Local Bakery Values Community Above All Else
When Kevin Halim and his husband Darren opened Kelly’s Bakery in Poughkeepsie N.Y. in February 2021, people thought they were crazy. The COVID pandemic was still in full swing, and Halim thought business would start out slow.
“The day we opened our doors the community supported us,” he says. And business has not slowed down since.
After getting burnt out working in restaurants and as a pastry chef in Boston, M.A., Halim and Darren were searching for a reason to come back to Darren’s hometown of Poughkeepsie but weren’t sure what that reason would be.
“The day we moved back to Poughkeepsie was the first day of lockdown in New York State [in March 2020],” Halim explains. With nothing else to do in quarantine, Halim started to experiment with making bread, even though it was not his specialty.
Halim describes reaching out to a baker friend for bread-making advice, sending him photos every day to see if his bread was up to par. “We had so much bread that we had to start giving it away to our neighbors,” he says.
It was Darren’s idea to start posting the bread online to see the community’s response. The surplus of interest led to a drive through bread pick-up during lockdown. People would drive up with masks to get their bread. “That’s how we started,” said Halim.
In fact, it had such a great response that Halim thought to himself that maybe there’s a niche for bread in Poughkeepsie. There used to be a bakery in town, but it had since closed. “Poughkeepsie was missing that feel of a local bakery,” he said. And with that, the planning began, and Kelly’s Bakery was born.
The first day they opened their doors, the owner of a pastry shop down the street came in and offered to help in any time of need. Being so used to the restaurant industry being cut-throat, Halim was not used to this kindness from other business owners.
It is that sense of community in Poughkeepsie that makes it so different from other places. “We bring value to the community better together,” Halim says. “If we succeed, everyone succeeds.”
Kelly’s Bakery continues to spread the kindness that they were shown on their opening day. When customers come in asking for custom cakes, they send them to La Deliziosa because they make custom cakes and Kelly’s doesn’t. When customers come in as they’re closing for a cup of coffee, they send them to the Crafted Kup because they’re open later.
Their support for the community goes beyond recommendations. Every year for Kelly’s birthday, the bakery raises money for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or SPCA. They make a dog-friendly cake and when customers purchase it all the donations go to the foundation. For her 14th birthday, they raised $300 for the local SPCA, and have plans to do an even bigger fundraiser for her 15thbirthday.
“Our goal [when opening] was not to make money,” says Halim. “It was to try and give back to the community.” And that is exactly what they did and will continue to do.
