Doughing All In: How Knead Me Bakery Is Growing

Anthony and Kristy Tamayo

You could say that Kristy and Anthony Tamayo are rising stars in the bread industry.

After years of balancing part-time baking with their corporate careers, the Tamayos watched their business, Knead Me Bakery, steadily grow from a farmers market favorite into a successful brand with a loyal following. That momentum convinced them it was time to go all in with a full-time, brick-and-mortar bakery.

As of late August 2025, the Tamayos are nearly ready to open their eagerly anticipated storefront in The Woodlands, Texas, north of Houston.

"We’re super nervous, but it’s really exciting," Kristy said.

In the months leading up to this milestone, the Tamayos have devoted their days to selecting equipment, finalizing permitting, and promoting their new location. They’ve been doing all of this while continuing to bake from home and sell their signature sourdough and other goodies every Saturday at the Courtyard Collective Farmer’s Market in Magnolia, Texas.

Recipes for Success

For Kristy, baking bread, cookies, and cakes for others is baked into who she is. It’s a family legacy. Both of her grandmothers were the town bakers in their Central Texas communities back in the 1940s and '50s.

"My grandma on my mom’s side — she was so nurturing — she passed away when I was little," Kristy said. "She had tons and tons of recipes, and when I turned 18, one of my aunts who had inherited a huge suitcase full of her recipes gifted it all to me. The recipes were all stained with use and love and written on old school papers."

That priceless gift imparted precious baking secrets developed through years of experimentation and fine-tuning. It also gave Kristy a glimpse into her grandmother’s day-to-day life that she probably wouldn’t have seen any other way.

"It was really special to see the growth and the journey of her baking throughout her life," Kristy said. "She was almost like the town chemist. She knew what to mix with what to increase the volume or the size of something. It was so cool."

And, of course, Kristy couldn’t resist trying the recipes and mastering her grandmother’s techniques.

"I became the person who always brought cookies or little breads and treats to all the functions, and then it just kind of kept growing from there," she said.

Hello, Gary

About seven or eight years ago, Kristy realized she’d baked just about everything — except sourdough. She enjoyed it on business trips to California and almost always brought a few loaves home with her. But then the trips out west subsided.

"I decided I was going to try and make it myself. About six months and 10 pounds later, I found a really great recipe, and that’s how Gary, our sourdough starter, was born. He’s been making loaves for us ever since."

Creating a sourdough starter, a naturally fermenting blend of flour, yeast, and water, is not as simple as one might think. People who’ve created one they like have been known to use it for years. (A batch of starter can be "fed" with flour and water to expand it, then divided for use and stored indefinitely.) It’s not uncommon to name the starter, either.

Gary’s name, Kristy says, was inspired by a character on the TV show "Parks and Recreation."

"There’s a character they called Jerry," she said. "He was such a good, hard worker. He always did his stuff when he was supposed to, had great ideas and was really supportive. But his name was actually Garry, and they didn’t find out until the last season or so. I just liked that character; he was always there when people needed him."

Once Kristy had her aha moment with her starter and found herself creating delicious loaves reminiscent of what she remembered from California, sourdough became one of her favorite things to bake. And now that she makes it regularly for Knead Me, she continues to find it fulfilling.

"Making it is a softer process than kneading regular dough; you’re not just pounding the dough for five minutes. You’re touching the dough, feeling it. So it’s a more visceral process, in my mind, than making standard bread.

"But what I love most, apart from the making, is watching people who say they don’t like sourdough try it and say, 'OK, that’s really good.' And then even hearing people, especially from the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest, say they haven’t been able to find good sourdough around here, and then they take a bite, and it almost transports them back home. That’s such a great feeling to help somebody find that connection again."

Paying Clients

But before those moments, Kristy was mainly baking for friends and family. The relationship that she and Anthony developed with the farmers market, and selling baked goods on a regular basis, was a bit of an accident.

During an unplanned visit in 2017 to what was then named the Farmer’s Market on Tamina, Kristy and Anthony struck up a conversation with the market’s owner at the time. She happened to be looking for a bread vendor.

"That literally changed the trajectory of everything," Kristy said. When Kristy mentioned that she baked sourdough bread, the owner invited her to start selling at the market. Kristy agreed to give it a try. That was the official launch of Knead Me Bakery.

"We got incorporated; we branded; we did all the requirements so we could start baking for the market," Kristy said. "Since then, we’ve slowly built up our loyal customers. We’ve been baking out of our house for more than seven years, and our base is getting pretty big.

"Finally, we realized we couldn’t sustain the demand in our house anymore, so we decided to take the leap and open a storefront."

Mastering Entrepreneurship

The Tamayos’ years at the farmers market shaped their approach to customer service, branding, and business management.

Their perspective of the business world, prior to that, was rooted in the corporate world where they met.

Anthony left his position as a financial analyst last year. For years, he was more of a fan of Kristy’s breads than a fellow baker.

"I was supportive through all those years, since 2017, and helping make things happen," he said. "Then I got roped in and started enjoying doing it, too."

Anthony says he enjoys the hands-on work and, like Kristy, the satisfaction of seeing people enjoy Knead Me’s products.

"Sometimes people jump up and down and stuff because they like it so much,” Anthony said. "That just makes you feel good."

Kristy, who most recently was the senior director of clinical information services for an oncology data, research, and technology business, resigned in July 2025.

"In my corporate job, I was helping people, primarily oncology patients. But with baking, we get people who say, 'I haven’t been able to eat bread in 20 years because my stomach just can’t handle it, but I can eat your bread.' So you're still helping people, just in a totally different way."

Based on what Kristy and Anthony have learned so far, their advice to other new and would-be entrepreneurs is to persevere.

"If you really have that passion and you want to do those things, figure out a way."

The Knead for Quality

Equally important is knowing what defines your product. For Knead Me Bakery, that distinction comes from quality. Kristy and Anthony bake by hand and, as much as possible, use organic ingredients.

"I think one of the main things that I want people to understand is everything we make, we would eat ourselves," Kristy said. "We use no preservatives. It’s not your store-bought bread that’ll be on your shelf and look fine a month later. It’s real salt-of-the-earth type ingredients that we use. We just want to bring good, wholesome food to the community."

That quality has been resonating with customers, who make weekly trips to the farmers market to stock up on Knead Me Bakery's sourdough, homemade granola, scones, and other baked goods. One of the most popular products, among customers and the Tamayos, is their butter sourdough.

"We fold in European butter," Kristy said. "Sourdough is already soft, but with the butter, it almost melts in your mouth. It’s so, so good. And when it’s toasted, it’s crunchy on the outside, but it’s still pillowy soft on the inside."

Baking Up Community

In addition to providing quality food for the community, Kristy and Anthony hope to be a source of support.

"We want to help other folks in the community who are trying to get their products or their work out for people to see," Kristy said. "We have tons of wall space, and we already have artists who want to display their art in our store. We could go buy stuff, but I would rather spark conversation and recognition."

The couple is also talking with a local potter about displaying her work at their new bakery, along with a honey vendor who’s interested in selling their products there.

"We really want this to be a place where people not only feel a sense of community but are part of it. And we want to be able to give back, too," Kristy said.

Learn more about Knead Me Bakery here, and follow it on Facebook and Instagram to learn when its new location is opening.

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