Local Talent PHOTO Andrew Hutchins INTERVIEW Dan Mathers
Dave Yori opened Yori's Church Street Bakery when he was only 25, but he already had a decade of experience under his belt Did you go to school for this? I went to West Chester University for business management. So that taught the business end. Going to school helps you get an understanding for things like accounting and human resources and managing people, and it helped, but what really helped was working in a bakery. When did you get your first bakery job? I was 15, and I was looking for a summer job, and this bakery wanted a pair of hands—someone to clean, take out the trash, sweep, mop, that kind of stuff. Kind of a lowly beginning. I didn’t plan on this career. It just happened that they needed somebody, and I was willing to
go talk to them. Plus, I could ride my bike there from my parents’ house. How'd you get into the baking? At first I helped the baker with stuff that didn’t need much skill—putting cookies on pans, greasing pans, busywork that needed to get done. I was slowly taking on new tasks—started putting donuts on screens, then frying them, then I was making cookies. It didn’t require baking skill, but I learned a lot just from watching him. Eventually it reached the point where he’d leave me a list of stuff: make these cookies, or this buttercream. Still, at the end of the day I was washing pots and pans. What was the next step in your evolution? When I got to college I still worked a couple days a week, but I wasn’t a potwasher anymore. I started getting jobs like making danishes or the cookies, or he’d leave me a recipe for sweet dough and say, "Make this for tomorrow." What'd you do when you graduated? After I graduated college in 2009 I went back home and I went to work for him part-time. I was also working at a bagel place three days a week because I wanted varied experience. After a year I left the bagel shop and went full-time at the bakery.
I also found another bakery in Broomall where I got a part-time job after I told the owner I was looking to learn more. How many hours a week were you working? I was probably working 60 to 70 hours a week. I was living with my parents, working a lot, making decent money, and I was able to put a lot away. In fall of 2011 I started looking around for potential properties and in January of 2012 I was able to sign the lease with Zukin. That's when my girlfriend, Alyssa Cannon, who's now my fiancée, and I started really getting things together here. How’d you decided on this type of bakery? I was familiar with it—a GermanAmerican type of bakery with the danishes, and sticky buns, and cakes, and cookies, and butter cakes. I’d been doing that, and I liked it. Four years later, you happy with the way things have worked out? West Chester is a great town. The people here like to support small, local businesses, and they go out of their way to do so. I couldn’t have asked for a better location. I love my job; I enjoy putting out a great product, and every year has been better than the last, so at least I’m going in the right direction.
FEBRUARY 2016 THEWCPRESS.COM
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