Opening a business is hard. Doing it with your spouse is harder. But a married couple from Ukraine said they've managed both, turning a shared dream into the ‘Bakero’, Sarasota's newest bakery and café.
The Bakero opened in April, the product of a four-year plan, a career change, a war and a shared love of European baking traditions, owners Nataliia and Piotr Lugowski said.
The couple moved to Sarasota permanently about two years ago from Poland. For Nataliia Lugowski, the bakery is also a way of coping with the war in her home country of Ukraine, where her parents still live.
"It's a very difficult situation, and we have war in my country," she said. "My parents live in a safe part, but still, there are some nights they have to hide in a shelter."
She said she reminds herself of her own circumstances when the news from home weighs on her.
"I live in a safety country, and I can do everything I want," she said. "I hope in a very close future the war will finish, and Ukraine will be free and develop. It's a very beautiful country."
She was born in Ukraine and moved to Poland at 21. Nataliia Lugowski's path into baking started at home.
"I have three kids. That's why I stayed home and started everything at home," she said. "Step by step, I fall in love in a baking culture."
Once her children were older, she went to work as a professional baker in Warsaw. After the family relocated to Sarasota, the idea for a bakery of her own came together on a walk downtown, she said.
Piotr Lugowski on the other hand, spent roughly three decades in the corporate world, before becoming the bakery's managing partner. He called himself the "right hand" to his wife, who he said is the creative force behind the business.
"It's not very easy to work with your wife," Nataliia Lugowski said. "But we did a great job."
The Bakero's menu draws on recipes from across Europe, including a Copenhagen-inspired breakfast dish that's become a customer favorite and Polish sourdough. Piotr Lugowski said it gives him nostalgia.
"It reminds me sometimes the taste of my childhood," he said of the food, "but it also reminds me the place that I used to spend time with my friends when I was Ukraine or in Poland."
Piotr Lugowski said he's found the daily work of the bakery more fulfilling than his corporate career.
"I used to get the effect of the burnout," Piotr Lugowski said. "But now I'm so happy when I can clean the tables, when I can talk to our customers, even when I wash the dishes."
Nataliia Lugowski said the welcome from the local community has meant a great deal to the couple as the bakery has become part of the neighborhood.
"I'm very happy that we are not just bakery and cafe," she said. "We are the part of downtown Sarasota."
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