As a bakery owner, Michael never finds herself short on bread, so breakfast often includes toast. “It will depend on provisions at hand,” she says. “And what's in season, what fruits we have and also how hungry I am. But usually after a run I'm pretty hungry.”

No matter what she eats for breakfast — whether it’s as simple as buttered toast, or something more complex — Michael stresses the importance of taking time to be present with her food. “I think there's so many different things you can do to live a better life,” she says, "but I do think it’s important as much as you can to slow down and enjoy the moment that you're in instead of always thinking about the 20 things you have to do down the road. Everything will get done. Whenever you can take a moment just to take a deep breath and really be present in the moment, I think it is really important.”

It’s this focus on present-moment living that spurred Michael to take time out of the workforce to be with her two children when they were still young. Michael had worked in restaurants from the time she was 18 until the birth of her second child, Jane. Once Jane was born, Michael decided to take time off. “I realized it was too hard to balance restaurant work and two young children at home.” Of that time, Michael says: “When they were little and I wasn’t working, I was still baking all the time. So my kids have a lot of experience baking with me. It was part of our daily routine. The kitchen was the heart of the house. We spent a lot of time there. Being in the kitchen was just part of what we did. A lot of times the kids would be doing their homework while I cooked.” Michael chuckles and then adds: “I actually taught them knife skills early on. And now my daughter is a very good baker. When we bake together now, she does the heavy lifting. She doesn’t want to be a professional baker, but she definitely loves it.”

After some years at home, Michael felt the pull of restaurant life again. “When my daughter was older and in school, I was trying to figure out what I wanted, what my next steps were going to be,” says Michael. “I decided that I wanted to open my own place.” And even though she loved all kinds of food, Michael decided it would be best if she focused on something specific, at first. “I really just wanted to focus on — originally — pastries and coffee because my passion had been baking.” And from there, her first bakery was born. She named it — and the subsequent ones after her daughter, Jane. “I just love the name,” she says.

Over the years, Michael’s vision of her business evolved. “In the process of opening and developing the menu,” she says, “you realize you need to have food as well to be able to keep people in your space during your business hours. The coffee and pastries are great for a few hours in the morning but to get people coming back they're going to need something heartier.”

Like any good business owner, Michael was excited for her bakeries to morph. “The real goal, as the menu developed and as the business developed, was to be able to serve pretty much anybody walking down the street,” she says. “I want something that everybody can have or items that most people are going to gravitate towards. I want a place when people leave, they leave a little bit better than when they walked in. Even if it's just because of a really good cup of coffee or a smile from a cash register operator or the best salad you've ever had. When somebody walks out the door, I want them to feel that their life has been made even just a tiny bit better having been in.”

Because this feeling is important for Michael, her bakeries have thrived. And have even become rituals in many, many people’s lives. “We are a part of people's every day,” she says. “We have customers that come in two or three times a day. We have customers that come in every day. We've seen people get married, have kids. And their kids grow up.”