Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin Lucas.
Hi Erin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Food has always played a rather big & important role in my life. My first job was at an apple orchard & shortly after, I worked at a small hometown bakery. I watched the food network relentlessly growing up & always helped my family in the kitchen. When it was time to figure out where to go after high school, culinary school was a no-brainer. I enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America & graduated with a culinary degree. When I returned home, I got a job as a server at a restaurant called “Mozza Mia” in Edina & that’s where I met my partner Mateo Mackbee. They were short in the kitchen, so I soon started taking shifts in the back and front of the house. At the time, I wanted to gain more experience baking, so I took a part-time job at Sun Street Bread in south Minneapolis and worked under Solveig Tofte for what would be 3 years. She taught me everything I know about baking, from croissants, cookies & pastry doughs to bread & delicate fillings.
During my time at sun street, Mateo & I ran a few restaurants throughout the cities as executive & sous chef. After about 4 years of working hard, we finally got a sign from god (literally-Mateo met a pastor in a bar who introduced us to the new London/Willmar community, which led us to saint joseph). To move out to rural Minnesota and follow our dreams of owning our restaurant & land to farm & provide for our menus. We were allowed to run our kitchen inside a brewery (goat ridge brewing) in New London, MN, for about 2 years. After being open for 4 months, we were approached by a building owner in saint joseph. He had always dreamed of having a new Orleans-style restaurant at the base of one of his apartment buildings. Because we had Mateo’s family recipes of jambalaya & gumbo on our menu, so he thought we would be a perfect fit. We soon came to find out that he had a tiny, adorable building in the parking lot of the apartment building that would be the future home of Flour & Flower. When I was in grade school, I read the book “garden spells.” essentially, it’s about a family of witches with a garden that can control one’s emotions or feelings when eaten. For example, lavender scones are to calm you down; marigold pasta would make you tell the truth. Rosemary shortbreads would cure anxiety, etc. I thought that was the most magical thing because when you eat, especially something profound, you feel magic. So being able to incorporate fresh flowers in our bakery was the dream from day 1. pie & croissants are the main show at the bakery. I have my paternal grandmother to thank for my love of pie & sweets. she would serve us peach pie & melted vanilla ice cream for breakfast when we would visit. She never thought about body image, only a second thought about grabbing another slice of cake or not because life was too short.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a pretty smooth road. Being an interracial couple in rural Minnesota has been a small struggle here and there. Thankfully we have found many amazing people in the communities we’ve belonged to. Being a young business owner can have its struggles. As I’m still growing & doing that in front of your staff/ community can have its ups and downs. But all-in-all, it’s been pretty smooth. We did open up in May 2020, which for obvious reasons brought its struggles, but at every roadblock, we’ve been able to pivot, rely on our partnership & team, and have made the changes necessary to keep going.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Flour & Flower Bakery?
We are a bakery & flower shop we provide artisan bread & croissants as well as housemade pie & cookies our main draw is our pie from dark chocolate lemon to classic apple. We do all kinds of pastries, hand pies, pop tarts & mini pies. I think what sets us apart from others is we rotate our flavors sometimes weekly & rely on our local farmers & purveyors. The thing I’m most proud of about our brand is that it’s true to who I am and my partner & I are. We stand for equality, equity, women’s rights, trans rights, black lives matter, etc., and we aren’t afraid to show it.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role you feel it’s played for you.
I don’t like to use the word luck. I instead use the word karma. I’m not perfect and what goes around comes around, both good & bad. I know I carry a high expectation for myself & I think the karma of that comes back around in our product. I believe the work Mateo & I have done in our lives has brought us to where we are. We trained hard. We put in hours studying, eating, & growing to get us to the point of being able to live out our dreams.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.flourandflowerbakery.com
- Instagram: flourandflowerbakery
- Facebook: Flour & Flower
Image Credits
Katie Cannon
