Behind the Business is a series from the Insider. Real stories from the people who signed the lease, took the risk and found out what it actually takes to open the doors. Next up: Kneaded Baking Co.
Kneaded was already closed when I sat down with Kelly Davin, but people kept trying the door.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, after hours. Every couple of minutes, someone walked up and pulled on the handle. As a demand study, it told me more than any question could have.
Kelly is bubbly, quick to laugh and clearly proud of what she has built. Inside, she was telling me what it takes to have the cases full when those doors open. A baker can arrive around 3 or 4 in the morning. Kelly has worked overnight shifts herself.
None of it started in a kitchen this size. For three years, Kelly and a small team worked out of a space smaller than the dishwashing area she has now.
She Was Never Going to Sit at a Desk
Kelly studied graphic design at San Diego State and figured out that spending her working life behind a desk did not appeal to her. She grew up in a family where holidays revolved around what everyone was going to eat. Pastry gave her a way to combine the art and the cooking. “Edible art,” she called it.
She went to Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island to study pastry, then worked in a hotel pastry kitchen in San Diego. Wedding cakes started as a side job and eventually led her into high-end wedding planning. When she could not find desserts she wanted her clients to serve, she made those too.
After moving to St. Mary’s County, Kelly started making detailed decorated cookies from home. Contacts from San Diego brought in work tied to exciting events like Comic-Con, and the cookies eventually shipped around the world.
Kelly credits luck for some of that, though nobody ships cookies around the world on luck alone.
The First Bet
Mark and April, the owners of The Salted Scoop, offered Kelly space to rent. She still talks about that opportunity with a lot of gratitude.
Customers showed up quickly, and the small team had to learn how much it could produce in the space it had. Kelly was learning how to run the business while teaching a team and keeping the cases stocked.
Storage became one of the constant problems. There was not enough room for all the flour the bakery needed, so Kelly was constantly running out to local grocery stores to buy more. Before she could hire a towel service, the bakery towels went home with her too.
Then there were the days when the equipment stopped cooperating (because nobody is that lucky). Kelly told me about losing the ovens right before Easter and opening late on the Saturday before the holiday. Customers waited, the ovens came back and the bakery kept moving.
That first shop gave Kelly a loyal customer base and three years of experience finding the limits of a very small kitchen. Eventually, the limits became the focus point.
The Second Bet
When the Washington Street space became available, Kelly saw the chance to build the bakery she could not fit into the original location. The opportunity was exciting. It was also much larger than anything she had run before.
She had two months to develop a new menu and plan for a different level of production. The new location would need more pastries, more cakes, savory food and options for customers with different dietary needs. It also meant learning new systems and building a larger team around the work.
Money went where it mattered most. The kitchen used what it could, while Kelly put real thought into the room customers would see. Some of the furniture came from Facebook Marketplace. Friends and family helped paint, hang and decorate, and Kelly designed the space herself. Now, it feels like an elegant space that you want to hang out in, even after you finish a scone (or two).
She wanted the customers who had supported the first shop to recognize Kneaded while giving someone new a reason to come in and stay awhile.
Three Days, Eight Years, No Timer
When Kelly showed me the kitchen, she talked about the food with a kind of wonder that made it fun to listen. She knew the work, but she was still excited by what she and her team could make.
The cake layers, fillings, frostings and doughs are made in-house. The same care carries into the savory side. The vinaigrettes, pesto and sandwich mayonnaise are made there too. Kelly talked about salads with the same interest she brought to pastry, describing roasted butternut squash, goat cheese and spiced pecans.
The croissant dough takes three days, and the bakery uses imported butter. Temperature and humidity still require constant attention. The team has to watch the dough and adjust, even when they have made the same pastry hundreds of times before.
This is the part of baking Kelly wanted me to understand. There is science behind it, and knowing that science helps a baker see what can be corrected and when it is better to start over.
She does not set a timer for everything. “You touch it, you smell it,” she said. After making the same things over and over, you learn what ready looks like.
Knowing how to make something has not stopped her from trying to make it better. Kelly spent eight years developing her scone recipe. The chocolate cake took months of adjustments, with her team tasting the versions along the way.
Her standard is simple. A new customer might choose anything in the case, and that one item could decide whether they come back. The cookie has to make as good an impression as the pastry that took three days.
The more local owners I talk to, the more I notice this in the good ones. They care about getting better at the work, and they want to make something they are comfortable putting their name behind. Kelly’s scone recipe is a pretty good example. A version that did not work became part of learning how to make the next one better.
That applies to the team too. Kelly wants the people working beside her to understand the craft, not just follow a list of instructions. The bakery has grown, but the standard is still being passed from one person to the next.
More Than the Pastry Case
Kelly wanted Kneaded to be a place where her friends would want to spend time. The couch faces the big windows over Leonardtown Square. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, the lights go down, the jazz goes on and the wine comes out. Her recommendation is red wine and chocolate cake. Hard to argue with that.
The room matters because the experience matters. Whatever is happening behind the counter, Kelly wants customers to feel welcome when they walk in. She asks employees to talk with people, learn names and notice when there is a chance to make someone’s day a little better. If someone mentions a birthday, a cupcake can become part of the response.
She has heard from customers who came in during a rough day and left feeling better because someone behind the counter took a minute to talk with them. Those stories stay with her alongside the recipes and the work.
Kelly is also quick to credit the people who helped her get here, from Mark and April offering that first space to the friends and family who helped with the setup and supported the bakery as it grew.
Her advice for someone thinking about opening a business here comes back to those relationships. Do the research. Learn the work. Get to know other owners. Build a group of people you can call, and be willing to help them in return.
She believes you need a willingness to take risks too, along with the patience to keep learning once the doors are open. Kelly has wanted a bakery since she was 19. She knows the finished room is only the part customers get to see.
Her goal for those customers is simple. She wants them to leave with more than whatever they ordered.
“You better get something more than just your croissant. You better be smiling.”
The door stayed locked the whole time we talked. By the end, I understood why people kept pulling on it.
Who should we feature next? Shoot me an email at [email protected].
See you out there, St. Mary’s.
