Laurel Street Bakery

 

Hillary Guttmann and her mother had just opened their business, Laurel Street Bakery, when Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees broke. The storm ruined their bakery’s refrigerators and thousands of dollars worth of goods. When Hillary and her mother returned, they were the only two employees and had a hard time finding more people to help rebuild their business due the limited supply of labor. Fortunately, their location on Laurel Street did not flood and, though they lacked electricity, their gas ovens still worked. Hillary was determined to reopen.

 

“I had no money, I had not a penny in the bank account, I had no insurance, I wasn’t going to wait for the insurance companies, so to be able to survive we had to open and there was no reason not to,” says Hillary. She felt she needed to re-open her bakery to help her community. Hillary recalls, “In this city it was very important for people to have a place to congregate that was not in their flooded home. So I felt an obligation for my own community to be open every day, all day just to give people some sense of normalcy.”

 

Although employees and supplies were scarce, Laurel Street Bakery did not lack customers. In fact, the demand for their goods increased significantly. Hillary says, “Katrina kind of put us on the map because pretty much everybody came to Laurel Street Bakery for a number of months and none of our competition was open so it was a unique situation … I think we actually gained a lot of customers during that time.”

 

Yet, Hillary remembers it was not easy operating after the storm. “From that October 6th through Christmas we were open every day with no days off,” she says. To make things more difficult, Hillary and her mom had to travel all around the state to get supplies. “Nobody was delivering, so I had to drive to Baton Rouge to load up my car with eggs and flower and I could only make things that I could mix by hand because I didn’t have electricity,” Hillary recalls.

 

Ten years after the disaster, Hillary is proud of the hard work that allowed Laurel Street Bakery to endure. Nowadays, the bakery is flourishing! They opened a second location on South Broad Street and are known for their delicious handmade pastries, sandwiches, and salads. Laurel Street Bakery was able to offer an inspiring sense of normalcy and a little something sweet in the midst of chaos, and her customers continue to reward her with their loyalty.