RETAIL : Restaurant-Bakery Chain Has Homemade Recipe for Success

Kaye Bass has baked her way to success.

She took over a faltering cookie shop on Balboa Island in 1983 and created her first Katie McGuire’s Pie and Bake Shoppe. It was so successful that she ran out of pies during her first weekend in business.

Little did she know that she had stumbled onto a recipe for success. Restaurant-bakery combinations have turned out to be one of the hottest dining trends of the ‘90s.

Today the 52-year-old grandmother of six presides over a 17-store chain based in Huntington Beach and hopes to open even more outlets through franchising. The menu is a fairly simple mix of baked goods, sandwiches and quiches.

One of the secrets of success, Bass said, is the personal touch. Sometimes a customer will pick out a pie that has a wrinkle in the dough because it has a home-baked look.

“I believe that we were so successful because everything in our store is homemade,” Bass said. “I think the public is tired of fast food.”

Like some of the larger chains, Katie McGuire’s has a central commissary where foods can be prepared before being shipped to the restaurants. But the pies get special treatment: Each one is either freshly baked in a restaurant or sold unbaked so that a customer can pop it into the oven at home.