Burrow Sweet Burrow | Felix's Bakery
When you think Bakery, you think small. When you think Cafe, you think even smaller. But Felix was not one to think so small about something as important as baked goods. His bakery just from looking at the outside, was a giant building with multiple levels. The exterior looked like a stereotypical bakery, that was for sure. All of the standard frills and cute little outdoor eating areas that were standard for cafes, all painted in a nice classic brown with a bit of red and white within it. Gingerbread colors, as expected from a bun that looked like gingerbread himself. The wooden sign placed outside the door had a nice gentle-looking bit of calligraphy, stating that the building was called 'Gingerbakery'. A nice and charming little title that implied that most of the goods inside were made of gingerbread- but that would be an incorrect assumption. It was meant to pull in those wanting a bit of festive flair before the winter season, only for Felix to grab onto them with the other baked goods he could create.
When someone entered the cafe through the wooden door, they would be met with the first floor, meant for the most standard bakery activities. Making baked goods where everyone could see and selling them straight from the oven. There was a dining area on this floor too, which could only be seen slightly through the open doorway that connected the two rooms. The entry room had a tiled floor that was kept as clean as physically possible, the tiles themselves having little drawings of gingerbread and frosting-covered cupcakes on them. The cooking area was separated from the customers' space by a large countertop of marble with glass panels above it. On the customer's side, there were plenty of display cases to show all the goodies that one could buy from the store, and with the number of display cases... there were a ton of options. Nothing in the cases repeated, you could honestly find anything you could think of as long as it classified as a baked good in some capacity. Something was ominous about it though... if you thought about it too much, you might think about how one place shouldn't reasonably be able to keep up with such a large selection... and that some of the display cases looked similar to the menus of other cafes and bakeries that had been shut down in the years past. But it's better if nobody thinks too hard, after all, they wouldn't want to interrupt such a calming and enjoyable atmosphere with their overthinking, would they?
Over the marble counter, there were multiple stations meant for others to watch the bakers as they rolled out dough and created the masterpieces that were displayed in the cases. And of course, the ovens were built into the wall and had glass doors along with lights inside the ovens so that the customers could watch as the dough rose and the pastries went from mushy lumps of dough to crisp and tasty delights. Some of the ovens were closer to the marble counter than others, and those were actively marked out with little warning signs to make sure that nobody tried to touch them while they were in use. Part of those signs of course mentioned that if someone got hurt doing just that, then the company wasn't liable for anything.
There was a small opening in the marble counter meant for someone to sell the recently created treats, of course for a boosted price due to them being quite literally fresh out of the oven, along with the luxury of having at least seven people watch your treat be made. Some people found that kind of attention exhilarating.
Through the doorway was the dining area, where those wanting some of the bakery's goodies could sit and relax and eat indoors instead of taking them to go. The tables were all decorated with lace tablecloths and little statues of various bakery activities. Some of them had statues of bakers pulling things out of ovens, some had statues of bakers rolling out dough. The stools also had a bit of lace on them attached to the cushions that sat on top of them. Some of them had slight differences between the patterns, but it wasn't truly noticeable with the amount of tables there were in the room. Some of them already had plates sitting out, and those same tables had little plastic stands with numbers on them- obviously reserved tables that were marked out for later.
There was a doorway for servers to move in and out of the kitchen, and the kitchen area was a lot like the small bakery section in the lobby room, but a lot less joyous. While the rooms outside of the kitchen had some calming music playing all around the clock, the kitchen was only full of the sounds of skins and beeping ovens. This was where most of the actual work was done, the hard work that wasn't pretty enough for the show kitchen. It wouldn't be surprising that dough could fall onto the ground from overflowing bowls, or burnt baked goods would flood the entire space with a horrible smell. Typically, the buns that caused such incidents would be fired- but sometimes they stuck around only because Felix liked them- they'd learn eventually, wouldn't they?
The only bit of the kitchen that could be seen from the dining room was where the decorators worked. It was a much calmer space that didn't have the risk of making the bakery look like a nightmare. Besides, who wouldn't enjoy watching someone decorate a cake every once in a while? Even if someone made the cake look bad, it was still kind of charming to watch. And when you watched it and saw the baker act all embarrassed about it, you'd be more likely to pay a decent amount just to make sure you didn't hurt their feelings. Running an establishment like this wasn't just about selling a good product, it was manipulating emotions to squeeze every carat out of pathetic soft-hearted suckers that tended to go to bakeries like this.
There was a set of stairs in the dining area that curved upwards to a secondary dining space for more high-class customers. The tables were larger, the decorations were a lot more intricate, and were mostly in gold, but of course, the servings were smaller. Felix knew rich people, and they would pay twice as much for half the pastry just because they thought that it was 'richer' in some capacity. It was an excellent way to get more money for less work, and the bakers that worked in this section of the kitchen had to agree. The kitchen up here was a lot less chaotic than the kitchen below it- though it looked exactly the same. The buns working up here knew what they were doing a lot more than those still being indoctrinated- I mean- trained, downstairs. It also certainly helped that they didn't need to worry about making giant loaves of bread or caring too much about making something look pretty. Rich people had a strange way of seeing something with a small imperfection and appreciating it for obviously being homemade. A duality of them settling for less while also finding imperfection 'quaint'. God, Felix loved rich people. They were the best bunny banks that a business owner could ask for.
Outside of the second dining area was something that most people wouldn't expect to see in a place like this. Office cubicles. Of course, this was a base of operations for a business, there had to be someplace for the people handling money to do their work. And Felix had a lot of money to handle and keep an eye on. Not to mention all of the other different business-based endeavors that required a lot of computer use. Be it from figuring out what pastries to add to the menu, to obtaining new buildings and buying small businesses to merge into the main company.
And of course, beyond the cubicles meant for the employees, there was a specific office for Felix- a much more decorative space covered in red carpet with multiple couches. There were also two flatscreen televisions on the wall in the room. Sometimes they were used for business meetings, but most of the time they were just playing whatever was on television that day, and on especially rare occasions, they would show security footage from the cameras around the bakery. Felix had a sick joy in watching the light leave someone's eyes when they realized they were caught on camera doing something they shouldn't have. Of course, seeing as it was an office, there was also a desk where Felix would sit, a dark oak wooden desk with plenty of little trinkets on top of it, as well as his telephone and laptop for his own work. Not many people bothered Felix during work, but that didn't mean that the phone didn't ring sometimes. Mostly it would be the employees he liked more than others, only because they would be the ones safe from Felix's wrath if they happened to interrupt him during something. In fact, when you left his office, there was a sign making it very clear that anyone interrupting him while he was trying to work would be punished. Fired more likely, but there were plenty of other options for punishment.
Thankfully, none of the customers would ever know about it. Because the floors and walls of the office area were soundproof. And if anyone said that Felix had made them cry, nobody would believe them.
Submitted By golden-boy
for Burrow Sweet Burrow
Submitted: 1 year and 4 months ago ・
Last Updated: 1 year and 4 months ago