She Wolf Bakery, part of the renowned Marlow Collective, is a Brooklyn-based wholesale bakery that supplies baked goods for restaurants and Greenmarkets throughout NYC. In 2024, they expanded to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where they opened a café in addition to their wholesale production.
A longtime Hot Bread Kitchen employer partner, She Wolf Bakery turned to HBK to help staff their growing team. “This past spring we added an entire new arm to the business- opening our first cafe!” She Wolf Business Director Kimberly Vallejo explained; “This meant expanding our pastry team, building out a prepared foods kitchen and increasing bread production all at the same time.” She continued, “Hot Bread Kitchen was instrumental in helping us staff up all of these new or expanded positions— we hired 3 people from the last cohort alone! Up until this spring we had only really made bread and a small amount of pastry, so tapping into the Hot Bread Kitchen network was instrumental in helping us find staff with skills that we did not yet have in house.”
“All of our Hot Bread Kitchen grads are supportive team members– they look out for and actively support one another as well as the rest of the team. They also ask good clarifying questions, they want to ensure the job is done right, and they are proactive about checking in with managers and making sure they understand any new assignment.”
Kimberly Vallejo, Business Director at She Wolf Bakery
For Hot Bread Kitchen graduate Schkea, being hired at She Wolf Bakery provided her with an opportunity to continue building her culinary skills. “By the end of the program [at Hot Bread Kitchen], I was really interested in navigating the baking side of culinary more” she shared. “Being in my job now is exciting… I’ve been learning so much. My manager trusts me and knows I’ll do what has to get done.”
New York City’s food business owners, chefs, and hiring managers are a vital part of the Hot Bread Kitchen ecosystem. She Wolf Bakery is just one example of the mutually beneficial relationships between our members and the businesses they go on to work at. We are grateful to She Wolf and the entire Marlow Collective for being such an incredible partner in this work!
