After a Lengthy Labor, Rocket Baby is Born on North Avenue

It was a protracted gestation and a deliberate delivery, but North Avenue gave birth Wednesday to a healthy Rocket Baby Bakery.

Geoff Trenholme opened his doors early to customers who have been wishing him well and waiting, patiently and eagerly, for a year for his fresh-baked breads and pastries.

That's how long it's been since Trenholme bought the '50s-era building at 6822 W. North Ave., formerly office space, and began stripping it to its shell to turn it into a combination cafe and commercial bakery space.

In fact, the bakery is still getting its finishing touches. Customers had to skirt a scaffold Wednesday as painters put a coat of eye-pleasing periwinkle on Rocket Baby's facade.

Trenholme said he had been worried that exterior painting and trim might not be complete in time for his grand opening, scheduled for April 21.

"I was afraid the weather wouldn't cooperate," he said. "But as it turned out, that was no problem at all."

It's all in the family

It's important to Trenholme and his wife, Shannon, that the bakery's ceremonial launch take place on time. The 21st is the second birthday of their son, Raiden – i.e., Rocket Baby.

In the meantime, word of the bakery's "soft opening" had gotten around, and a steady stream of customers stopped in throughout the morning. Rocket Baby is open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

For the time being, the Trenholme's are putting out only the fare they believe they have brought to near perfection, but they plan a much broader selection to come.

"The baguettes are there, the croissants are definitely there," Geoff Trenholme said. "The ciabatta, we are putting out, but I'd have to say it's just almost there."

He uses only natural ingredients, locally sourced where possible.

"We have such great products here in Wisconsin," he said, "like Sassy Cow milk and Yuppie Hill eggs. They cost twice as much but you can really taste the difference – you can taste those ingredients in the finished bread."

Training under a top bakery chef

Trenholme's standards are high, and his training has been diligent. He studied under master French baker Michel Suas at the San Francisco Baking Institute. Suas also helped lay out the design of Rocket Baby's kitchen.

"We spent 10 years in California," Trenholme said, "and thought about starting a business. But artisanal bread took off there in the '90s, and it's thoroughly saturated."

They decided to move to Wauwatosa because this is where Shannon grew up, and felt that the market was more than open to French-style bakery. They don't plan to go into cakes, but they do intend to start selling sandwiches.

Trenholme overbuilt his baking kitchen with the intention of doing at least 50 percent of his business selling specialty breads to area grocers.

"In looking at the successful bakers in San Francisco, they were doing about half retail and half or a little more wholesale – maybe 40 percent retail," he said. "So that's kind of a target, and we built the capacity to do a lot."

Shannon's specialty is cookies, and one customer said her macaroons are "to die for."

A neighborhood booster helps fill the till

That customer was district Ald. Bobby Pantuso, who spent a good part of his morning working "in my office" on his laptop at a sunny table, munching croissants as well as macaroons.

Pantuso has been a big booster of Rocket Baby since Trenholme first approached the city about redeveloping the tired, outdated building.

"Rocket Baby is a perfect example of someone seeing the North Avenue Plan and saying, 'I want to be part of that, I am opening there.'" Pantuso said.

In what is a very old business district, the Trenholmes' project is yet something of a pioneer. It's really the first business to take root under the guidance of the long-term redevelopment plan for the avenue.

The identifies the two-block area that includes Trenholme’s building as the first area within the 16-block business district for redevelopment.

Trenholme secured a $74,250 Community Development Block Grant for new equipment, a grant tied to new job creation. The bakery is expected to create five full-time positions within the first year. He also had city support to gain approval for a low-interest $100,000 loan through the city’s Revolving Loan Fund.

However, Trenholme also invested a lot of his own money, and has spent all together about $875,000 getting Rocket Baby off the ground. He self-financed the purchase of the building and initial demo work, then had to apply for outside financing to complete the rehab.

"If I had it to do over again, I'd probably have gotten all the financing done to begin with," he said. "It did delay things to have to find other financing in the middle of the project."

The beginning of something big, alderman believes

Pantuso thinks both Trenholme's and the city's money will prove to have been well spent.

"I believe that this is the beginning of a tidal wave that's going to hit North Avenue, of new development that's going in," Pantuso said. "We've got this going in – I can't tell you how excited I am about that – and we've got activity across the street.

"Obviously, we've got O'Reilly Auto Parts going in. It's not the ideal, yeah, but we've got an owner who's willing to spend some money on North Avenue, do the landscaping right, redo the building.

"We've got the North Avenue Grill going in further up the street. I'll be quite honest – people who are getting in now are getting a good deal, and I think in a couple years people are going to wish they had gotten into North Avenue now, before we drive the rents and property values up with these great businesses."