Check Out Lisa Balcom’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Balcom.

Hi Lisa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in New Jersey on thre acres of land shared between my family and my grandparents. The majority of the property were massive gardens my grandparents tended to with all the fruit and vegetables you could think of. I believe my affinity for farm fresh produce started there. While there were no chefs in my family, we always sat down to a home cooked meal every night, often made from the abundance of food grown in our backyard. I still have fond memories of plucking sun-ripened raspberries and blueberries from the bush and popping them directly in my mouth for a snack, climbing the crab apple tree and plucking them from the branches to drop them on an unsuspecting passerby, and eating some of the sweetest corn in the world that we had just picked and schucked that afternoon on the back porch. A few years after graduating high school, I moved to Savannah, Georgia to go to art school and scored a job as a bartender at a local dive. In my spare time, I obsessively would collect cookbooks, food magazines (Gourmet was my FAVORITE), and watch food network to learn how to feed myself. My days off would be filled with scouring the local markets all over town looking for gourmet and obscure ingredients to cook whatever it was that was inspiring me at the time. Amazon was still just a book company back then and not many gourmet food companies were available to the home cook at the time so cooking something “gourmet” meant going on an adventure, which was in itself fun and exciting. My love and desire to learn more about food and delve deeper into the culinary side of the industry finally pushed me to apply to culinary school. I knew that this meant I’d have to give up my pretty comfortable lifestyle in Savannah, but my desire to learn was too strong and only being limited by the current place I was in. Johnson and Wales accepted me into their pastry program, and thanks to my experience and obsession cooking at home and reading, I got accepted into their advanced standing program.

Upon graduating, I accepted a job at a luxury hotel where I’d done my internship. Patrick was already working there and we became friends. (Patrick) In high school. I worked for my brother in-law at a country club with his chef. This was the summer before my senior year and I hadn’y made a decision yet on college. I connected so deeply with what I was learning at the country club, that it inspired me to apply to Johnson and Wales in Charlotte and I got accepted. After finishing my culinary arts degree, I started working in luxury hotels and eventually met Lisa at The Ballantyne Hotel and Lodge in South Charlotte. About three months after we had started dating, we decided to move to Charleston, SC. We’d been to visit friends and Charleston has such a vibrant food and drink scene that we’d decided we wanted to live there and spent the next 6 years working around some of the best chefs and best restaurants on the east coast. We can both honestly say, working in Charleston changed our perspective on what great food and hospitality truly means and it has been ingrained in us forever. Feeling a little restless and ready for a change of scenery and climate, we decided to move out to Colorado a couple years ago. Patrick took a sous chef job at Blackbelly right after we moved. I bounced around from working as a server at Brasserie 1010, then pastry cook at Safta in Denver, briefly helped open Rosetta Hall, and then took the pastry chef position at Blackbelly for the past year and a half. For a long time, my schedule was often opposite of Patrick’s. He would work nights, I was working early mornings and we really only saw each other on days off.

