A glimpse of an inside view from BK

our opening hours and more

Since I started renting our very first Baum-kuchen location in Glassell Park in 2013, Baum-kuchen has opened its doors to our community in one way or another.

Our current regular opening hours have been Sundays between 12-5 pm ever since post-COVID. Before then, we were open on Fridays and Sundays between 2-5 pm. At the very beginning in Glassell Park, when I was all by myself and nobody knew about Baum-kuchen, I opened it whenever I was working at the studio. Back then, it was mostly quiet with occasional curious visitors who knew Baum-kuchen from our humble online presence. Oh, and before we had our brick & mortar location of our own, I used to do pop-ups at the Rose Bowl flea market, and that truly was a labor of love. It was so tough to get to the Rose Bowl at 5 am to build the booth for the day by myself and stand outside, whether it was hot, rainy, or cold. Yet having physical space, even if it was temporary, brought me so much joy because I was finally able to connect and share what I loved with customers in person.

It’s interesting to think about the evolution of our opening hours. We often get a surprised look when we share that we are only open once a week. “What?? You are a retailer. Why don’t you open more days???” I totally understand where the question is coming from, and if I were on the other side of the table, I might wonder the same thing. I was never fixed on opening our store like other more mainstream retailers, but how we open our studio/shop became the way it is now (one day/week for five hours) through a conversation within myself and with our trusted team members over the course of many years.

There are so many different reasons why companies have retail stores. Maybe so that customers can try out their products, maybe that’s their primary channel to sell their goods and services, or maybe for some other motivation…

When I think about us preparing for our opening hours, the train of thought takes me to growing up in Japan. When we stayed overnight at my grandparents’ house, I was asked to bring a bowl of freshly cooked rice and the first morning green tea to our ancestors in the family shrine. I would carefully carry those bowls in my little hands from the kitchen to the special room with a shrine, and all of our ancestors’ photos were displayed above. There was a specific location where a bowl of rice and tea was set, and then I lit an incense. It was a quiet ritual that was passed on not as a chore but as a sign of trust.

The other part of my brain goes into a musing about being invited to a formal tea ceremony for the first time in Japan. There, I learned about the idea that everything in a petite tea house, from a scroll that was hanging on the wall to a flower arrangement that was displayed, was carefully selected for the specific occasion. They were placed to hold an intention of the meeting that was happening. This idea still blows my mind and feels so present in my everyday life when I try to take the time to set up a table for a family meal, or a solo lunch outside on the patio.

When I synthesize these seemingly different elements from my life - my Japanese upbringing & roots, and the way we open our BK space to our community - it genuinely makes sense to me.

I feel that the Baum-kuchen’s opening hours are a kind of ceremony. When I am invited to a special ceremony as a guest (think graduation ceremony, wedding, baby shower…), the occasion is embodied with a particular atmosphere of time and space. It’s as if the time I participate is cut out and elevated from my everyday routine because there are people behind the day who have a specific intention of celebrating a special occasion. The BK team is similar to the folks behind those ceremonies. In fact, we start prepping for our Sunday opening hours on the days leading up to it. Emil usually spends his Fridays curating all the veginettes so that the space feels harmonious and inspiring for our guests. For me, knowing that there will be a lot of customers I will be interacting with on Sundays, I tend to stay in the canyon on Fridays and Saturdays. I don’t pack those days with highly stimulating activities just so that I can preserve my inner bandwidth to be fully present when I walk into the studio on Sunday. In the morning of our opening hours, we dust off and tidy up the front of the shop. Shortly before we open our door, the team and I put on our aprons and light incense to clear the air. It’s a series of well-oiled and intentional choreography that we do to reach the moment of our door opening. I was looking up some past posts I shared about our storefront, and the story I wrote almost two years ago still feels so relevant today.

I started thinking about our opening hours this week because we had to close the shop at the last minute on two Sundays ago due to medical emergencies of our team members. Even though most folks were understanding when we announced our last-minute closure decision on social media on Friday prior, it ruffled some feathers with a customer who didn’t see the update, ended up driving to our store only to find that we were closed, and called our studio and also left an expressive review on Yelp.

I had nothing to write back to her review other than apologize for what happened because I understand how frustrating it can be to be in that situation. During the phone call exchange, she asked why we don’t hire more people so we don’t need to close the shop on such short notice.

Perhaps it’s easier to hire more employees if we were like other stores where retail jobs are seen as entry positions. But as you know… I consider wearing BK aprons and being on the floor on Sundays with our customers to be far from an entry-level resume piece. Perhaps at some future intersection of BK, I will be in a different season where I can grow my internal leadership capacity to hold a bigger container for more team members to join. Maybe at the time, I can pass on the depth of the inner BK to the bigger team. But for now, keeping our team size small so I can reach each team member in a meaningful way is my intentional choice, and I am highly aware of the physical limitations of what we can and cannot do today.

Of course, there is no promised future for anyone, and there is always a lingering uncertainty in everything we choose to do, especially when we go against the mainstream. But, I hope to be brave enough to always make authentic and caring decisions in each moment…, and trust that everything will work out in the way it’s meant to be for me and for BK.

**If you are planning a visit to our store on one of the future Sundays, please check our social media in case of a last-minute schedule change, or feel free to give us a call before you leave the house. And know that we will be fully present to welcome you when you walk through the door.