Anabel, Founder
Anabel Lee (she/her) is the owner of and baker behind Frolic & Detour Bakery, a small pop up bakery in San Francisco creating treats that are comfortingly familiar yet playfully unconventional. When baking, Anabel subtly draws on her Chinese-American background, love of sweet snacks (strawberry Pocky and Dunkaroos forever), and experiences working at 20th Century Cafe and OYATSUYA.
1. What are the core values that drive your work?
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It sounds so simple, but when someone is holding a box of Frolic & Detour cookies, I want them to feel the same total happiness they felt as a kid eating their favorite foods. I actually think about the Happy Meal a lot — how perfect the name is, its distinct smell, the certainty of how good that little hamburger is going to taste, and the surprise of the toy inside (I really wish I had kept all my mini Beanie Babies!). As I go about baking and thinking about what I want Frolic & Detour to become, I keep in mind the values of happiness, accessibility, and perfecting a small menu that people can rely on.
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2. How do you create healthy boundaries between your personal life and work-life?
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I admittedly have a hard time with this. There is a scene from The Office where Michael Scott says something like "business is the most personal thing in the world," and while I get that this is a joke, some days it kind of resonates. I'm just getting started, and I often feel like I am the business and the business is me, and that everything is a giant blur and that time is a rubber band. For the record, I was very good at enforcing boundaries between work and personal life at my old office jobs, partly because I didn't care about those jobs. But when you have your own business, a switch flips, and I'm not saying work won't feel like work anymore, just that you'll have a much, much bigger appetite for it.
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3. What would you say to someone who is thinking of starting their own business?
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Three things helped me start Frolic & Detour Bakery. First, I did a lot of informational interviews with small business owners. I still do these, and there's a lady in Texas who has a vegan ice cream business who I really want to chat with! People are generally happy to share their experiences, and listening to others' stories about starting new businesses is always educational and inspiring. I also recommend taking a business planning class. I took one in San Francisco with the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, and it was unbelievably helpful and made me consider all sorts of aspects of running a small business that I had previously been oblivious to. Lastly, if the business you want to start is a departure from your current work experience, I think it's important to work a couple jobs in the new field you want to start your business in so that you know what you're getting into.
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4. What is a new skill or hobby you want to conquer next?
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I really want to be good at camping and backpacking, like know how to tie proper knots and when to use them, how to build a small cooking campfire, and how to read a topographic map. My husband Michael introduced me to camping, and it's still a new-ish hobby to me. It's fun to let go of everything for a bit, be surrounded by trees all day, jump into lakes, and look at the stars at night.
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5. What does the world need more of?
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Hugs, snail mail, and the first three seasons of The Office need to be back on Netflix.
