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Today’s guest columnist is David Beckett.
Rewarding my patience.
The line can stretch out onto the street and through several storefronts.
Customers line up early and the bakery closes when all the pastries are sold.
And what a story.
This is something I never expected to find when I moved to Birmingham.
For the record, I’m relatively new to Birmingham, having only arrived two years ago when a hurricane destroyed 115,000+ homes in my former home county of Florida. I had to admit my loss of musical chairs and had to deal with the resulting housing insecurity.
So, stating up front that I’m not from around here, I offer the perspective of what I’m often reminded is that of an “outsider” (as if that’s inherently less than).
One treasure that opened up around the time of my arrival is Baking the last callnear the central post office complex. But around the shop’s first anniversary, they experienced one of the worst things imaginable: they received a James Beard Award nomination.
The bakery specializes in croissant dough that is fermented, then laminated one layer at a time to build the 120 strips, in the context of a temperature-controlled environment and a three-day process.
The owner, Chana Willis, is self-taught, thanks to books and YouTube videos. They had saved the money to rent the building and provide the equipment, then the pandemic hit. After the forced delay, the moment was right and the bakery was born.
Experience is something that is acquired after one has needed it, and being self-taught and self-funded breeds fear of exposure to what one does not yet know. Receiving the James Beard nomination flooded the firm with new clients. From an external point of view, everything reads like a success.
I remember talking to a friend in the late 1980s, shortly after she was named the first woman to reach an executive position at IBM. She was seeing a therapist to bridge the gap between the success she had achieved and her feelings, which didn’t feel the way she expected. The friction between the tectonic plates put her at risk of unconscious self-sabotage. My observation is that Bham is in a similar place with its recent growth and changes.
In my opinion, Last Call Baking models a new and nourishing form of community leadership. Inside the humble walls of the bakery, they offer a haven for people who might be seen as disenfranchised and sometimes demonized by some in Birmingham’s dominant church circle.
Last Call offers not a refuge but a refuge to something greater, as the quality standards of their pastries have been recognized with an award nomination, customers regularly queue for 45 minutes and the bakery usually sells out for just 2-2.5 hours after opening.
Last spring I was both disappointed and inspired when a sign on the door announced that they would not be opening. They were unable to control the temperatures as the outside quickly climbed into the 90s, so they threw away their dough rather than sell a subpar product.
As customers volunteer to stand in line, a sense of community is built as strangers describe their favorite sweets, with whom they intend to share their treats, or describe the item they ordered. The experience reminds me that value comes in several forms in addition to just financial value, and for that reminder I am grateful to the bakery staff.
Through their nonverbal example, the people of Last Call build community, encourage one to be authentic, model the benefit of raising one’s standards, and provide a vessel for making new friends.
Visiting Last Call reminds me that before I am an individual, I am a social being and I am grateful for their role in being a social hub that brings people together at a time when society is increasingly divided.
Crew models how to be authentic, gives permission to have dreams and shows how to move past the uncomfortable feelings when we achieve them, addresses the call to be part of something bigger, as well as the desire to find a vast community with which one can share .
I’m grateful to be reminded that not everything can be boiled down to popular metrics like the number of calories in a delicious pastry.
My soul needs to be fed, too, and the flour-dusted crew at Last Call Baking shows me how.
David Beckett received an Ivy League degree but is more content to have had a successful trade. He has lived and worked on four continents and is an independent researcher with a track record of creating new technologies that birth new industries.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He was chairman of Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham) and City Action Partnership (CAP).
Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous Birmingham Metro. [email protected]