Stick Boy Bread Company: Boone’s “Real” Bakery For Five Years and Counting
Story by Sam Calhoun
LOST—STICK BOY—If found, call 222-333-4455.
Yep, that’s how it all started.
In August 2001—hundreds of miles from where Carson and Mindy Coatney, husband and wife and owners of Stick Boy Bread Company, were opening the doors to their made-from-scratch bakery—their friend Yogi was driving down a highway and spotted the odd message hanging off a light pole.
She laughed her face off.
Without a name for their store, the Coatneys debated whether “Stick Boy” was feasible.
“Pretty much, I was the only one who really liked the idea at first, but I convinced everyone else that it was a good idea,” laughed Carson, 31.
But it’s not about the name, it’s about the product, and Stick Boy Bread Company has plenty of product. With more than 20 varieties of bread baked from scratch daily, a full espresso bar, custom-made smoothies, sticky buns, scones, cookies, desserts, cakes, soups and more, Stick Boy Bread Company has become popular in the High Country for being a small, family-owned, “real” artisan bakery where high-quality baked goods and great service come together.
“Everything is made from scratch—we don’t use any additives or preservatives,” said Coatney. “When you tell people what’s in something, they know the names of everything. There’s nothing foreign sounding in there. Our bread is flour, water, yeast and salt—that’s the basics. Some of our breads have honey, some have whole-wheat flour, some have cheese, or olives, garlic or seeds—but we start with the basics and then we add other quality ingredients and then we don’t add anything else. That’s kind of our philosophy.”
But creating the daily lineup of goodies is far from easy.
Someone is baking at Stick Boy Bread Company around the clock. At around closing time each day, between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., the bread baker arrives to start a shift that lasts all night. At 2:00 a.m., the pastry baker comes in to start work on the cinnamon rolls, muffins and scones, and also works until daybreak.
At 7:00 a.m., the day begins and the morning regulars start coming through the doors, ready for a cappuccino or espresso and their favorite breakfast treat that probably just came out of the oven. Daytime bakers arrive about this time and begin the day shift baking work.
“We see the same people in here day in and day out,” said Coatney. Some regulars frequent the bakery up to five times per week. “The success of our business is the fact that we’ve developed a regular customer base and we’re real proud of that. It makes us feel connected to our customers and the community,” Coatney said.
Some customers have been patronizing Stick Boy since the Coatneys opened the bakery on August 20, 2001. The idea for Stick Boy Bread Company came to the Coatneys—who were married in Boone in 1999—while they were on a trip to Alexandria, Va., coincidentally where their friend saw the LOST STICK BOY sign. When they walked into the Great Harvest Bread Company, the two employees of Samaritan’s Purse knew that Boone didn’t have anything like it and that Boone needed it.
At that point, the two self-proclaimed “idea machines” went to work to create a high-quality bakery in Boone. After researching the bakery industry and talking to other bakery owners, the Coatneys decided that they didn’t want to open a franchise, but rather to create a bakery from scratch.
“We really wanted to have the flexibility to develop the business and do things the way we wanted to, to make the products that we wanted to make, to use the high-quality ingredients that we wanted to. So we’re the ones who set the terms for quality and taste,” said Coatney. Stick Boy’s recipes come from books, magazines and other bakers. They make some up and gather some from employees.
“We’ll bring in something in that we’ve seen or that we think of and we’ll try it out, and if it tastes great, we’ll try to sell it,” explained Coatney. “If it sells great, then we’ll keep selling it. So we’ve tried a lot of things.”
He continued, “We look at taste, good ingredients and whether a customer likes it. If a customer doesn’t like it, then we’ll stop making it.”
Because the Coatneys had no formal baking experience going in, the past five years have been a constant learning process.
“That’s what we like to do. We always like to make things better, improve things, try new things,” said Coatney. “I feel like we have a well-trained, competent staff whose goal is to always be making things better.”
When Stick Boy Bread Company opened, the store occupied 1,000 square feet of the current location and a laundromat occupied the other half of the building. Three years ago, with business booming, Stick Boy expanded to take up the entire structure and added an espresso bar, smoothies, soups, foccacia and whole desserts, such as cheesecakes, chocolate tortes and pies in addition to the regular, fresh-baked fare.
And the growth has continued.
Six months ago, the Coatneys bought a brand-new $70,000 bread oven. The German-made, custom, electric oven has five levels to cook breads at different temperatures and it’s so large that it takes up almost as much space as Stick Boy occupied before the expansion.
Of the 20 employees who help Stick Boy operate around the clock, roughly 15 are ASU students and roughly eight are bakers.
Stick Boy will host its annual promotional day on Monday, September 18, to celebrate the bakery’s fifth birthday. All day long, anyone who walks through the door will be treated to free coffee and cookies in appreciation for the support from the community.
After five years, the Coatneys are determined to continue what they have been doing all along. Some former employees of the Coatneys are trying to convince them to open a similar operation in Hendersonville, but they have no plans to close the original location.
“We definitely love this business,” said Coatney. “This is the heart of who we are and what we do. I can see us doing some other things down the road, but I think Stick Boy holds a special place in our hearts. We’ve developed something really special here. It has to do with the work that we’ve put into it, the pride that we feel in the products that we make, the staff that we’ve had here. We’ve always had a really tight-knit, close staff that I think is really hard to find in a lot of places, and the relationships that we’ve built with our customers—the place that we’ve been given in the community, really. Yes, all those things make it really special to us.”
Coatney added, “We’re going to keep being here, cranking out bread and keep growing our business.”
Stick Boy Bread Company is located at 345 Hardin Street in Boone across from ASU. The bakery is open from 7:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and is closed on Sunday. For more information, click to www.stickboybread.com or call 828-268-9900.
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