I’m continuing to use this blog as a way of communicating while our social media accounts remain unavailable, and today felt like a moment worth capturing.
Going into the weekend without sharing our usual posts and stories felt very strange. Normally Friday evening would be filled with photos of buns and cakes, a preview of the counter and the familiar rhythm of posting, replying and checking messages.
Instead, we opened the doors this morning quietly.
What followed was more than I could have imagined.
It was the longest queue I have seen since we opened here 12 months ago. The bakery was full, the counter busy, and the pace of the morning was intense from the moment we started serving.
At first I assumed there might be an element of sympathy involved — perhaps people had noticed that our social media had disappeared and wanted to show their support.
But while brewing cortados and packing boxes of buns and doughnuts, I started chatting with customers in the queue. One after another told me they had no idea our social media accounts were gone.
They were simply doing what they do every weekend.
They came because they always come.
Which raised a rather unexpected question in my mind: was all that relentless Friday night posting falling on deaf ears?
Perhaps not entirely — social media certainly helped people discover the bakery in the first place. But today was a powerful reminder that the real relationship is built somewhere else entirely.
It’s built in the bakery itself.
In conversations across the counter.
In familiar faces returning each weekend.
Today felt immense, intense and — above all — reassuring.
Right now I feel a strange sense of liberation. Perhaps my relationship with social media had become a little unhealthy and one-sided, demanding constant attention while giving the impression that everything depended on it.
Maybe it doesn’t.
The question I’m now left with is a simple one:
Can the bakery move forward without it?
Time will tell.
For now, the ovens will keep going on, the coffee machine will keep steaming milk, and the counter will keep filling with buns, doughnuts and cakes.
And perhaps, just perhaps, that is enough.