Get Sweets on the Streets with Gone Baking

For one baked goods-loving Bedford mom, a new venture into the world of desserts on wheels is turning out to be more of an uphill climb than she could have guessed, but it will be worth it in the end if she can turn her dream into reality.

Jenny Cheifetz, a former elementary school teachers turned stay-at-home mom, added entrepreneur to her name in 2009 when she started a home-based baked goods business called The Sugar Mommy.

Cheifetz got a license to run a commercial kitchen out of her home and started making sweets and treats for events and personal orders that she shipped all around the country.

Now that has spawned into a business called Gone Baking, where she sells cupcakes, cookies and chocolate dipped pretzels from a van at various locations around Merrimack, Manchester, Amherst and Goffstown.

According to her website, “The Gone Baking van visits farmers markets, community events, expos, corporate events, and parties of all kinds. The walk-up window makes it fun for customers to get their cookies, cupcakes, and other yummy treats.”

This wasn't always, the plan, and it's been slow to get started, she said, as she's run into several stumbling blocks along the way, but Cheifetz is optimistic about her future once she can start building a fan base.

A New Dream

After a couple years of being The Sugar Mommy, Cheifetz said, her dream had become opening a cafe and bakery in the Manchester area. She said she saw this as being the perfect next step, while friends and family tried to warn her away from it. She was getting close to signing her life away, she said, when the bigger picture came into focus.

“It would have been a gigantic mistake, thankfully I had some sense knocked into me,” Cheifetz said. “It took some people who were further away from the situation to say 'this is a really bad idea,' because, of course, I wouldn't listen to my family.”

From the plan to open a cafe, came discussion of opening a mobile food truck she said, which at first didn't really sit well with her.

“I've got two ivy league degrees and the thought of myself being a street vendor was not exciting,” Cheifetz said. But having lived off of food trucks while at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the more she thought about it, the more she considered that a food truck idea might be a good one, since there are not a lot of them in and around these parts.

Turns out, there might be a reason for that.

Cheifetz said she's talked to a lot of people, spent a lot of money on licensing and permits and even had this twist of fate moment that set “Gone Baking” into motion, but she's been halted by the fact that each town has different zoning ordinances about what's allowed and what's not when it comes to street vending.

“When Manchester gave me a license I was given a two-page list of what I can't do, so I said to the city clerk, 'what can I do?' And he said, 'get creative,' ” Cheifetz said.

What she wasn't expecting when she started Gone Baking, was the lack of ability to set up her van in so many places down here. When she was researching the concept, she came across a woman in Lebanon who was doing this – selling baked goods from a van – and she was doing well in business, but not so well with her business partner. After contacting the woman to pick her brain, Cheifetz said she learned the woman was selling her business –van outfitted with lighting, a refrigerator, display case, cupcake recipes and all – after dissolving the business partnership.

This woman however, was working in a less stringent environment in terms of zoning. She set up on the Lebananon town green on a daily basis and her customers knew just where to go to find her.

Cheifetz said she's yet to come across a Southern New Hampshire Town where that is allowed.

In Bedford, her hometown, she's allowed practically nowhere. She was looking forward to being a presence at the Bedford Farmers Market, but her application was denied because the quota of pastry-makers had already been filled, she said.

Zoning prohibits her from selling her desserts on public property and even on private property. She may set up the truck on private property for party-style events, where she's paid a lump sum by the organizer and then gives out sweets to the attendees.

In Merrimack, she can get a permit to vend on private property, but if she wants to move to a different location, she must go back and obtain a new permit. That said, she will be a fixture at Merrimack's farmers market where she said the mentality was “the more the merrier.”

The farmers market is open from 3:30-6:30 in the Tractor Supply Parking lot on Wednesdays starting this week through the end of August.

In Amherst she's had a little more luck. Zoning permits her to vend on any private land with the permission of the owner. She has three locations in Amherst that she's been vending; Amherst Garden Center - Route. 101, Amherst (just across Bedford line); Children's Dental Center - Route 101A, Amherst (right off Route. 101); and Winchendon Furniture - Route. 101A, Amherst (near Lowe's).

“This whole experience has been an exercise in humility,” Cheifetz said. “You think you have things figured out, and then come to find out, you really don't.”

Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth

Cheifetz said she's still trying to hammer our a regular schedule of where she'll be (aside from schedule events like Merrimack and Goffstown's farmers markets), but she can be located by following her on Facebook and Twitter.

She also take orders, caters private parties and events and will even deliver orders to your door. Information on how to do all of that is available at her website. She can make gluten-free products to order and will eventually get them into a regular line up, she said.

But right now, it's all a matter of getting her name out there and working her way into locations as permitted by zoning.

This is all new territory around here, she said, nothing is really on the books about food truck vending and getting the zoning laws changed can be time consuming and expensive.

“I do not want to literally fight city hall,” she said. “I need to spend my time in the kitchen and the van, not in board rooms.”

Cheifetz said her goal is to become a household name and she thinks that can happen, but knows it's going to take time and education. She said she's had some strange passing looks from people who haven't caught onto the concept and equate it to selling fake Prada bags out of the trunk of her car.

"This is legit," she said. "I've got stiffer regulations and more licenses than any restaurant."

In the end, Cheifetz said, she just wants to see success and acceptance.

“I want to be successful I want to know that my efforts haven't gone unnoticed and unrewarded,” she said. “I'm very excited about this, I think it's great idea. Food truck everywhere else, but here.”

To learn more about Gone Baking check out the website and follow the business on Facebook and Twitter. Locations of where Cheifetz will be set up and flavors of cupcakes and cookies that day are posted on the social media sites and on her website.