The Bakers Rack named Small Business of the Year with less than 10 employees

By Matt Weafer
Greater Owensboro Business Magazine

In October 1974, Mary Dixon Baker opened The Bakers Rack, planning to sell small plants. But one day, a customer asked if she sold containers for plants. Then another customer asked if she had a lamp to accompany the container. Then another asked for candlesticks. Then more customers requested more and more until customer requests finally sculpted The Bakers Rack into the unique gift boutique it is today, 34 years ago.

That dedication to customer service not only helped The Bakers Rack to succeed through three decades and a major fire, it also helped the shop to earn the title of Small Business of the Year with less than 10 employees.

“The Bakers Rack represents some of the best Owensboro offers in long-established, successful, locally-owned companies,” Jody Wassmer, president of the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce said.

Through the history of The Bakers Rack, the store evolved with customer demand, adding more gifts, crystal, china, décor and collectibles that their customers, friends and family sought.

“Owensboro built us to what we are,” manager Ann Baker said.

After the fire in 2002, The Bakers Rack suffered extensive damage, losing virtually everything in the store.

“We didn’t have to come back, but Owensboro has been too good to us not to,” Baker said. “There were customers here asking ‘What can we do?’ We can’t go out of business. There are too many people asking us to stay in business. It was our friends, our family.”

The support of the town that built The Bakers Rack rebuilt the same store, only better.

“We incorporated everything in the new store that customers said we needed,” Baker said.

That dedication to pleasing their customers rooted The Bakers Rack into the city, not just as a nice boutique to peruse on occasion, but as a regularly tapped resource.

With just a phone call, regular customers can call in orders for bridal showers, birthday parties or random occasions; have the gifts wrapped and then shipped.

Some customers, Baker said, have walked into the store and saw an item, picked it up and then walked out telling an employee to “Put it on my account.”

“If you walked through another store with an item and said ‘Put it on my account,’ it would be shoplifting,” she said.

That level of trust and service exceeds the normal call of duty for retailers. “Owensboro created this,” Baker said. “We’ve done what our customers wanted, the gift wrapping and delivery — even with gas prices rising — because our customers are so good to us.”

The Bakers Rack creates memories with many of its gifts. The famous brown and white polka dot wrapping paper is known well outside the Owensboro area as The Baker’s Rack’s.

During Christmas, the red and white polka dot packages stand out from under the Christmas trees, kindling excitement.

That excitement and pleasure is mutual in The Bakers Rack’s relationship with Owensboro; the employees are happy to offer superb customer service, and customers are thrilled to receive a gift in that unmistakable wrapping.

“When you start a small business you’ve got to love it, love the business not the hobby and treat it as a business and still give customer service.”

The future will be much of the same for The Bakers Rack, though Baker said the store will go online soon. The bridal portion of the store should be online by the end of the year.

“I absolutely love my customers,” Baker said. “I would like to think that every one in here is a friend.”

That attitude is how The Bakers Rack has thrived for the past 34 years and why the store was named Small Business of the Year.

“Customer service is out specialty,” Baker said. “We just happen to sell gifts.”

Reprinted with permission from the Messenger-Inquirer