Jess Bretzlaff
THE IDEA behind Jess Bretzlaff’s family business is a simple one.
“Make really awesome Montreal-style bagels,” she says of The Bagel Oven, which opened in St. Catharines in 2014.
Several kinds of classic bagels, baked in a very hot oven using cast iron plating to mimic wood fire, are on the menu.
The company started small, baking one day a week out of the kitchen at Congregation B’nai Israel for eight months before expanding to a full-time operation.
Plans are underway to eventually move the business to Niagara Falls, where the family lives.
While getting things started, Bretzlaff looked for a little assistance.
After visiting the Small Business Enterprise Centre in St. Catharines, she was tipped off about the microlending program offered through FirstOntario Credit Union.
“It allowed us to, first of all, get our name – the business – into some kind of lending scenario where we would start building credit and have some separate banking associated with the business,” she said.
With the $2,500 she was able to borrow, Bretzlaff purchased a couple of mediumsized commercial grade mixers, their first cast iron plating for the oven, and other equipment.
“It wasn’t a ton of money but it meant that we didn’t have to pay it out of pocket,” she says. They were also able to pay back the small sum within a year.
Bretzlaff expects she would have been able to start her business without the help of a microloan, but having one made things easier. She wasn’t working at the time, so accumulating debt on a credit card, for example, wasn’t ideal.
“The idea that we’d start off with a debt that had a high interest rate on it really wasn’t appealing. This opportunity really made us comfortable in the fact that we could start, and it was a reasonable amount to invest, and we weren’t really going to get in over our head.”
Working with FirstOntario was easy, she says. The process was simple, and she didn’t feel overly scrutinized.
“It gave me a feeling that I could have a credible business even though I had been a housewife for several years.”
Advice for others
“The advice that I had been given that I really agree with is: keep your capital investment low and keep your capital expenditures low … If you have a very large loan, likely you’re going to make more mistakes.”
Key benefit of the program
“That (a) loan was made available to me.”