Contributed by Cindy Arora
KANSAS CITY, MO — While summer screams for ice cream, for retail bakeries, it’s often the season of slower foot traffic and a dip in sales as the temperatures rise.
So, what can a retail bakery do to boost foot traffic and revenue during summer’s hottest months?
Pivot.
While rich pastries may not be the most popular items during Q3, dessert is never off the menu. Instead, creating menu items that reflect what the season offers — farmers market produce, outdoor opportunities with the community and cold creations — can capture summer and sales by the spoonful.
Bakers know dessert never has a slow season, just a different one.
“People always want a muffin,” said Karen Bornarth, executive director of The Bread Bakers Guild of America. “But in the summer, it’s about adding more color and adding more fruits instead of creams. It’s about mixing it up and incorporating summer freshness into the pastry case.”
At Lodge Bread Co. in Los Angeles, Or Amsalam, a two-time James Beard Award semifinalist, is busy overseeing three bakery locations, while preparing to open a fourth this summer. This kind of growth makes creating a seasonal menu more challenging, but not impossible.
“Summer is usually slower for us because we aren’t a tourist destination; we are a local breakfast, lunch and bakery spot,” he said. “That makes it more complicated to change our menus because customers want consistency. Any menu changes we make, we have to make across all our stores.”
Still, Or leans into seasonal ingredients to keep offerings fresh.
“When summer comes, we focus on our pastries and jams, changing the flavors seasonally,” he explained. “We’re making Meyer lemon and vanilla jams, Alfonso mango tarts, and a roasted peach Danish. We’ve even made ice cream sandwiches, which people really enjoyed.”
The return of summer
Thinking outside the bread box is another off-season strategy. At Red Hen Baking Co. in Middlesex, VT, summer means the arrival of creemee season. This Vermont specialty features frozen yogurt served in a homemade whole wheat waffle cone. For locals, it’s the white flag that signals summer has arrived.
“We make our own waffle cones with wheat from Vermont,” said Jorah McKinley, sales and marketing manager for Red Hen Baking. “We mill the wheat in our own stoneware, and our frozen yogurt is made from a local dairy. We’re a baking company, so we really wanted to make these special, and we are passionate about local agriculture, so we combined the two.”
Creemee flavors reflect the season, what’s growing in the fields, and what Red Hen can source from the neighborhood: Lemon Blackberry, Backyard Mint from friends and families’ gardens, Mad River Maple, Lemon Basil Pink Peppercorn, and Chocolate Hazelnut.
“Our flavors are as local as we can get them,” Jorah said.
Slump-busting strategies
Leaning into the South’s summer culture is Rise Bakery’s seasonal strategy. For this Greenville, SC, bakery, this means tomato sandwiches, homemade hamburger buns, and being a part of the community during the sweltering summer nights.
“Tomatoes are a really big deal for us; we do a few weeks of Duke’s Hot Tomato Summer, and we have a special tomato sandwich menu,” said Julian Loue, founder and owner of Rise Bakery. “This is a really fun event for us, and our customers, because a tomato sandwich is a Southern summer.”
Along with tomato sandwiches, Julian and his crew of 20 also create an in-house hamburger bun that they only sell between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. This season, they launched Roman-style pizza nights that started in April and run until September. The event creates a summer-only demand — and seasonal tradition — for the bakery’s customers.
“There is fun to be had in the summer,” Julian said. “We’ve done the data, and in the summer, things can get quieter. There are definitely a couple of months in the year when it’s pretty dang hot. We just plan for it.”
While the summer slump can present challenges for retail bakeries, turning to seasonal ingredients, connecting with the community, and having a little fun with menus can help keep things fresh and foot traffic flowing.
This story has been adapted from the May | Q2 2026 Craft to Crumb mini-mag. Read the full digital issue here.
