If you're a hard worker and you're looking for a job, Jeff Cleary wants to hear from you. Cleary was forced to temporarily close his Grateful Bread Company earlier this week after a series of mishaps left his already-depleted team at a critical low. "Normally I need twelve to fourteen bakers to keep things going," the baker explains (he had 23 when we interviewed him for Chef and Tell in 2014). "I'm down to four."
Cleary says he's been trying to hire and train as he goes, but he's had to spend more time manning the ovens himself because of the shortage. "I have no choice," he notes. So he and his remaining employees had been working overtime to keep bread going out the door to Grateful Bread's many accounts, but it proved a losing battle.
The bakery, located at 425 Violet Street in a warehouse district in Golden, will continue producing bread for key customers until this Saturday, June 23, and then will cease operations until July 13. "I'll hire over the next two weeks and then I have to train," Cleary says. He had already closed the bakery's Saturday retail shop earlier this month because of the employee shortage.
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