DIVINELY DELICIOUS
The pandemic hurt his start-up. A church is helping it survive.
Alan Goodman’s startup Milwaukee bakery was gaining more visibility when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, hurting his business.
But he’s hanging in there thanks to community support — including help from a central city church that’s expanding its social justice mission. “The timing — the divine timing — just kind of worked out,” Goodman said. Goodman operates A Goodman’s Desserts LLC, which sells cookies, cakes and other scratch-baked treats. He launched the business in October 2018 after spending most of his professional life working in the financial services industry.
A Goodman’s Desserts was selling items through its website and at farmer’s markets when in September 2019 it won the Rev-Up Mke small business plan competition sponsored by Near Side West Partners Inc., a nonprofit neighborhood improvement group.
Along with winning prizes, including $10,000 of startup business funding from WaterStone Bank, A Goodman’s Desserts also connected with the Ambassador Hotel, an anchor business for the near west side at 2308 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Goodman was to rent the Ambassador’s commercial kitchen to make baked goods for the hotel’s restaurants and his other customers.
But the pandemic’s onset in March plunged the U.S. economy into a recession, with restaurants and hotels among the industries most severely affected.
Goodman’s plans to use the Ambassador’s kitchen went on hiatus with the hotel closing in mid-March.
However, those plans soon will be revived with the hotel’s Aug. 13 reopening, said Goodman and Rick Wiegand, the Ambassador’s owner.
Meanwhile, Goodman had been part of a panel discussion about entrepreneurship sponsored by Near West Side Partners.
The Rev. Lisa Bates-Froiland, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, 631 N. 19th St., was in the audience. Goodman made an impression.
“Both his humility and competence came screaming through,” BatesFroiland said.
Members of Redeemer Lutheran’s racially diverse congregation had been discussing ways to help small businesses in their near west side neighborhood, she said.
Those efforts gained more urgency in the wake of both the pandemic’s economic downturn, as well as a greater focus on racial injustice with George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer, Froiland said.
“We want to be a neighbor in the community,” she said, “and not just some big imposing edifice on the corner.”
Bates-Froiland in May approached Goodman about serving as the baker for church social events.
That included offering to pay two months rent at the Ambassador’s kitchen used by Goodman, with the money donated by church members the Rev. Mick Roschke, a retired Lutheran pastor, and his wife, Judy, a retired teacher.
“They just did it out of the goodness of their hearts,” Goodman said.
“That kind of allyship ... I thought it was awesome,” he said. “And really needed.”
In a thank you video, posted at the church’s Facebook page, Goodman said, “It’s good to know that we have partners in the community, and in the struggle, like Redeemer Lutheran Church.”
The church has been conducting virtual Sunday services during the pandemic, so Goodman hasn’t yet provided baked goods for post-service social time.
But he just got an order for some cookies as part of a going-away celebration for a church staff member who’s leaving for another job.
Goodman also is eager to renew plans to use the Ambassador’s kitchen.
He was on his way to finalizing a wholesale deal with a new customer before COVID-19 hit hard this spring. With the hotel’s kitchen expected to be available within a month or so, Goodman hopes to revive that pending wholesale contract.
His goal is to grow A Goodman’s Desserts
to the point where he can hire young people from Milwaukee’s central city.
“It’s not just about doing business,” Goodman said. “Whatever community I’m located in, I want to be part of that community.”
Goodman got started in baking because of a punishment from his mom.
That happened when Goodman was a teenager in Philadelphia, his hometown.
He was supposed to be studying at the library — but instead was playing basketball with his friends. Goodman’s mom found out and made him stay home to help bake.
“Initially, I didn’t like it because I could hear my friends playing outside,” Goodman said.
But he enjoyed following the process of baking and the end result. Watching family members enjoy what he baked “gave me a bit of a rush,” Goodman said.
Goodman, 50, continued baking as a hobby through college and a long career at GE Capital.
He and wife, Lisa, in 2004 moved to Milwaukee from the Philadelphia area. The couple and their three children live in a home which the Goodmans built in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood on the city’s north side.
In Milwaukee, Goodman also began baking bread pudding — which became a favorite of friends and family.
“People would ask why I wasn’t selling it,” he said.
So, after taking a course in entrepreneurship and armed with a broad range of business knowledge from his years at GE Capital, Goodman launched A Goodman’s Desserts two years ago.
His first commercial kitchen was provided by Tandem Restaurant. In return, he supplied bread pudding for the restaurant.
It was a convenient arrangement. Tandem, at 1848 W. Fond Du Lac Ave., is located just a few minutes from Goodman’s house.
Tandem chef Caitlin Cullen praised Goodman’s hustle, friendliness and integrity.
“He’s a good dude,” Cullen said, “and he’s got a great product.”
And, although Milwaukee is known for its long history of racial segregation, Goodman said his perspective as someone who didn’t grow up here helped him navigate that landscape while launching A Goodman’s Desserts.
That approach, Goodman said, was honed while growing up in Philadelphia’s large Black community and from years of experience in corporate America.
With the pandemic, Goodman has cut back on baking. Along with operating the business, he is chair of the Quality Engineering Technology Department at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
But Goodman is looking forward to again growing A Goodman’s Desserts.
“Milwaukee has been good to us,” he said.