how you can be in sync with your community. Talk to people. Figure out where the holes are in your community.

Future Plans

The bakery needs an expansion so we can . . . (Phone call gets interrupted) We don’t have an office. That’s how small it is, so we’re sitting on our back stairs by our dumpster, and we just had somebody coming out to take the trash out so we had to move.

I foresee the bakery moving into another larger historic spot nearby and employing more adults with disabilities, producing enough food again that we can continue to send food to vulnerable people and offer more opportunities for the community.

For more info, visit www.facebook.com/deluxebakery/

(This article appeared in the Spring 31 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)