The Short Version

• Jennie Scheinbach turned her passion for vegan baking into Pattycake Bakery, a Columbus-based side hustle she started after leaving academia to care for her children.
• A grocery co-op and a local coffee chain became her first wholesale partners, opening the door to wider demand.
• Pattycake grew from a cottage business into a brick-and-mortar bakery known for delicious nostalgic treats.
• In 2013, Scheinbach transitioned Pattycake into a worker-owned cooperative to reflect her values of shared security and community.
• She paid herself back through a promissory note and turned to the Ohio Employee Ownership Center to help structure the co-op.
• Strong communication and trust are Scheinbach’s key to operating a successful co-op.
• Scheinbach sees success not just in longevity, but in building a resilient, worker-owned co-op that’s on the verge of owning its space.

How Jennie Scheinbach Turned a Side Hustle Into a Beloved Columbus Bakery

Pattycake Bakery is a beloved Columbus institution whose vegan treats rank among the most celebrated in the city. In 2024, national publication Love Food declared its Tollhouse cookie the best in Ohio.

But long before any recognition, Pattycake started as a side hustle. Founder Jennie Scheinbach began baking after graduating from Ohio State University. She had planned to pursue a doctorate in sociology and become a professor but with a young child and another on the way, she decided she wanted to be a stay-at-home parent. With student loans looming, she wondered: “How am I going to make this work?”

A Vegan Bakery With Humble Beginnings

“At the time, I was vegan,” she said. “I was making things for my kid’s preschool, and people would be like: ‘Oh my God, everything is so good. You should open your own bakery.’ I just heard that so many times. So I basically started thinking about being a cottage industry bakery.”

Scheinbach didn’t have a detailed plan, but there was a grocery co-op a few blocks from her house. She approached the manager and asked if she could make cookies. He agreed.

It was 2003, when veganism and natural foods were catching on, but most vegan treats “tasted like cardboard,” Scheinbach recalled. So Scheinbach’s baked goods — more reminiscent of what your grandma would make — surprised people.

Two weeks after approaching the co-op, the bakery supplying its whole line of treats pulled out. The manager asked if she could replicate their line. “I was like: ‘No, but I will do my own line,’” Scheinbach said.

Around the same time, a local coffee chain called Cup O’ Joe was searching for a new cookie supplier. Scheinbach dropped off a cookie wrapped in plastic with a Post-it note that said: ‘Tell me if you like this.’ Two days later, they called, saying the wanted to carry her baked goods in all their locations. “There was a lot of opportunity for a good product to fill a hole in the market,” she said. Doors kept opening, and Scheinbach kept walking through them. “That’s the whole story of Pattycake on some level.”

Building a Co-op, One Cookie at a Time

Here, Scheinbach talks with ICSC Small Business Center contributing editor Rebecca Meiser about how Pattycake grew from a cottage business into a Columbus mainstay, what it takes to run a worker-owned co-op and how her view of success has evolved along the way.

How did you go from being an at-home baker to having a brick-and-mortar location?

I operated as a cottage food bakery for a year and a half. I had an industrial mixer in my house and could only bake 18 cookies at a time. It was bananas. A few blocks from my house, this place opened up. I always liked the building. Someone else [had] opened a little deli with a kitchen, proper flooring and a three-compartment sink but they closed after six months. I reached out to the landlord. We immediately connected. It was just a good fit for our growth [then].

Why did you decide to make Pattycake a worker-owned cooperative?

I’m just not very money-driven. I’m security-driven, absolutely, but I think our security is actually found in community and each other. I couldn’t have a sole proprietorship and feel good about doing it.

How do you logistically go from a sole proprietorship to a co-op model?

I sold it to the co-op. We’re lucky [that] Ohio has the Ohio Employee Ownership Center [based at] Kent State University. They gave us a lot of help transitioning. They connected us with other co-ops and a lawyer. Part of the reason more businesses don’t become co-ops is it’s hard to find professionals who know how to do it. You can’t just go to a regular attorney or accountant. You need people who understand co-ops.

We got Pattycake [appraised] — it was around $100,000 — and wrote a [promissory] note. Pattycake paid me back over time. I got a check for something like $850 a month for 10 years. That’s how I was paid off.

What do you know now about running a co-op that you wish you’d known at the start?

The hardest learning curve is realizing everyone needs to hear things differently. You can’t just say something one way and expect everyone to receive it the same. That’s not how to have a well-operating business. We make big decisions by consensus and smaller ones through committees. Day-to-day stuff is handled by whoever’s in charge of that area, and we trust each other to report back. Sometimes that’s as simple as posting the baking list or saying: “This broke, here’s what I did.”
Bigger vision decisions go to the board. We use Slack for back-and-forth [communication]. If a decision needs to be made quickly and most people have chimed in, we go with it and explain why.
[Honestly, our current ownership team trusts each other]. We’re not all best buds, but we prioritize the bakery. We’re not making decisions based on personal needs. If the group wants something I wouldn’t choose personally, I still get behind it. That’s what you do.

How has your definition of success evolved since you started?

I feel successful. I didn’t have a clear goal when I started. It was just: “I’m gonna do this for now.”  Sometimes I still think I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m about to turn 51, and this is a physical job. I wonder: “Am I too old to do this?” And if not now, eventually I might be.
The success we’ve achieved is beyond my wildest dreams because I wasn’t centering Pattycake in my dreams when I started. Now, success means this: It’s a co-op, it’s been one for [more than] 10 years and we’re about to own our building outright. That feels incredibly successful, especially with businesses closing around us. The fact that we’ve lasted and continue to be OK, even with tight moments, feels like major success.