Café Society - Part 2
The Lazy Bakery (Part 1 Whitehouse)
This place gets all the senses going, with cakes, breakfasts and freshly baked bread being delivered around our table; I’m finding it tricky to ask my questions while I salivate.
Richard downstairs at The Lazy Bakery (Whitehouse) 24 High Street, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7JF .
“This idea of a micro-bakery was always going to be a semi-retirement project.”
How did you start The Lazy Bakery?
Richard. When my wife and I moved to Rye, ten years ago, I was still commuting to London, which was fine, but I was getting progressively bored of my job. I didn’t want to be a distant resident; I wanted to do something in town.
I worked in the oil industry for 30 years, and baking was my hobby. As my 50th birthday approached, friends asked what presents they should get for me. I thought, get me things to do. I considered photography for a while but wasn’t particularly good at it! A friend then bought me sailing lessons at the water sports place in Camber, which turned out to be capsizing lessons; I was atrocious at it. But someone else set me up with a baking course at the Lighthouse Bakery, which is sadly no longer there. I literally came home with a load of different breads and said, I know what I want to do now!
Things clicked, a genuine light bulb moment, and I said to my wife, I know what I’m going to do, I’m going to start a bakery. So one night at the pub, I told a mate about my idea, his reply was, you’ll never get up early enough, Rich. So I said, well, that’s OK, people can buy it when it’s ready! So that’s when we came up with the name The Lazy Bakery. Well, that proved to be a misnomer, but there you go. Although, to be honest, we didn’t think of any other name options anyway.
I started making bits and pieces at home in my domestic oven, in the first week I sold five loaves from home. I then started selling loaves at Olde Worlde Wines, now Rye Fine Wines. By this time, I had outgrown the kitchen with my baking and was getting threatened with all sorts of bodily harm from my wife, so it was time to move production.
One of the boatyards in Rock Channel offered me a disused shipping container, which I converted into a bakery. So I decided to hand my notice in on the day job, this was five years ago. My wife was somewhat surprised but she’s been very supportive. Giving up my job coincided with John from The Globe Inn Marsh saying they were starting a farmers market, so I pitched up there for my first stall, alongside selling at Rye Fine Wines a couple of days a week.
I have always supplied The Standard Inn with bread and one day Claudia and Tim said they were thinking of setting up a business with Rosie Bates, the Whitehouse, and they asked why didn’t I come in with them? Whitehouse would sell the bread, and also use it for their menu. This worked perfectly for me and enabled me to expand.
When Whitehouse opened I took on an apprentice, a young guy called Jack, who has been with me ever since, and this year, we took on another lad called Will, which has enabled me to cut my hours and finally move closer to the semi-retirement project I originally envisaged!
“So now I’ve found that balance of life and work which I originally hoped for. I’ll never get bored of baking; I love doing it. It still feels like alchemy to me; literally, it takes flour, water, salt, to make a loaf, I still feel like wow whenever loaves come out of the oven. But there is an art to making great bread which I hope I have.”
Richard preparing to fill the oven.
Ready. The smell is amazing!
Gresty chatted with Richard over a video call while Richard was taking a well earned break in Italy.
Follow: lazybakery