Meet Cindy & Brian Bennington | Founders, Bourbon Vanilla Bakery

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cindy & Brian Bennington and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cindy & Brian, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
Work life balance has changed dramatically for us. Working in F&B can be quite demanding, and the hours you put in seem unending at times. You’re working late nights, weekends, holidays. Everyone wants to go out and someone has to serve them. But it’s the nature of the business. When we were younger and building our resumes, we both took on more to gain better and more experience. Moving up didn’t necessarily translate into fewer hours. Yes, we could be proud of our achievements and making it to the next level, but there was added pressure in doing so.

As with so many things, you’re always reassessing what’s important to you and whether you’re still happy doing what you do. We both really enjoy food – making it, eating it, sharing it with others. We continue to enjoy it. But we felt like we were missing out on life. There wasn’t a sense of balance between work and life itself. When we started Bourbon Vanilla Bakery, we were both ready for a change that would give us more control over how much we worked and how much time we could spend enjoying other things in life.

We operate Bourbon Vanilla Bakery from home. So that fact does at times throw a small wrench into the work life balance for us. We’re in the Coachella Valley, and it’s very seasonally busy here. There are certainly times when you’re still working 12 or more hours a day to fulfill orders. For the most part, however, we decide when to press pause and when to turn off the oven. We’re able to enjoy late nights, celebrate the holidays with family and friends, and take the weekend off if we want to.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

We take a lot of pride in putting out consistently well made products that not only taste great, but look great. We test our recipes multiple times before moving forward with them, and that keeps us busy. Family and friends are usually the first “guinea pigs”. And they can be supportive at the same time as they can be quite brutally honest. Ha!

One of the most rewarding things for us is seeing repeat customers week after week at our local farmers markets. When we hear about how much they enjoyed our products, or meet someone who received one of our products as a gift and now they are seeking us out, it’s gratifying. It was always a goal that customers would want to eat our products daily and be so impressed with the quality of their taste and presentation that they would feel good about gifting them to friends, colleagues, and clients. It’s a great feeling to know people believe in you and your products.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
That’s a funny question. Friends and family that visit us usually want us to cook! So a fun thing to do would be to just take them shopping and plan a few meals based on what they want to eat. There’s a great selection and variety of produce, meats, and cheese at the local farmers markets that happen throughout the week. It’s also a great way to support a lot of local small businesses.

A great wine shop to visit is Desert Wine Shop. For a small operation, they have a great selection and friendly team. Yes, they have some of the big name wineries on the shelves. But talk to the manager about the styles or varietals you like, and she can make lots of great recommendations from smaller lesser known wineries too.

Il Corso on El Paseo is solid for Italian food. Varraco Coffee Roasters is a fun spot for coffee. And get a date shake from Shields.

Hiking… some good hiking out here. Get up on the Bump & Grind Trail and check out the views of the entire valley while working off some calories from that meal we cooked!

Day trip it to Big Bear or Idyllwild.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Our parents deserve much of the credit for our success. They not only instilled a hard work ethic in us, but supported us unflinchingly through everything. Both of our parents have given us so much love and opportunity to pursue what we enjoy and to succeed at it.

Website: www.bourbonvanillabakery.com

Instagram: @bourbonvanillabakery.com