Family and a strong team at the heart of CBS bakery

By Mark Squibb

If you’re looking for fresh, homemade breads and desserts in CBS, many folks will likely point you in the direction of Dough By’s Bakery in Kelligrews.

Henry and Bernadine Pilgrim opened the doors in 2011, and daughter Natasha Pilgrim took over in 2021.

“It’s a small family run business, however we do employ almost 30 staff across all the different departments we have,” said Pilgrim. “We do everything from breads, and cakes and pies and cookies, to sandwich trays, meals, pizza, a little bit of everything. There’s not much that we don’t do or don’t have.”

Pilgrim said one of the keys to success is knowing your audience and catering to their tastes.

“You’re going to stick with a lot of the Newfoundland style dishes, because that’s going to be popular here,” said Pilgrim. “We’ll change up a few things, like do a couple of different pastas, but I find the traditional Newfoundland stuff is definitely the way to go. And you can’t get homemade products like this very often anymore. People go for what ‘mom and nan used to make.’”

Pilgrim said availability of ingredients and staff remain a challenge, but were particularly challenging following the COVID pandemic.

“I don’t think things fully recovered from COVID,” said Pilgrim. “It’s been a different world ever since then, and adapting and trying to figure things out has been the biggest thing.”

In recent years, price increases for products and supplies have also posed a challenge to small business owners.

Pilgrim, meanwhile, received a business degree from Nova Scotia’s Saint Mary’s University, and worked as an event planner in that province for many years. She was offered a similar position in Newfoundland and returned home but later agreed to take over the family business once her parents retired.

She added that people often have a misconception about how many hours small businessowners clock on an average week.

“I take my two or three weeks every year and I travel, and I do have a bit of freedom in my schedule, but I do also put in a lot of time,” said Natasha. “I’m here six to seven days a week, 8-12 hours. But my daughter is a swimmer, so if she has a swim meet, I know I can work around it and take some time to go and see her swim… My parents have run businesses all my life pretty much, so I knew when I took this over what I was getting into. I knew I was going to be working a lot. I was going in with the mindset that, ‘This place isn’t going to run itself.’”

Pilgrim added it’s important that local businesses support one another.

“In CBS, a lot of us are really big on supporting each other,” said Pilgrim. “I love doing anything local that I can, and supporting local when I can, and vice versa. I know that there’s a lot of us around here that are like that… That’s one thing we all need to do as small businesses, is support one another.”

Pilgrim said that while taking over the family business wasn’t in her plans, she’s glad to carry on and see it succeed. She has advice for would-be business owners.

“Make sure you know what you’re getting into,” said Pilgrim. “Make sure you talk to people who are in the same line of what you’re looking to do, and do some research into what exactly to expect. I think the worst thing you can do opening a business is going in blind and not really knowing what you’re getting into. You need to be prepared for that. If you go into something you’re not prepared for, chances are you’re probably going to fail.”