A short video/profile highlighting Three Brothers Bakery, a multi-generational family-owned bakery in Houston, its history, impact of the 2017 hurricane season (especially Hurricane Harvey), the devastation it faced, and its recovery aided by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The piece frames the bakery as emblematic of resilience and community recovery and recognizes it with the Phoenix Award.
Questions this video answers
More than 117,000 disaster loans.
$6.2 billion.
Four and a half feet of water.
Approximately 65 people.
68 years old.
Chapters
The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most destructive in recent history. Nearly a year later, businesses in the Gulf states, Puerto rico and the U.S. virgin Islands are still rebuilding. In the six months after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the U.S. small Business Administration approved more than 117,000 disaster loans for for a total of $6.2 billion. The Phoenix Award acknowledges the courage and determination needed to stay in the game when it seems all is lost.
Three Brothers Bakery is a full line bakery. We make cakes, breads, pastries, life cycle events, cakes that shoot fire. And we have three stores, an online store, and a wholesale component. And we employ approximately 65 people. Three Brothers Bakery is 68 years old, but the family's been baking for almost 200 years and began baking in Poland. And the family baked continuously until 1941 when the Nazis took them. The parents were murdered in Auschwitz. And then the three brothers and an older sister survived the war. The older sister actually saved the three brothers, so they all immigrate here to Houston. And the three brothers, what were they gonna do? They didn't speak English, they knew how to bake, so they baked.
Being a fifth generation baker is amazing. And to carry my family's legacy is unbelievable.
When you work in a multi generational business, it's really an honor and to work at Three Brothers Bakery. I can say this because I married into it, but I'm really proud to be a part of this bakery and the family legacy.
In August of 2017, Harvey hit us with four and a half feet of water. And it was so devastating we just needed some help.
We were on vacation in Colorado when the storm hit. And so we knew we flooded, but we couldn't figure out how bad until we saw a picture on Facebook of the bakery surrounded with four and a half feet of water. This particular flood, Harvey, was probably the worst disaster of them all.
When the hurricane hit, I was the first one on scene at Three Brothers Bakery and it was a disaster. We got in and everything was just on the floor, mud, muck, water, dough that had risen up. It was horrible. And at that time I had a couple employees finally made them made theirselves in. And then we came up with a plan, started calling people who could come in if they could. And by three days we had a lot of people in here helping out and cleaning up.
It never ever crossed our mind not to rebuild. So we just did.
Normally my job is to talk to people that have been impacted, public officials that want to know what we're doing. But we always look for a business that is sort of the face of the disaster. Three Brothers Bakery is perfect in that regard. They're a picture of the American dream in terms of their entrepreneurship, and they're also a bedrock of this community. Here. Where the waters came up, everyone was impacted, and as the waters went down, they worked as hard as they could to be the first to come back to work, to bring some normalcy back to the folks that live here. They're a tremendous story of recovery in the. In the middle of the biggest hurricane that's ever impacted this area.
We're really honored to get this award. We. It's kind of a mixed emotion thing. We hope next year we would never qualify for this award ever again, but it's an incredible honor.
Thanks for thinking about us and the disasters that we've had and recovering from it, and really, without the sba, we would not be here. And we thank you guys so much for your commitment to us, so thank you very much.
