We’re so grateful to be featured in the Pagosa Springs Chamber of Commerce Business Spotlight! Take a look…
We are Foodies
Earth Day 2018
Earth Day 2018
Sustainability, everyday.
Pagosa Baking Company is committed to sustainability. We use Colorado grown and milled flours; we choose compostable take out cups, cutlery and packaging; our building is geothermally heated; we recycle and compost. Check out our Sustainability page.
Come on in for the fun goodies we’re making for Earth Day – Earthworm Cupcakes, and Shortbread cookies made in shapes to celebrate spring. Check out the recipe.
In the Community
Kathy and Kirsten have long contributed to sustainability in our community. Kirsten is running for our local electric coop board, LPEA, and has been involved in local geothermal development projects. Kathy is a founding board member and former president of the Geothermal Greenhouse Partnership.
Father’s Day 2017
Father’s Day 2017
Larry Keyes at a Paris Bakery, 1948
Peggy, Kathy & Larry Keyes at Pagosa Baking Company, 2006
Croissants and Love
While my dad was not the daily cook in the family, occasionally he would take on a big project, like fried wontons during a snow storm, or more often, a huge pot of spaghetti sauce. The wontons covered both the dining room and kitchen tables, and induced a family sized ( I think there were only 3 of us kids then) food coma. I have a very distinct memory of falling in love with butter when in an Adirondack cabin on vacation, he produced a big pot of elbow macaroni with butter and salt. It was a revelation, as margarine was the spread used at home. Dad’s experience of living in Paris as a teen inspired a love of croissants, and his love inspired me to make them. When I was 11, I pulled out my mom’s Fannie Farmer cookbook, and made my first attempt. It was an all day effort. They turned out as one might expect – small, greasy, compact – but Dad praised them, and ate them. I then moved on to cheese cake, another of his favorites, that required much less time and labor, and much better results. The whole family ate that.
I’ve had much better success with croissants as an adult. They sell out every day here at Pagosa Baking Company. During a 2006 visit from my parents, I roped my mom and dad into helping out with a batch. It was an act of memory, acknowledgement, connection, gratitude. My dad didn’t support my early yearnings for a career in food, but he sure supported my love of creation and development of skills. I still have and use the rolling pin he gave me. His gift of the Reader’s Digest Creative Cooking cookbook – it’s contributors and editors are a list of who’s who food writers of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s – stimulated my curiosity about world cuisines and seasonality. I tribute my knife honing skills to Dad. We butted heads about what I would study in college. I wanted to go to Johnson and Whales, a cooking school in Providence RI. Becoming a dietitian was Dad’s idea. I got my degree in nutrition and food science, and after a decade working in clinical nutrition, I got my food career. My food science background has been an invaluable resource. Thanks, Dad.
Pagosa Baking Company’s Mascot – the Bear
Our Mascot, the Bear
or how two city chicks learned the woods may not be the best place to start a bakery…
Pagosa Baking Company began with a 30 qt Hobart mixer on the front porch, and more passion and enthusiasm than sense. The renovation of our garage into a commercial baking kitchen 12 miles south of Pagosa Springs happened in December 2000.
We sold bread to our neighbors, from the back of the car, and from a couple of very hospitable local businesses (Handcrafted Interiors, Wolftracks Books & Coffee) . It smelled pretty good in the neighborhood, and the bears noticed. Kirsten came home one night to find the Shop Vac and a large sack of wheat bran sitting in the middle of the driveway. The Shop Vac suffered some puncture wounds, and it was clear the bear did not find the wheat bran very tasty. A few weeks later while we were out of town, our young neighbor and pet sitter Corbin arrived to find the sliding door wide open, and 50# of sugar poured out of the bin onto the floor. He scooped the sugar back into the bin and locked the sliding door. We realized once we were returned that a case of walnuts, a case of raisins and a large box of shortbread cookies had disappeared as well. Not satisfied, a few nights later the bear attempted another break in. We found the screen door ripped out, bear claw punctures lining the door trim, and enormous muddy paw prints covering each window. Not a happy guy… Locked doors and windows became the rule. Months later walking along the ditch, we found empty case boxes of walnuts and raisins. I guess it was our contribution to his hibernation calorie stash that year.
Once we opened our retail location, shortbread bear cookies dipped in chocolate became the symbol of our bakery’s beginning in the kitchen in the woods, our mascot. Join us on Sunday April 2, 2017, Pagosa Baking Company’s Local Appreciation Day, for a shortbread bear cookie on us, and share in our tradition. Thanks for your support!
Kathy & Kirsten
Local Appreciation Day
PBC’s Local Appreciation Day
Celebrate with 25% Discount
We love our local customers! We feel so fortunate to share a daily latte, create another birthday or anniversary cake, and feel the love of seeing our regulars, well, regularly! We’ll celebrate with Local Appreciation Day on Sunday April 2, please join us!
When we opened Pagosa Baking Company in 2001, Kathy spent the wee hours baking in the commercial kitchen we’d created in our garage 12 miles south of town, and Kirsten hauled all the goodies up to our retail location at 238 Pagosa Street, made coffee, and sold the baked goods. It was our locals who gave us much needed encouragement, and sales, of course! They invited us into their lives with daily companionship, ordering goodies to mark family celebrations, and allowing us to share our passion for locally sourced quality foods. Their feedback helped shape our product line and determine direction for growth. On our first anniversary, our sole employee, Pam Spitler, asked what it was like to reach that benchmark. My reply – I felt I was the captain of a ship, at the helm certainly, but shaped by the waves, wind, crew. Learning how to navigate with flexibility may have been the first lesson our customers guided us to learn. That quality of relationship has continued to this day. We are grateful, and proud of the the role Pagosa Baking Company plays in our community.
Join us on Sunday April 2 so we can thank you with 25% off all PBC made baked goods and pastries. Choose from breakfast pastries, pies and sweets in the pastry cases, and our Take ‘N Bake pies and cookie dough in the retail freezer. What a deal – take home a Chicken Pot Pie,or call us to bake it for you. 970-264-9348.
Thank you,
Kathy & Kirsten
Our First Blog Post
Welcome to our new website! We’ve updated our look and made it easier to find our monthly calendar menus. I love the design by Ramblin Jackson, and Jacque Aragon’s photography of our food and space. Our tag line – “Handcrafted Baked Goods, Nourishing Simple Meals, Community Gathering Place, Locally Sourced Organic Ingredients, Celebratory Fare” – is getting more prominence to highlight the connections we’ve spent the past 15 years creating. Our mission is about relationship – amongst our staff, with our customers, vendors, the organizations we sponsor, the community at large. Food and customer service are our medium, platforms to express our creativity, and the vehicles to uphold our end of the relationships. What a privilege! Every day I get to move the business forward with committed staff, engage with them in passionate creation, share the fruits of our creations with our wonderful customers, participate in growing community in spectacular Pagosa Springs. I am grateful to you for your support, which keeps this endeavor going. I invite you to peruse the pages here as we continue to refine the site, follow blog posts, use our recipes, make suggestions for future content.
Pagosa Baking Company Carrot Cake Muffins
Browse Our New Website!
We’re thrilled to launch our new website this month, complete with new images of our location and delicious food. Browse the site and let us know what you think!
New website in works
We’ll be lost in the clouds briefly while we update our website,
