Baked Uprising: She built it and they came

Alice Lees decided to open a bakery from which she could distribute products to cafes around Newcastle. Only thing was, the day she opened, people arrived on her doorstep and she never quite got to those cafes.

Newcastle’s experienced a renaissance of late. The city, which just about had tumbleweed bouncing through only a few years ago, has recently been coming back to life, with people venturing back to the city from the burbs. Part of this resurgence is due to the Renew Newcastle initiative, which has connected entrepreneurs with vacant spaces in the city, leading to a community of creatives all bringing life back to the city.

Along with this buzz, the returning crowds have also brought a demand for good coffee and an insatiable demand for food that’s hearty, healthy and responsibly made.

This is the atmosphere in which Alice Lees opened artisanal bakery Baked Uprising. After having baked for cafes and farmers markets, Alice took the leap and converted her industrial space in Maryville, on the city’s outskirts, into a commercial kitchen.

“I thought we could manufacture the bread there and maybe we could have little spaces in town where we could sell it as well as the markets. But the day we opened there was a big queue out the door. All the neighbours wanted a bakery. They wanted a place where they could buy coffee.”

Alice acknowledges some of her success is due to being in the right place at the right time.

“Newcastle as a city has gone through a whole lot of changes. It’s gone from being a really industrial city to having this amazing café culture and people that are massive supporters of farmers markets and knowing the providence of their food. I was in the right place at the right time to make use of that and provide a product that people wanted.”

Alice wanted her bakery to be a creative space, which represented the community it services.

“I wanted to make sure that artists and craft people were part of building the space. We got a guy up the road to weld and make a bike rack that looks like a toaster,” she laughs.

The bakery itself is an open space, which encourages an open atmosphere among staff.

“Often you’ll have a new roaster who goes over and learns how to shape the bread or pull bread out of the oven and bakers who learn how to make a flat white. It’s a big communal space.

The space is a far cry from where Alice started out making muffins from home.

“I turned my kitchen into a commercial kitchen by putting in the floors and all the stuff to make it approved. Then I distributed the muffins by getting up super early in the morning and delivering them to cafes around town. When I started out, a lot of places opened in Newcastle without kitchens so there was a bit of a market there.”

From there, Alice expanded her range to include brioche, cakes and tarts, which she cooked from her home kitchen and sold at the Newcastle Farmers Market, something she still manages to fit in. (She’s at the farmers markets every Sunday and the Olive Tree markets once a month.)

“The set up time at the farmers markets is 6.30 in the morning and we don’t open the bakery until 8.30. We get enough product out there and then, when we open the shop, we do a top up.

“One of the things that’s really important to us is to have hot bread available to the customer that’s been baked within a few hours. We start with a retarted loaf overnight and then bake that off in the morning. Our oven is right in front of where people pay at the cash register, so often we’ll be pulling the bread out of the oven and putting it on the shelf and they’ll be picking it up and holding it against their chest and it’s still warm. That’s really a nice thing.”

As if running a bakery and farmers market stall isn’t enough, Alice also runs workshops from Baked Uprising. Craig Gardner, who works at the bakery is also a teacher and he runs most of the workshops. He’s baked all over the place, including Iggy’s in Sydney and loves to teach the art of sourdough baking.

“He learnt to bake in San Fransico. He’s an amazing person that just loves to share his knowledge,” says Alice.

Like many bakeries around Australia, Baked Uprising also fills the increasing demand for good coffee.

“We had a little tiny lever machine when we first opened,” says Alice. “Now coffee is a large part of what we do. The people buying bread, they will often buy a cup of coffee as well. We also have businesses around us so people come back through the day. I don’t know if that’s because people aren’t smoking as much anymore and they’re using coffee as part of their relaxation.”

Alice says it’s not just espresso customers are wanting anymore.

“They’re wanting filtered coffee, cold brew… We’ve just put in nitro lines so we’re running nitro coffee. It’s part of the surfing scene; everyone drinks coffee—coffee’s really big here.”

Baked Uprising is still in their first few years and Alice says she’s concentrating on stability and training and making sure she provides a good stable base for the apprentices that come through.

“I guess I just want to make sure that we keep it a reasonable lifestyle for our employees and we can keep paying everyone. We’re also looking at packaged products, so frozen pastries and jams. That’s the next few years for us.”