Apricot cheese braids, maple bacon croissants and peppermint red velvet whoopie pie are just a few reasons people travel for miles to Five Kids Bakehouse in Gilbertsville.
The husband-and-wife team of Cole and Heather Covington have defied the odds by making a success of the bakery in a village with a population of just 300 people.
They met in Washington, D.C., and both worked as servers at Zaytinya, a restaurant owned by chef, restauranteur and humanitarian José Andrés.
Working in the restaurant business taught them the value of hard work and attention to detail, which has served them well since the Covingtons now work seven days a week.
Their children also work in the business, named after them, on weekends.
Heather Covington is a Gilbertsville native. Her mother, aunt and extended family helped care for the couple’s five children.
“Food has always been a huge part of our lives,” Cole Covington said. “We always sit down for dinner as a family every single night.”
Heather Covington is a self-taught baker. She started making sourdough bread in her home kitchen for her growing family.
When their triplets, who are now 12 years old, were born, she started in earnest to expand her production, and now offers sourdough variations with roasted garlic, rye, sesame seeds and olives.
Cole Covington is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, and has lived in several other southern cities.
“New Orleans is where I fell in love with food,” he said, and the taste of a fried oyster po’boy sandwich remains a favorite of his.
Growing the business
Mount Vision Farm Stand and Weaver’s Farm Market currently stock her bakery goods. Annutto’s Farm Stand in Oneonta, now closed, was the first retail store to carry Heather Covington’s made-from-scratch bread. When her bread began to sell out, she added home-made cookies.
When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this business model, a growing number of customers were willing to drive to Gilbertsville for her breads and baked goods.
Heather Covington started offering Saturday pickup from home, but “eventually, this arrangement became untenable,” Cole Covington said.
Unable to keep up with customer demand from the family’s home kitchen, they rented one half of a space on Commercial Street where the old General Store used to be.
It was Cole Covington who came up with the concept of being “a destination bakery.”
“We knew that for people to come here, it has to be special and unique,” he said, banking on the smell of their freshly-baked bread and pastries being irresistible and a menu selection that changes daily.
They invested in a second commercial oven and other kitchen equipment. They set up three small tables and chairs at the front of the store and a counter for bread and pastries.
In June 2021, Five Kids Bakehouse expanded again. The bakehouse now occupies both storefronts side by side at 5 Commercial Street and includes specialty grocery items such as imported pasta, pesto and gourmet ravioli, plus greeting cards and children’s gifts.
“We have people who come here from as far away as Binghamton and Utica,” Cole Covington said. “Some even come from Syracuse and Stamford.”
“People don’t normally come to Gilbertsville on their way to Utica or Syracuse because we are off Route 51,” he continued. “One of our customers, Gary, comes from Cooperstown every Friday.”
Heather arrives at her commercial kitchen at 3 a.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends.
“The bread oven takes two hours to preheat,” she said. “On Christmas morning, I had to come in and take care of the bread. The starter needs to be fed.”
The bakehouse is closed Mondays and open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. every other day of the week. These store hours work for the family; primarily, the business is open while the children are in school.
The logo for the business is a skeleton drinking a cup of coffee. They call him Skully.
“When you have five kids and a bakery, you feel tired a lot and need a cup of coffee,” Cole Covington said, who reports for duty at 6:30 a.m.
He manages the front of the house, doing all the ordering, pricing and marketing, and takes care of the taxes. He has grown their social media following into more than 6,000 followers on Facebook and Instagram combined.
“We stay in our lanes,” Cole Covington said. “I do what I do best and Heather does what she does best. I do all the stuff she doesn’t like to do.”
The eponymous five kids
Quinn Covington, 18, is their oldest child. He worked at the business before entering SUNY Brockport in the fall.
There are two girls and one boy among the 12-year-old triplets Will, Layla and Evy. Mia, 11, rounds out the bunch.
“Will is kind of our tech guy,” Cole said. “He got our speaker system working and he fixes the expresso maker.”
Layla enjoys appearing in a lot of social media posts, he said.
They all work the cash register and wait on customers, Cole Covington said.
The Covingtons also have a no-waste environmental sustainability commitment.
“We feed the scraps to our chickens,” Heather Covington said.
“We don’t overbake and we don’t underbake,” Cole Covington said, referring to the number of baked goods they budget out each day. “We have to be really careful about the costs of butter and flour and all our ingredients.”
“That was a learning curve too,” he continued. “There has been a lot of figuring things out.”
Five Kids Bakehouse was closed for 10 days earlier this month, and it was the first time in 4 1/2 years that the Covingtons had taken a day off.
It is not a vacation; they had the floors cleaned and polished and worked on the business, rather than in the business.
“I have always wanted to work for myself,” Cole Covington said. “I was 100% certain that it would work out. I have always believed in Heather.”