Moose & Me Bakery employing adults of all abilities finally moves into Naperville storefront
Chicago Tribune·Tess Kenny/Chicago Tribune/TNS
Tess Kenny, Chicago Tribune
6 min read
Community support, passion and persistence. Plus some flour, of course.
After years spent operating out of a home kitchen, a uniquely inclusive Naperville-based bakery — where adults of all abilities are readily given a rolling pin — Moose & Me Baking Company has finally found the right recipe to move into a place of their own.
Coming off a soft launch in late October, the business is settling into its new bricks-and-mortar location at 3075 Book Road, a far cry from the business’ humble beginnings in which orders were filled at owner Megan Elder’s house.
The transition, Elder says, has been a learning curve. But a good one, she assured.
“It was really strange at first,” Elder said. “We’ve been learning a lot, and we’re still learning. … (But) everybody’s just been so nice and so excited and so supportive of us.”
From inspiration to construction, community has been the throughline in the making of Moose & Me, Elder says.
From the first dash of an idea — sowed 10 or so years ago now — the intention’s been simple: create a safe space for adults with disabilities to work, come into their own and take advantage of baking’s universal ability to connect.
“That’s the magic of it,” Elder said, “that interaction and that time together.”
Elder knows the feeling well. It’s what she modeled Moose & Me after.
Before her storefront and before her business’ early days based at home, there was just Elder and her daughter, Mila, in their kitchen.
Mila has Down syndrome and, since she was little, she’s had an affinity for baking, Elder said. It became a pastime for the both of them by the time Mila turned 2.
“She really enjoyed that,” Elder said. “It was something that was able to keep her attention for a while. And of course, she loved tasting all the things.”
At the time, Elder was running a ministry for teens with intellectual and developmental disabilities that she started with her husband. The ministry helped her better understand Naperville’s special needs community, she said, but it also showed her how programming falters as people get the older.
Elder, who’s from Naperville, said she’s been, to some extent, involved with the special needs community for as long as she can remember.
“Whether it was volunteering for the Special Olympics or doing special buddies in high school … it’s just always been a part of my life,” she said.
As she grew up, Elder didn’t know how or if that involvement would persist. But then she and her husband started their ministry after they got married. And they adopted Mila. Eventually, both inspired Moose & Me.
The COVID-19 pandemic was the final impetus. Stuck inside the house, the Elders thought why not recruit a few folks who had come up through their ministry and give their baking venture a real go.
Moose & Me operated out of Elder’s home for three years. Orders were all custom, booked in advance. Elder knew early on that she wanted a storefront. From home, she and her employees craved the moments customers would swing by and pick up their cakes and treats.
They wanted that interaction — that sense of community — all the time.
So Elder got to searching for a more permanent professional address. The real estate market, though, had other plans.
“We just didn’t know how hard (it) was,” Elder said. “We tried several properties. There were a ton of things that fell through.”
In the meantime, Elder fundraised. Through a pair of campaigns, the community funneled more than $100,000 into Elder’s storefront dream. Then in May of last year, the spot at Book Road came into the picture. It needed a lot of work, but Elder didn’t mind.
“It was a take-it-as-it-is kind of situation,” Elder said. “We were kind of like, it didn’t need to be perfect.”
But again, the community stepped up. As Moose & Me’s renovation got underway, a few local companies volunteered their time and services “to help us create something that we didn’t even think was possible,” Elder said.
“We were going to do the bare minimum to this space,” she admitted.
Cue Elk Grove Village-based Commercial Stainless Services, which redid the stainless steel, and Infinity Painters in Naperville, which did the bakery’s flooring and paint.
Sean Liszka with Infinity Painters said, “It was awesome to even play a small role, to help them out in any way.”
Liszka volunteered to help after coming across Moose & Me through social media. The bakery struck a personal chord. His girlfriend is a special education teacher in Chicago and his cousin has autism, Liszka said.
He reached out to Moose & Me to see if he could do anything.
It made all the difference, Elder said.
“These people that volunteered their time and services,” she said, “just showed how much they cared about this population of people. … They wanted them to have an environment that is nice, a place where they can feel at home, they can feel safe and they feel loved. (These companies) created that for them.”
The product is better than Elder could’ve imagined. Pinks and blues line the front of house, which boasts plenty of seating. Behind the cash register, each of Moose & Me’s now seven employees have their own picture posted high for everyone to see. And underneath counters, the bakery’s tagline — “Wonderfully Made Treats by Wonderfully Made People” — is written out, bordered with sprinkles.
No longer just a pre-order operation, the new and improved Moose & Me has a do-it-yourself cookie bar and a baking team that’s constantly experimenting and playing around with new recipes, Elder said.
Employee Nicholas Thibault, who’s been with Moose & Me for five months, said he stays behind the scenes mostly but is “enjoying making all these treats.”
“It’s been good,” he said. “(I’ve) got lots of jobs and a lot of people to work with. … I haven’t been in a position like this for a while.”
Head baker Joannah Hanel is going on a year with Moose & Me and said the transition from Elder’s home to Book Road has been “a crazy process” but “awesome.”
“Here, we get to have fun,” she said. “We get to have a lot of fun. So that’s the biggest thing. … Everybody who’s here wants to be here. Nothing is about the paycheck.”
Moose & Me Baking Company is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Elder said she’s hoping to expand hours and her staff once the bakery grows into its new home.
