Roux Bakehouse finds the right ingredients to make its social presence rise

“I don’t know if it would've happened in a different city,” says Amy Grimba, who co-founded Roux Bakehouse alongside baker Hayley Turnbull in 2023.

“When you're in a bigger city where there are millions of people going in all different directions, you don't have that same ability to draw in the community and tell them your story,” says Grimba. “It becomes more of a quick grab and go.”

But Roux Bakehouse is built around that connection. It’s the amalgamation of Grimba’s local milk delivery service and Turnbull’s baked goods business, a farmer’s market mainstay in the area – both of which sought to connect the community with locally made food.

Roux Bakehouse expands on that, partnering with local producers and baking its much-loved sourdough goods in-house.

“People will come into the shop and all of a sudden there’s a clustering of people and it feels like a reunion-type situation where everyone’s chatting,” says Grimba.

However, creating that kind of space also means building a solid brand, something Grimba and Turnbull put a lot of thought into. They understood the power of e-commerce and social media presence – they’d both sold online and run subscription services with their past businesses. But they wanted to elevate that this time around, says Grimba.

As Roux Bakehouse was launching, Grimba heard about Digital Main Street, a program combining grants, digital training and one-to-one support from the Province of Ontario alongside partners to help main street businesses strengthen their online capabilities and plan for the digital future. Roux Bakehouse applied for the $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant.

“The grant helped us hire an SEO specialist to optimize what we had built (digitally),” says Grimba. “We couldn't otherwise justify the cost to have that done.”

But more than the grant, the training has helped them continually improve their digital presence.

“We are continuously using insight (from Digital Main Street) or passing it on to our marketing specialist and social media person – things like the little seminars and articles about cyber safety and converting email subscribers to sales,” says Grimba. “They have so many great resources outside of the grant.”

All of it has helped to extend Roux Bakehouse’s reach – and build community – both physically and digitally beyond the Belmont Neighbourhood.

“Our energy is mostly towards connecting virtually… we’ve invested a lot of time in our Instagram and email subscribers,” says Grimba. “Those are things that we've been able to dive into because of the grant and having to sit down and actually take a moment to create a digital plan.”

Check out Roux Bakehouse for delicious pastries on their website, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Learn more about how Digital Main Street can support your small business here.