We absolutely cannot believe it's been TWO YEARS since we opened our doors here in Springfield, MO.
It is not lost on us how incredibly lucky we are for our great staff, our beautiful building, our committed partners and for YOU, our loyal customers. Without you we'd just be an odd group of people baking great bread with no one to sell it to.
Here are a few memories from 2017. It was an odd year, a hard year in many ways, and yet we're big believers in taking time to stop and smell the roses; to reflect and post pictures and think about all the awesome things we got to experience in our second year of business.
In January we were named "The Face of Specialty Bread" for the 417 region. We were also voted "second best new restaurant" to have opened in the previous year by 417 magazine and area readers. Thank you!
We made gorgeous Red Velvet Croissants with Askinosie chocolate for Valentine's Day. We helped our friends at Expedia celebrate International Women's Day with "Be Bold" cookies and created these awesome logo cookies for Care to Learn to help raise funds for their work in our local public schools.
In April we took our entire staff bowling. We had some pretty excellent bowlers with high scores! We were impressed. We've started a team called the "dough-rollers" - let us know if you'd like to join ;)
In May we promoted Jamie to the position of head baker. She has done a fantastic job leading our bake team fearlessly into a new era for Neighbor's Mill.
Summer brought picture-perfect pies, seasonal salads with fresh fruit and iced coconut lattes!
How could we forget the eclipse? What a cool day. We made fun cookies and took a break for our entire staff to watch the peak of the event outside our building.
We had a MASSIVE catering order (450 box lunches!) in September and also had the honor of catering lunch for the Governor of Missouri while he was speaking at the E-Factory. We felt very honored to have been asked.
We tested and later rolled out some new bakery items: fruit danish, pretzels and fudgy brownies just to name a few. (ps. being the taste-tester for new recipes is really hard work, but someone's gotta do it....)
October was hard as we said good-bye to Caleb, our beloved bakery manager who helped us open this location and had been with Neighbor's Mill for seven years. Caleb, we miss you every day!
Somehow most of our staff ended up in a pumpkin patch together. We also dressed up for Halloween and made the most fantastic scary cookies ever!
November was a BIG month! We debuted new bread label stickers on our breads, after 17 years of the old paper labels. We helped open our newest location in Rogers, AR. We baked TONS of dinner rolls and pies for Thanksgiving.
December was crazy busy but we had a fun time during it. We had our "12 days of Christmas cookies," made a masterpiece gingerbread house, had our Christmas tree stolen (strangest happening of the year, for sure!) and partied hard with our staff for Christmas. We also partnered with Ozarks Food Harvest for the second year to raise money for their work fighting hunger in our community. With your help, we were able to donate $2,000 to their organization at the end of the year!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU once again for supporting us. Thank you for your friendship, for your loyalty to Neighbor's Mill, and for helping us to improve and grow every day. We love what we do. And we're grateful to serve the Springfield community year after year.
Come #breakbreadwithneighbors. We hope to see you soon!
Lauren, Clif & the entire Neighbor's Mill Springfield team!
