Bakery · Guide Updated August 2026

From Pop-Up Baker to Brick-and-Mortar: How Remy Built Remy Patisserie in Vancouver

Opening a bakery looks like a recipe story. It is actually a permit story, a cash story, and a stamina story. Remy’s path from dishwasher to the owner of Remy Patisserie in Vancouver proves all three.

How Did Remy Start in the Industry?

Remy began as a dishwasher. He liked the kitchen environment because it was hectic, and he did not know what he wanted to do after high school. He kept moving from restaurant to restaurant on purpose, chasing faster growth, because large kitchens can trap you doing the same task for years with no path to management.

The shift happened at Cioppino’s, where he landed in the pastry section. He describes it as calmer than the hot line, more organized, more precise. Desserts require planning well in advance. That suited how his mind works. He then moved to a large Vancouver bakery called Chickpea, where he spent three years learning traditional French pastry. After those three years, he had one clear next thought: open his own store.

He knew he needed coffee knowledge first. Anyone running a bakery knows coffee is second on the menu. So he took a job at Aragon in Richmond, run by an owner who loved both wine and coffee. The owner trusted Remy because of his pastry background and supported him in learning the coffee side. He grew there too, until he hit that familiar ceiling. No more room to grow.

A former chef colleague in Toronto offered him a head baker role at a new 6,000-square-foot bakery facility. He was genuinely tempted. But he stopped and asked himself an honest question: after one or two years there, would he not hit the same ceiling again? His real goal was his own shop, his own freedom. If he had the courage to move to Toronto and leave everything behind, he had enough courage to open something small in Vancouver.

How Did He Build His Brand Before He Had a Storefront?

Remy rented kitchen space inside a cafe called Sweet Barrel. The owner was a friend, a coffee person, who had more kitchen than he needed and was looking for someone to sublet. Remy took it.

In the beginning, nobody knew his name except friends and colleagues. He sold his pastries to the cafe’s existing customers, introduced himself, and built from there. Then he started doing pop-ups, his most important early move.

Moving Coffee, run by his friend Edmond, gave him space on Sundays. Edmond’s customers already wanted something special with their coffee. Remy’s pastries fit. That environment helped catapult him from unknown to someone with a name in the city.

He ran his own Instagram entirely by himself. He was not posting daily. Early on, one photo every two days. Later, less. He admits that is not great marketing strategy, but he had no time. He was baking, selling, cleaning, and marketing alone.

In February he committed to starting the business formally. In March he quit his job at Aragon. At that point he had almost no revenue coming in. He set aside a defined chunk of money, told himself it was money he was willing to burn, and started. His starting budget was $30,000. About six months in, once he saw real traction, he put in another $20,000.

What Made the Pop-Up Model Work, and What Were Its Limits?

Location mattered more than anything for pop-ups. Remy learned this the hard way. His customers were concentrated on Vancouver’s east side and city center. When he did pop-ups far from that, like at UBC on the west side, people did not travel. Sales dropped even though people already knew his name.

His fix was to stop moving. He planted himself at Sweet Barrel and told his audience: this is where I am, if you want it, come here. That worked. Customers came to him. He also grew a new customer base in that neighborhood over time.

Still, pop-ups have a hard ceiling. He was operating once a week because that was all his shared kitchen situation could support. He was carrying delicate pastries by car in summer heat, racing to keep everything cold. The whole operation depended on another person’s infrastructure. He was also growing out of his lane in the shared fridge and workspace. His growth was outpacing his setup.

What Happened When He Hit 200 Christmas Cake Orders?

From October into November his business started climbing. By December, word had spread enough that when he announced his Christmas cake, orders came in so fast he had to cut off the list.

He stopped at around 150. Then a few friends who missed the cutoff asked him personally, so he pushed to roughly 200 cakes. He delivered all of them for Christmas Eve pickup. To do it, he slept four hours total over two days. He worked through the night, went home only to shower and eat, and came back around 2 a.m. to finish assembling, cutting, and pre-packaging.

He had hired one person to help with packaging. The lesson he took from that: hire people earlier than you think you need them, because December is the worst possible time to train someone. He was too busy to slow down and show anyone what to do. Next time, he would bring help on before the rush, not during it.

That Christmas season was the moment he decided he needed his own space. He could not scale further out of a shared kitchen. He needed his own hours, his own fridge, his own oven.

What Permit Nightmares Did He Face Opening His Own Location?

This is where Remy’s story becomes essential reading for any operator planning their first location.

He found a space that was already zoned for a bakery. The previous tenant had been selling cakes but was not baking on-site because she had no oven. In the city’s records, the space was not classified as a baking operation.

Remy assumed a simple business license transfer would take about a week. It took 18 weeks. Part of the delay was COVID, which backlogged city offices and slowed processing significantly. His application sat unread for weeks before anyone touched it.

Once the license finally arrived, he learned he needed a building permit before he could bring in an electrician and plug in ovens, even for minor work. As a new tenant doing anything to the space, a building permit was required. That permit was another 7 to 14 weeks.

From the day he signed the lease to the day he could bake on-site: close to seven months. During that gap his plan was to continue baking at Sweet Barrel and selling finished product at the new location. Not ideal, but workable.

The permit delays cost him nothing in fines but cost him months of potential revenue and real mental energy. He did not sleep well during this stretch. Not because of baking problems or customer problems, but because of city bureaucracy.

His honest reflection: he blames himself partly for not knowing how the system worked before he signed. If he had researched the permit process in Vancouver before taking the space, he would have budgeted those months into his timeline from the start.

Does Having a Business Partner Make Sense?

Remy ran everything solo. He baked, marketed, delivered, cleaned, and handled all admin himself. One reason that was survivable: he had no dependents, no mortgage, no obligations that required a steady income. He could set aside a defined amount, $30,000, decide it was money he could lose, and absorb the risk personally.

A business partner can help carry that risk, split the workload, and cover your blind spots. But a partner also means shared decision-making and shared ownership. Remy did not need a partner to get started. What he needed was a clear ceiling on how much he was willing to lose and the discipline to stop if he hit it.

If you are not in a position to absorb losses alone, a partner can make the risk survivable. If you are, going solo keeps the decisions clean. Neither path is automatically right. What matters is that you know exactly how much you can lose before you sign anything.

The Bottom Line

Remy’s story is not about pastry skill. He had that. It is about one operator who kept moving toward his real goal, step by step, even when the path took longer than planned. Permit delays, solo Christmas chaos, shared-kitchen growing pains: none of it stopped him. It just adjusted the timeline. Build your budget around what the process actually costs, not what you hope it costs, and you will not be surprised when the city takes 18 weeks to do what you thought would take one.

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