Interview with Chira Pongratananukul, pastry chef and owner
Q: How did you get involved in this business?
A: When I was a child growing up in Thailand, I loved eating cakes and sweets. One of my dreams back then was being able to learn how to make them but never thought I would do it for a living when I got older. When I was 24 years old, my oldest brother, my older sister and I moved to Colorado where my older brother, Chuck, had been living in at the time. While working to save money for my future education, I had an opportunity to work in the bakery shop at downtown Denver’s old Fairmont Hotel, now Hyatt Hotel, where I mostly acquired the basic baking skills from several European pastry chefs. Later, I got a job as a pastry chef at the FBC Foods and the Scanticon Hotel and Conference Center, now Inverness Hotel, respectively. With my love of baking at heart and a dream of owning a bakery, and the help and support from my beloved brother, Chuck, who passed away five years ago, Bonjour Bakery was born in 1994. My ultimate goal was to utilize my baking skills and knowledge to create upscale, high-quality baked goods and such for customers at a lower cost than those offered by fancy hotels.
Q: What distinguishes you from other businesses in your category?
A: Unlike other bakeries, I make everything from scratch, which is time consuming and — most of the time — requires experience and skill. I do not use ready-to-use products, which save time and hassle, mixes, artificial flavorings and preservatives and/or additives, which extend products’ shelf lives. I offer wide varieties of products, some of which are made to order. Everything is made on-site and comes with more than 35 years of experience.
Q: What do you like best about your line of work?
A: The freedom to create what customers want, the challenges that customers bring to me and a chance to meet new customers every day.
Q: What is your business’ biggest challenge?
A: These days, people seem to do activities or celebrations on the weekend more than they do on the weekdays. Some weekends I have lots of orders jamming in, which is a good problem for a business to have, but last-minute orders for the weekends are more challenging to accommodate than those for the weekdays because of the short notices.
Q: Something people might be surprised to learn about you or your business:
A: People are always surprised that I do wholesale business as well. They never thought that a small, local business like this is able to handle high volume production. My wholesale customers are mostly upscale country club and hotels.
Profile
Business: Bonjour Bakery
Address: 8172 S. Holly St., Centennial
Hours: 6:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 6:30 a.m.- 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Founded: 1994
Contact: 303-721-7547,
Employees: 1
