After 23 years, opportune baker still rolling out the dough in Westport
Perry’s Bakery
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Owner: Karen Smith
Type of Business: Bakery
Location: 1037 Main Road, Westport, Mass.
Year Founded: 1950s
Annual Revenue: WND
Perry’s Bakery is located about a half-mile from the center of Westport, a small town just east of Fall River. This puts the bakery off the beaten path of a town that can be accurately described as sleepy.
“We hope for good weather,” said Karen Smith, owner of Perry’s Bakery since she was 18. “People go for drives when the weather is good and then they’ll come to see us on the way.”
Smith has owned Perry’s Bakery for 23 years and has continued to make all her products from scratch, from basic blueberry muffins to breakfast egg rolls.
She said she does not have any financial figures she could release but says her bakery goes through about one-and-a-half to two bags of flour weighing 50 pounds each day during the slow winter season.
Smith had been working at Perry’s Bakery as a teenager when it was owned by Andrew Perry. He started the bakery in the 1950s, an offshoot of a successful retail business selling vegetables at a green and white farm stand that still stands. He sold baked goods cooked by his wife.
Perry got sick as time went on and Smith saw an opportunity to rent the equipment, recipes and name from him in 1981. She then decided to buy the property a year later.
“At the time, my father said it was a great opportunity and I went for it,” said the mother of two small children.
Since the days of the previous owner, the lineup of pastries has changed pretty dramatically. Smith has gotten away from serving items like raisin squares and Eccles cakes – treats of a bygone era – to serving more standard items like muffins, cookies and cinnamon sticks.
Perry’s also sells breakfast sandwiches and turnovers with chourico and cheese centers. The idea is to sell hand-held food that will serve as a meal.
“When I go into a restaurant and eat an interesting dish, I ask myself, ‘How can I make that into something you can eat on the road?’” she said.
This strategy has been instrumental in securing a steady flow of regulars that, at this time of year, is often made up of blue-collar workers.
There are also those who stop by for the typical homemade fare offered at Perry’s.
Smith said these regulars have been the source of financial stability for the bakery, which has had to overcome several obstacles other than a difficult location.
Prices for eggs, milk and butter have risen dramatically in the past couple of years, forcing Smith to raise prices.
There are numerous places within driving distance where consumers can get pies for $8, whereas Smith’s are almost double the price.
“If a person has a choice between homemade or something made from a mix, which is what stores often use, they’ll choose homemade,” Smith said. “We’ve had customer after customer tell us this.”
She also stays home with her two young children and ends up going to work at around 10 at night to start the next day’s baking. This leaves the responsibility of selling the products up to her staff.
“Fortunately, I’ve been lucky to have great people working for me,” she said. “However, I still end up putting in seven days a week now that I am doing the books.”
She said the Atkins diet craze has taken a small piece of business away. Smith said she tried to offer more health-conscious pastries to mesh with the trend, but they did not sell well.
“When people come here, they expect the kind of goods that Atkins wouldn’t approve of,” she said. “I don’t think the Atkins diet has really hurt us too much. The people who come here know what they are getting, and they keep coming back.”
Smith expects the future to be a challenge in that there will be more stores to buy cheap bakery goods.
But, those stores won’t come until the population of this town grows – that means she’ll have a chance to make these new residents her customers before the other stores break ground.
And what is the one lesson she’s learned in all these years as a baker?
“People buy it if it’s red,” she said.