When Covid hit last year, our schedules finally found themselves aligned again. There were no more late nights for him and my morning shifts started a little later. We began having the time to be with one another again. Because of this, we had decided to start working on a business plan in our spare time together. Not really knowing when or how we would get a project like this off the ground, we just kept plugging away at it until we had a pretty good rough draft. One day with a chance encounter while we were getting pizza, I got introduced by another entrepreneur to a nonprofit start up incubator program called EforAll. It was three days before the application deadline was due, so I immediately went home and filled out the application online. We wound up getting a call for an interview and got accepted to the program. We got paired with three mentors for a year, plus three months of business classes from local leaders. This accelerated us far beyond what I think we would have achieved without it and I’m so grateful we had the chance to work with this program.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think working in the food industry in itself is a challenge every day. We are all on our feet for long hours, doing manual labor with few if any breaks, and dealing with the general public and their needs. We work nights, weekends, early mornings, and sometimes holidays. This industry never really sleeps. Even in your time off, things keep chugging ahead and its sometimes challenging to jump back into the rhythym of things once you get back from a vacation or even just a couple days off. It often means missing holidays and family events, and having to work when everyone else is playing. Despite those things, however, I can’t imagine doing anything else. The adrenaline fuels you, the heartfelt moments of appreciation from your guests can touch you like no other and creating a beautiful experience through your food and hospitality is something most of us in this industry would agree is the reason we all keep getting out of bed and coming back for more.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a pastry chef, and while I don’t discriminate, I especially love French and Middle Eastern cooking and flavor profiles. While I enjoy all aspects of pastry and baking, I’ve recently become most known for my doughnuts that I serve as a special on Friday mornings at Blackbelly. Each week, I make around 100 doughnuts of whatever flavor I choose. I start putting them out at the counter at 8 AM and usually by 9 they’re completely sold out. I’ve had people drive down from the mountains, up from Denver and all over to come get their doughnut fix. People will call early in the week to pre-order without even knowing the flavor. Its really become quite a thing in Boulder! I’m looking forward to bringing them up to Longmont at our restaurant / bakery Longmont Bakehouse. What sets me apart from others, is probably my obsessive desire to learn and make the best food I possibly can from the best possible ingredients. What I’m most excited about in our new project is getting to source EVERYTHING we can from local producers, ranchers and artisans. All of our flours will be from organically grown and freshly milled grains, our sugar will come from a local co-op, all of our meats will come from local pasture raised/ grass fed animals, our produce will be grown here in Longmont and in Colorado. Our concept is really about community and eating real, high quality foods at a reasonable price point. (Patrick) I am a chef. I love creating dishes inspired by whatever happens to be in season. My specialty is French cooking with a Southern influence and using the highest quality, fresh produce and meat. My passion stems from working with all of the amazing farmers, artisans and ranchers we have in this area. My goal is to help better connect the farmers with other local chefs and open the dialog between what chefs want and what farmers are growing. Currently, I see a disparity in the communication between the two and I’d like to work to close that gap. Our farmers and ranchers are the life blood of the food industry here and I want to see and help them thrive. I’m intensely proud of the relationships I’ve been able to forge with our farmers in the two years I’ve been at Blackbelly and going to local farmers markets. I’m also so excited for the project my wife and I are working on at Longmont Bakehouse. We’ve put a lot of time, energy and thought into this and it’s going to feel amazing opening the doors and bringing something of this caliber to Longmont. I think something that really sets me apart from others is doing what’s right even when its not convinient and having a keen attention to detail. I want to know that the food I put out is the absolute best it can be, no matter how busy I am. I’m excited to coach my staff to work on this same level and bring them up to a point that when or if they decide to leave, they can lead in the next position they take or can work their way up in our organization.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
(Lisa) I have so many cookbooks I love, but a few of my stand outs are any book by Yotam Ottolenghi, “La Gran Cocina Latina” by Maricel Presilla, “Mastering Spice” by Lior Sercarz, “Jam Session” by Joyce Goldstein, Sarah Owens’ cookbooks, Julie Richardson’s cookbooks, “Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast” by Ken Forkish “Burn the Place” by Iliana Regan Podcasts: Entrepreneurs on Fire, Cherry Bombe, Tony Robbins, The Model Health Show, Bulletproof Radio, Smart Passive Income TV: Chef Show and Chef’s Table on Netflix, food documentaries (Patrick) 6 Seasons by Joshua McFadden, anything by Yotam Ottolenghi, Southern Table by Frank Stitts, Podcasts: Opening Soon, Entrpreneurs of Fire, Joe Rogan TV: Chef Show and Chef’s Table on Netflix.

Contact Info:

• Email: whatsup@longmontbakehouse.com
• Website: www.longmontbakehouse.com
• Instagram: @chef_lisa_balcom @chefpattyb @longmontbakehouse
• Facebook: @longmontbakehouse
• Twitter: @longmontbh

Image Credits
Lisa Balcom