MICHIGAN BUSINESS

LaSorda dad-daughter team launches mail-order bakery

Tom Walsh
Detroit Free Press Columnist

How's this for a new business menu?

Christine, Tom and Doreen LaSorda are all involved in the family affair of launching and expanding A Baker's Tale bakery/cafe and mail order business.

Start with a former automobile company CEO, pair him up with his pastry chef daughter from Chicago, then top things off with a hotshot young restaurateur from Ann Arbor.

It all adds up to A Baker's Tale Mail Order LLC, a startup with an intriguing business model for selling cookies -- and eventually pies, tarts, cakes and other pastries -- across the United States. The mail-order operation is in downtown Birmingham, the kitchen is in Ann Arbor and the founder continues to run her retail shop, A Baker's Tale, in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

Key partners are:

  • Tom LaSorda, 61, former Chrysler CEO and founder of IncWell Venture Capital.
  • Christine LaSorda, 30, his daughter and founder and executive chef of A Baker's Tale bakery/cafe in Chicago.
  • And Sava Lelcaj, 32, CEO of Savco Hospitality, which includes Sava's and Aventura restaurants, babo Markets, and Tavolina Catering & Events, all in Ann Arbor.

At a pre-launch tasting event for the mail-order venture Monday, the three partners talked about how they teamed up and why they think they can break through on a national scale, competing against established brands ranging from Mrs. Fields Cookies to Caroline Cakes, Cookies by Design and David's Cookies.

Sava Lelcaj and Christine LaSorda, partners in A Baker's Tale Mail Order.

Tom LaSorda, who knows a few things about mass production from his manufacturing days at both Chrysler and General Motors, said mail-order is a cost-effective way to extend the brand of A Baker's Tale, because it doesn't involve the capital costs of equipment and real estate for multiple retail outlets. Savco will bake the products at its large commercial kitchen in Ann Arbor, and a LaSorda-owned office in downtown Birmingham -- until now a base for IncWell -- will house a call center for the mail-order operation.

Lelcaj, who burst onto the Ann Arbor food scene with Sava's restaurant in 2007, has since opened Aventura, a Spanish tapas restaurant, plus three "grocerants," combination grocery and small casual diners, and the commercial kitchen.

"I was so awestruck at their  branding," she said, after meeting the LaSordas in May through Ed Whitney, who had designed the kitchens for both Savco and A Baker's Tale.  "Your brand is your story. In this bakery space, it is really competitive and they have such a wonderful edge."

The story Lelcaj alluded to was dreamed up by Christine LaSorda who studied advertising for awhile at Michigan State  before detouring to culinary school at Illinois Institute of Art.  Built into the design of her Chicago bakery/cafe, which seats 45 people inside and up to 24 outside, is a setting reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. And her "Cookie Pack" features eight characters, one for each of her primary cookie products. "The Chunk" is a buff-looking superhero type for the chocolate chunk. "The Canuck," complete with hockey stick and uniform, represents a white chocolate cherry cookie (the LaSordas couldn't resist a nod to their Canadian heritage).

Christine, who opened A Baker's Tale  18 months ago and lives in an apartment above the bakery, said she's cash-flow positive now and intended from the start to build it into something bigger.

Christine LaSorda and her father Tom with cookie character named "The Canuck"

"If you're not growing, you're declining," she said, "so we always had a plan to branch out. The mail order idea was the best bet. I'm able to stay in Chicago and focus on that bakery and what we do there, while still branching out across the country."

Dad, meanwhile, stands in as CEO of the mail-order operation based in a Birmingham storefront at 110 Willits, which is also home to IncWell Venture Capital, which has invested in 36 companies since launching two years ago. "And we haven't lost any yet," LaSorda said.

Sales will be accepted online starting Sept. 14 at www.ABakersTale.com. And before that, the will be promoting the new venture Sept. 4-7 at Arts Beats & Eats in Royal Oak.

This fall, A Baker's Tale Mail Order, will begin sponsoring the weekly "Start Up" show on PBS, with a 15-second promotional spot at the beginning and end of half-hour episodes that profile two U.S. entrepreneurial firms. The first airing of the coming season's episodes in Detroit will be at 1 p.m. Oct. 4, Tom LaSorda said.

Contact Tom Walsh: twalsh@freepress.com, also follow him on Twitter @TomWalsh_freep.