Richland’s Denise Thai always wanted to have her own bakery, but life got in the way while raising three children.

Now decades later, the children are grown with lives of their own, and the grandchildren are busy teenagers.

Thai, 58, decided a few years ago that maybe there are second chances in life.

So she launched Birch House Bakery with the help of her husband, Nguyen.

“I was always going to have a bakery,” she said. “Starting something in the cottage foods industry without a building I felt was very less risky.”

A cottage food operation seeks to provide low-cost, home-based opportunities for food businesses, according to state law.

Thai's plan has been to build a customer base and then work her way into a storefront.

Birch House customers place orders online and then can pick up items in person from her home on Alder Avenue in Richland. The Thais also deliver.

The business’ Facebook page menu lists 42 different products, including bread, cookies, fruit crisps, fruit pies and divinity candy.

“Everything is made from scratch,” Thai said.

Mainly, though, “We are an artisan sourdough bakery.”

“It’s not necessarily hard, but you have to nurture it every day,” she said. “You have to take care of it every day. Kind of like having it as a child – you make sure it’s fed on time.”

Her bread can take 20 to 36 hours to make.

“Typically speaking, I like 20 hours,” she said.

Customers love her product.

Last fall, during local holiday bazaars, she sold out quickly.

“I am confident that people will say that it’s the best bread they’ve eaten. But I understand the price is prohibitive of return sales because it’ll cost them $10. And you can get a loaf of bread in the store for $2,” Thai said.

“You have to sell the idea that it’s not just a loaf of bread,” she continued. “It’s a way of life. You take from water and salt, and you make bread, and can feed a family without having to go to the store.”

Her earliest memory of baking and loving it was when she was about 5 years old.

“It seems most of my really warm and comforting memories came from the kitchen, especially my mother’s kitchen,” she said.

Her goal as a youngster was to eventually attend a professional culinary program and study in France.

That all changed when her son was born. Within three years, Thai had three babies, and France was out of the picture.

But she continued to bake at home.

“I was raised on a farm. I had a lot of those ideals people get from growing up on the farm,” she said.

Things like self-sufficiency and using organic foods.

And making her own bread.

She’s also had experience working in the food industry.

“I’ve managed a Cinnabon, a Safeway bakery, worked at Sbarro,” she said.

She celebrated her first anniversary in business on Dec. 31, 2019.

It was, she admitted, a tough year.

“I didn’t know how difficult it would be to create something without a storefront,” she said. “Cottage foods is difficult. You have to market.”

In January, she turned to online classes, “desperate to save the baby.”

“I want to show people that we can take care of ourselves,” she said. “I decided to try some online classes, one called Intro to Bread. It’s the very basics to teach people to make bread.

“The first class, I thought I’d get 10 to 20 people interested,” Thai said. “But I got 10,000 likes on Facebook. I thought I might have hit on something.”

She added classes on cinnamon rolls and focaccia bread. Then the coronavirus  outbreak hit.

“We’ve taken another step back,” she said.

She’s paused classes and will wait until Gov. Jay Inslee lifts his Stay Home, Stay Healthy order.

But she hopes to resume normalcy. Her Facebook page has three new classes scheduled, with the first one, Focaccia and Breadsticks, on May 30.

All of these classes are held at Red Mountain Kitchen in Kennewick. Classes, which average two hours, range between $45 to $60. Intro to Bread is $50.

“I’d like to get people involved in bread workshops, in food workshops,” Thai said.

It also helps get the word out on her cottage food business, which all cottage food businesses need right now, she said.

“People would say, ‘Oh this is what you’re doing,’ ” she said. “A lot of it goes back to talking to people and education. We try to introduce ourselves to everyone we can, and it’s slowly starting to happen that people are finding out about us.”

The pandemic hampered her takeout and delivery business, too.

Since the stay home order, she’s had few orders.

“People aren’t used to going to a home. But that’s the most natural way of doing it. We did it that way 100 years ago,” she said.

She’s not giving up.

“My dream job is to have a well-established bakery,” Thai said. “I enjoy it a lot, and the journey is worth it. Would I like to be an Ethos Bakery with a storefront? Sure I would.

“But right now, we’re kind of the little engine that could.”

Birch House Bakery Online Cottage Foods Bakery: 509-212-8288; Facebook.