Image: Facebook.
Bliss Bakery celebrated its 12-year anniversary June 26.
Yesterday, one of the Okanagan’s favourite bakeries quietly celebrated its 12-year anniversary.
Normally, Darci and Barry Yeo like to make a little bit bigger of a deal when Bliss Bakery and Bistro hits a milestone, but as Darci said in an interview today, they’ve just been too busy.
Less than two weeks ago the couple opened their latest Bliss location, in the heart of downtown Kelowna, on Bernard Avenue.
Darci says they have been so busy getting things going there that the bakery’s birthday slid by almost entirely unnoticed.
“It’s kind of like waking up in the morning and going, ‘hey, isn’t it our wedding anniversary today? We should do something,’” she joked.
However, for a small business owner, being too busy is usually a sign of success, and Darci says she is excited to shore things up at the two newest Bliss locations in the coming months.
Bliss seems to be doing very well these days, but its journey to success was a bumpy one. At one point, when they had only their original Peachland location, the Yeos were even trying to sell the shop.
To begin, when they first decided to open a coffee shop in Peachland twelve years ago, “a lot of people questioned our sense,” Darci says.
One banker laughed in their face when they asked for money, telling them they’d never last the winter. When they did open up they had very little capital, and it was rough going for a while.
“I’m glad I didn’t know then what I know now, because I would never have started the business,” Darci says with a chuckle.
Then, after only a few years in operation, the couple was faced with an even tougher choice.
Darci has multiple sclerosis, and in about 2008 it became a struggle for her to continue working. When it got to the point where she couldn’t work the floor anymore, she and Barry had to come up with some kind of solution.
“We either had to sell the business or we had to grow the business, because it wasn’t a manageable situation anymore,” she recalled.
They put Bliss up for sale but, because they were still fairly small, they couldn’t find a buyer—so instead they began expanding.
With their freshly opened location in the heart of Downtown Kelowna, Darci jokes she and Barry now have “four-and-a-half” Bliss locations in the valley (their Stevens Road shop in West Kelowna is only open limited hours, and doesn’t have any seating).
That business, she says, has given her the flexibility to continue to work (she can stay home if she wakes up unable to walk or speak), but it’s also come to define who she and Barry are.
“Looking back now it’s defined more than a decade of our lives, and it’s kind of defined who we are. Twelve years in, now I’m seeing kids we hired as dishwashers, and they’re graduating from university and they have kids, and it’s amazing to be part of people’s lives that way.
“It’s not just a bakery and coffee shop anymore, for us and lot of people we’ve actually had a meaningful connection. It’s more than I ever could have asked from a job,” she says.
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