Emily Mayberry found herself in a position this summer that is relatable for parents of teenagers: her 17-year-old son Maddox needed to find a job, but not something so burdensome that would distract from his academic pursuits.
“He’s a 4.0 student and has a pretty full course load at Mott Middle College, so I didn’t want him to have something that was going to be overwhelming,” Mayberry said.
Inspired both by her son’s interest in business and by social media posts she’s seen where people create unique neighborhood businesses right in their yard, Winston’s Bakeshop was launched in July.
“He’s interested in business, and I was like, ‘Do we really even know what that means?,’” said Mayberry, who teaches in the Kearsley School District. “I thought, let’s do this. We can get some business experience. You can have something on your résumé. You can kinda see what it’s like to be a small business owner, figure out ordering, time management, all those things.”
The Winston’s name is inspired by another member of their household, their dog Winston, who is a famous face in the neighborhood and can regularly be seen and heard guarding the house as customers shop for baked goods.
“We are obsessed with our dog, and we’ve always said that he has a face for being a brand or being on the package of something, but he also has the attitude that comes with it,” Mayberry said. “And he is not always very well-behaved. We thought it was a good opportunity in this little area of our neighborhood where everybody knows Winston, whether you love him or hate him, you know who he is. He’s in the yard barking all the time, so we thought that was a familiar face that would get people to come by.”
A business named after a dog, of course, has to make sure any four-legged customers that walk by are taken care of, so there is always a bin of free treats near their “guest book” for people to sign when they stop by.
“I think my favorite is when I go through and I see all the little kids signing their name, it’s so cute,” Mayberry said. “But we just want to know who’s coming and what they think of it. It’s another way to connect, especially because we’re not always out here when people come by.”
Winston’s is set up in the Mayberrys’ driveway, located at the corner of Commonwealth and Second streets in Flint’s College Cultural Neighborhood, on Saturdays and Sundays. Their menu each weekend and other information is posted on their Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts.
As far as items that are available, that’s where more family connections come in. Mayberry’s mom is retired and has always enjoyed and been good at baking, so many of the treats are her creations. Mayberry herself enjoys baking, but in addition to teaching she’s in graduate school, so hasn’t always had the time for it.
“I’m definitely a novice baker,” Mayberry said. “I enjoy baking, but I’m just very busy in general. I just haven’t really allowed myself to spend a lot of time doing it, so this kind of forces me to allow time for it since I’ve committed to it, which is really nice.”
One mildly surprising element has been Maddox’s interest in the baking component in addition to the business elements, which has given her the chance to spend more time with him.
“I didn’t think he’d be interested in the baking part, so I was thinking he can do our social media, our packaging, things like that,” Mayberry said. “And he was like, ‘I wanna bake something.’ So he tackled the cake pops, and he’s still learning time management, so he was up until, like, midnight last night finishing up. But he likes it, and he gets excited at the end of the day when we take inventory and see what sold. I think it’s something he wants to stick with, and it’s nice, something we get to do together. You don’t really get to spend a lot of time with 17-year-olds these days, so the fact that he wants to do this with us is really cool. I just want to hold onto that for a little bit longer.”
Although the menu rotates, there are some staples that have become popular and are regularly available.
“We have a couple things that are out every weekend, so we always have our classic cinnamon rolls, those are like a crowd favorite,” Mayberry said. “My mom makes those. My triple chocolate chip cookies and our oatmeal cream pies, those are things that people love every week. And then everything else is kind of rotated. We usually do two new cookie flavors every week. We do two cake pops every week that are new (flavors), and then a muffin. Blueberry muffins have been a big hit, so we bring those back once in a while. But like this week, we had apple crisp because it’s seasonal. So a couple staples, and then every weekend we try to do something different.”
Mostly, the stand has just given a chance to experiment and learn as they go – like figuring out on one occasion they needed more squirrel security on some of their packaging. They track what items seem to be popular and are also thinking ahead to winter. Mayberry said they are thinking about doing more breads and other “cozy” foods with colder weather approaching. They plan to be open in the winter, but could do more limited days and hours depending on the weather. They’ve also talked about doing some pre-orders in the winter so people can still get items they love.
“If people want us out here, we’ll be out here,” she said.
The stand has also allowed them to see more of their neighbors and the people who pass through the area regularly. The Mayberrys have lived in the College Cultural Neighborhood for more than 10 years, and lived in Mott Park prior to that. She said their customer base so far is small, but they’ve been loyal return customers.
“Some people come twice each weekend,” she said. “One couple, they came our very first weekend. They are runners and had done a run and they stopped by and they got some cinnamon rolls, and now they come back every weekend. We have a lot of families that come back every weekend with their kids, and we have an Amazon driver in the neighborhood that, every Saturday, he stops by and grabs cookies. So that’s the community part that we want: people that come back, they look forward to it, they feel connected to it. We see our neighbors across the street come by every weekend, our neighbors next door come by every weekend, and they have great things to say. We were a little worried (at first), with traffic and people parking on the street, we don’t want to disrupt anybody. But it’s actually been really welcomed, and people really love it.”
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to catch up on all of our headlines every Wednesday.
