Market Forces: Brownie Points

This week, Patch spoke with Bob Conway, co-owner of Brownie Points Bakery. The bakery sells an array of cupcakes, pies, cookies, scones, and other treats, sending customers home with boxes and bags marked with its brown and mint-green logo. The Brownie Points stand at the Summit Farmer’s Market is located on the De Forest Avenue side of the lot. The bakery has a Facebook page, on which they announce their cupcake of the week, and a website: www.browniepointsbakery.net.

What’s your background – how did you get into this business?

I grew up in New Jersey, in Hillside. Now I live in Westfield. I worked for Macy’s for 13 years, in merchandise planning. I sat at a computer all day and looked at numbers, so this is much more fun. Five years ago I went to culinary school – the Institute of Culinary Education on 23^rd St. – for pastry. It was something I was always interested in, and I knew I wanted to do this. I always cooked and baked and I knew I wanted to have a bakery, so I figured I needed to get a good culinary education to do that. I went at night while I was working, and then I worked at Gramercy Tavern for two years to get more experience (I did my externship there and then they hired me).

We started at the Farmer’s Market in Summit two years ago, in 2007, and we opened the store in downtown Summit last summer, in June 2008. We opened in the Short Hills Mall in July of 2009. We really started at the farmer’s market - that was our foray into the town and into the baking business. Between the two stores we probably have 20 employees now. We make cupcakes, pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, different bars – all classic American desserts. We make everything fresh every day and we use really good ingredients: European-style butter, valhrona chocolate. We make everything from scratch - we even make our own graham crackers for the cheesecake.

What’s a typical day like for you?

For me personally? Now it’s a little different than it used to be. I usually get here (to the Summit store) around 7 a.m. I bring all the food to the mall. We have a night shift now, so we have everything ready. I try to spend as much time as I can in the kitchen. We bake all day.

How many cupcakes do you make a week?

If I had to guess between the two stores, I would say it’s probably 5,000 a week.

Why did you start out at the farmer’s market?

We were looking for a space, and that kind of gave us a chance to get into the town. Once you’re in the town people know you. It’s hard to find the right space and the right location. So the farmer’s market was a good way to introduce ourselves to the town, so when we opened there were people who already knew us.

How do you come up with your cupcakes of the week?

It’s sort of collaborative. Different people who are in the kitchen, we’ll just think up different flavor combinations. Like the mint chocolate chip is from the ice cream; the creamsicle is from the popsicle. The fluffernutter…we use other things or flavor combinations that we can translate into a cupcake. Some of them are really good and they stick around. The mint chocolate chip we did last January, and it just kind of stayed.

You guys have a Facebook page.

Yes. That’s where we post what this week’s cupcake is.

Where did the duffin – a cross between a muffin and a sugar donut - come from? They’re amazing.

It really came about last fall when blueberry season was over, and we needed something to replace the blueberry muffin. Between blueberry season and cranberry-orange season, there was a gap in fruit. Everybody likes donuts, but we don’t fry anything here, so it sort of came out of necessity.  

Who designs your windows?

My partner, Peter Lloyd, does the windows. He does the packaging, the windows, all the visual things in the store.  

It seems like you’ve been very successful. Were you expecting that?  

I guess we were hoping that. It’s been really well received so far. To have a second store within a year is pretty quick. I didn’t know that we would be in a mall, but Short Hills is sort of different - I guess it’s a little prestigious to be in the Mall at Short Hills, and that’s been really good to be there.

You’re at a mall and a farmer’s market.

 I guess because it’s close proximity, there’s a lot of people that go to all three places – the farmer’s market, our downtown Summit store, and the mall. 

What’s the hardest thing about what you do?

It’s kind of all-consuming. It takes complete and total dedication, and a lot – a lot - of time and energy. Which isn’t bad. It’s good to be busy. But it takes a lot of effort, especially with the second store.  We only sell the day it’s made, so everything is made fresh every day. It’s a lot of stuff to make every day in one tiny little kitchen. The kitchen is as big as the store in Summit.

Given that your work is so time consuming, what keeps you going?

It’s something I love to do. It’s fun. And it’s nice to hear people’s reaction not just to the food, definitely, but we get tons of comments on how the store looks. People love the food, but they love the stores and they love the windows, so it’s nice to hear good things about what you do every day.