Stepping Up: Small Point Cafe bakes donations for health care workers into its new business model

TRACY WHITTAKER, head baker for Small Point Cafe, has been testing new recipes for baked goods to donate to frontline health care workers. / COURTESY SMALL POINT CAFE

PROVIDENCE – Tracy Whittaker’s first day of her new job was also the last day of normalcy.

Whittaker started as head baker at Small Point Cafe the day before the city shut down dining services at restaurants due to COVID-19. Suddenly, the exciting job prospect for the recent Johnson & Wales University culinary graduate became uncertain, and anxiety-provoking.

But despite a tumultuous road – professionally and personally – since the onset of the pandemic, Whittaker has continued to pour her passion into food, teaming up with cafe owner Adam Buck to find a new audience for her culinary creations as the traditional customer base diminished.

Since March, the cafe has been making and donating excess pastries to frontline health care workers at Rhode Island and Miriam hospitals. Whittaker, whose hours were reduced at the start of the pandemic, spends most of her time at home, coming up with new recipes and planning the scheduling for preparing and resting the dough that she will turn into bread, strudels and other confections during her two in-store production days.

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Buck makes the weekly delivery trips to the hospitals, armed with up to $100 in products for nurses and doctors.

Most of the goods are also sold in the cafe, though business continues to be slow even after the revival of indoor dining. During the shutdown, Buck also launched a grocery delivery service, offering bags of fresh and pantry staple to local residents as a way to make up part of the lost income from coffee service.

Since receiving a loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, he has tried to find new services to keep his staff working despite a lack of customers. Donating baked goods to health care workers fills that need, while also supporting a crucial industry that includes many of Buck’s personal friends.

“I know the people that are working the hardest right now are doctors and nurses,” he said. “I needed to do something to help people who are working and taking the biggest risk.”

And while strudels and muffins can’t lessen the risk and workload shouldered by these essential health care workers, it gives Whittaker a chance to contribute her skills to the cause.

“This was my one way I can offer something back,” she said. “It was a no-brainer.”

Whittaker still feels anxious about her financial future, particularly when the unemployment she is collecting due to reduced work hours decreases, but the job at least gives her an alternate focus for her anxiety as she brainstorms her latest recipe: a vegan banana bread that she promised “doesn’t taste vegan.”

Providence Business News is spotlighting nonprofits, companies and workers stepping up to challenges presented by the spread of the new coronavirus.

Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Lavin@PBN.com.

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