Today we’d like to introduce you to Denise.
Hi Denise, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
We are a mother and Son small business located in the heart of Castroville that specializes in making Healthy Homemade Organic dog treats and birthday cakes from our home-based bakery. We opened our hearts to the idea in late 2021. When Casey graduated from MVISD in 2020 we were right in the middle of the pandemic shutdown, and we currently had a Westie Terrier named Boogie that was having skin problems at the time. It was narrowed down to poor diet and processed store-bought treats. Casey was so worried about his fur baby, and we began trying to find solutions to help aid her. Boogie was such a huge part of our family that we knew we needed to help her. I began to educate myself and took and online courses on pet nutrition and Casey got into the kitchen and put his high school culinary class knowledge to work. Together we began making treats from healthier ingredients that Boogie loved. Shortly realizing it was a big improvement for her skin issues and found out Casey and I really enjoyed working together. On October 1, 2021, we finally opened Love Puppy Bakery as an online store to place your dog treat and cake orders. A few weeks later we started setting up a booth at our local farmers markets. Over the last few years, we have grown but still have the small business personality to visit with old and new customers, play with all the dogs and keep that southern hospitality going. We truly do symbolize all that Love Puppy Bakery is because everything we make and do is all about how much we love our own puppies.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Pretty smooth so far with only a few hiccups like not having enough time to do every single market we are invited to and helping find ways to assist Casey on his life path with certain struggles he faces daily with him being on the Autism Spectrum. At the beginning Casey did struggle a bit with socializing, but we did find a helpful and learning skill for him to feel more comfortable around people. We quickly realized everyone loves free samples so at every market Casey would at first stand in front of our booth and hand out free dog treat samples. Little by little all the crazy noise, people traffic and anxiety he would experience slowly started to fade as tiny background noise. From that was now a young adult learning to feel more comfortable with society and gained more self-confidence.
I know that his love for dogs has helped tons with being in this type of nonstop environment and even when he does have bouts of anxiety with all the excitement, he does have helpful tools that help recenter and calm him down. Now fast forward 4 years later he assists helping set up the entire booth and then when he sees I am all set he grabs the container and says I’ll be back later mom and off he goes to visit with the other vendors, meet new people and hand out free treats. So awesome!!!!!
We do receive the constant question of why do we have such low prices? It is not because we use low grade ingredients it is because we are smart with our money and buy in bulk. We did not open Love Puppy Bakery to get rich we did it because we wanted to give every person a chance to afford to give their dog a healthier alternative in treats at an affordable price.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We both have regular daytime 40-hour full time jobs we go to Monday through Friday. In the evenings Casey handles all the baking needs as of filling orders for the bakery and prepare for our weekend markets. This is a year around job for the both of us.
I take care of all the stuff Casey refers to as the boring part, which is all the promotions, newsletters, inventory, marketing, accounting, and social media interactions we have. We are truly blessed to be able to bring so much together with each of our skills and strong points.
We are known for our low prices, tasty treats and southern hospitality. We live by that saying that we have never met a stranger. It is such a great feeling being able to meet so many new people on a weekly basis that we are overjoyed to have this opportunity.
I can honestly say that what sets us apart from others is I will rather give a new person we met some free samples for their pups to try instead of them spending money first. Our main concern is to make sure you pups love our treats not to make that all mighty dollar anyone can do that. We are here for the yall!
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Patience. I am the type of person who wants everything to be go-go-go and has a hard time turning down a market invitation. For the last 4 years we have been open 7 days a week with only 2 weeks off per year. We have finally found our happy medium.
We are a home-based bakery that accepts online orders 24/7 with a 2-day turnaround. We also have same day ordering from 12 of our bestselling treats through our square app on only these specific days: Mon, Wed, Fri (pick up 5:45 pm – 8:15 pm) and Sat (pick up 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm) closed for any and all pick up orders Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
We do not have a physical store front just offer online sales for customer pick up located here in Castroville.
Casey and Denise will be attending at many of the local Saturday Markets which we have listed on our Facebook page and website for those dates.
We are so grateful for this opportunity to be a part of each of your fur babies lives and cannot thank you all enough for your support.
We would love to have you check out our website. Give our treats a try or stop by our booth at one of the markets we are attending.
Love Puppy Bakery, 1314 Lisbon Street, Castroville, TX 78009
(210) 385-4641 https://lovepuppybakery.com/
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lovepuppybakery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovepuppybakery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1028809747885291/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-knowles-mcdonald-30387233/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/love-puppy-bakery-castroville
