Thumb Bread: an extraordinary artisanal bread created in 2007 by the Esendemir Sisters.
- KLS
- May 20
- 13 min read
For the 184th feature of our "Together Talks" campaign, we collaborated with Thumb Bread and Gonca Esendemir, Co-Founder. Thumb Bread® was created in 2007 by three sisters to serve in their fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant, which was founded to save their father's life. The bread quickly became a hit with millions of pieces being handmade and served over the course of a decade and some years.
It's an all-natural, dairy-free, artisanal bread with a soft texture you can use in breakfast, lunch, dessert, or dinner recipes. You can toast it, crisp it, or eat it at room temperature and it will always taste delicious.
Guaranteed to satisfy every palette!
"Together Talks" feature # 184: Thumb Bread presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
Story of how it was created?
Thumb Bread was created back in 2007 by my sisters and I, there's three of us. We created it to sell in our restaurant concept, Flatbread Grill, which we started when my father got really sick and he could no longer work. He needed open heart surgery and he didn't have any health insurance. He came to this country with nothing. He worked himself up, worked his way up, lost everything. At the time, a truck driver. He actually never had health insurance in his life.
My big sister, Fusun, was taking care of him, was taking care of my mother as well, who was not able-bodied. She wasn't able to work, with physical labor. She had a great corporate job, she was an engineer. They laid her off for taking too much time off, which she was taking using her personal days and her vacation days and her sick days to try to take my father back and forth to find him the right medical team that could help him with his condition. She was paying the bills, the medical bills that had accumulated, and she got laid off. At that time, I was still in college trying to desperately finish up and get my degree. My younger sister, Arzu, had actually just graduated. She was trying to decide between a job on Wall Street, she had a double major. She majored in f inance and business management, graduated at the top of her class, and she was trying to decide between wall street and law school?
Fusun asked her to guide her and help her start a restaurant. We had grown up in the restaurant industry. My father had restaurants growing up, but obviously he didn't want us to do a restaurant because he had lost everything and went bankrupt with his restaurant. While we grew up in it, we didn't really have an understanding of the business side of it and how difficult it was, even though we watched my father struggle.
The three of us decided to come together and create this restaurant concept. We put together this concept called Flatbread Grill, which was like Mediterranean Panera Bread. I think that's the best way to describe it. We were the first Turkish-American woman in the world to start a fast-casual restaurant concept. And until this day, we still are.
We wanted to make Turkish food accessible to people. Arzu actually had the idea that we were going to create bread from scratch, and we were going to bake it every day, despite the fact that none of us were bakers. We all just agreed with this plan. She taught herself how to bake and tested out this recipe. She had a really strong vision of what she wanted this bread to be, this thumb bread, which had to be a versatile bread. We had to use it across all of our menu items. She wanted a name that was easy to pronounce so kids could remember it.
She was making the marks with her thumb, so she called it Thumb Bread. Our restaurant was open for like two weeks and a New York Times editor ate at our restaurant, loved it, and wrote about these amazing breads that we had. We got an outstanding review, which was amazing for our first time out of the game starting a restaurant.
It took off from there. People really took to the bread. During the pandemic, after we had self-funded and opened multiple restaurant locations, we decided that we were going to take a break and pivot. We were already selling the bread locally in a specialty market, as we were making breads for our restaurant locations every day from scratch. We were DSDing to local specialty stores. Then we decided during the pandemic to do it on a larger scale.
We got into ShopRite, which in the Northeast is probably one of the biggest, most prestigious retailers. And then we started selling to other restaurants. It was supposed to just be a temporary break from the restaurant industry, quickly it turned us being able to still be a part of it, but now we just wholesale and we don't have really the customer-facing side of the business preparing food for people.
What separates you from your competition?
We're not in commercial bread. We're a fresh bakery bread. It's no easier to be fresh bakery than commercial bread, honestly. We knew we had this really delicious bread that customers like. People liked it. The buyers loved it. The customers love it. They can automatically taste that it's different. We do a lot of in-store events. I think the quality, the retail side, they want cheap bread. In order to be able to make cheap bread and give everyone their margins, you kind of have to cut out your ingredients.
We are an artisanal bread. We still bake the traditional way, even though we're kind of getting to a place where we're at scale. We still maintain the integrity of the bread. We don't compete on price proposition. People know when they try the bread, it's special. It's unique. It's different. It's definitely more premium than what's out there. I will almost always watch people in meetings take a bite of the bread. And they're not expecting it to be anything special because it's bread, right? And when people think bread, they're just thinking it's a belly filler. It's a platform for other delicious ingredients. But we will almost always see people take a bite and they're like, "this is really good". Before they know it, they've eaten half the bag. I think quality is definitely a differentiator.
Also building the community around bread. Even though bread is one of those items in the grocery store that so many people go in to buy, it's a staple. People don't really put much thought when they're going in to buy bread. A lot of times they're looking for the one that's on sale at the cheapest price. But there's a little bit more thought process behind our bread where we build up a community where people who buy it know that it's different, know that it's special. It's hard for them to go back to the other breads because they're so attached to it. Of course, there's my sisters and I, our story where it's a family-owned business.
What have been the biggest challenges?
Scaling was difficult because we self-manufacture. It has not been easy to find a co-packer when you're making a very special bread the way we are. Nobody else makes it. When you're going to look for a co-packer, there has to be trust. There has to be a setup that could accommodate our style of baking, because, again, we're an artisanal bread. A lot of what's out there now that's at scale, they're essentially factories. They're not really bakeries anymore. We still make our bread like we are a traditional baker. Trying to f ind that right balance of scaling, using the right equipment, but not compromising the integrity of the bread has been a challenge, but we've worked through that.
Also, we're self-funded and we're bootstrapped. It was the same thing with our restaurants where we were always self-funded. We always use our own money, putting money back into the business. Unfortunately we don't get to do everything that we want to do because of the financial issues. But we are scrappy. We do pretty much everything. I think people don't realize that we do a lot of the baking, the marketing, the selling. It's just the three of us sometimes. Sometimes we're doing the deliveries as well. A lot of people look at it and they're like, "wow, it's huge run company", and it's really just the three of us holding everything together.
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
We are definitely a lot more capable than we realize. We have a lot more courage than we give ourselves credit for. If we allow ourselves, we're able to fulfill our potential and rise to the occasion. A lot of that comes through hardship and experiencing hardship, overcoming challenges and obstacles.
When I started this, I was a little airy and naive, but I was also very deeply insecure. Almost every 20 something year old is trying to figure things out, searching for my identity, experimenting with different jobs. I had 22 jobs before this. I started working very young and I worked in corporate which was my first job out of high school.
I experimented a lot, did a lot of different jobs. I think that being an entrepreneur is where I feel comfortable. But then I feel a lot of discomfort as well, because there's a lot of lessons you learn. As an entrepreneur, you're basically in the school of hard knocks.
I also think that the background my sisters and I have is what contributed to our ability to sustain ourselves and fight for our survival. Both our parents are immigrants. My mom doesn't speak English. Watching their struggles growing up, being homeless at some point, you know, being an outsider, not being able to relate to our peers, having funny names that nobody can pronounce. All of those things kind of came together to shape us into the entrepreneurs that we are. But I think you definitely learn to learn how to fight as an entrepreneur. I don't think you realize like you have that kind of fight in you until push comes to shove.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
To make our own schedule is really what contributes to our sense of well-being. Right now, my big sister's taking my father to his cardiologist for a checkup and my younger sister is with my mom, who is bedridden. We're able to adjust our schedules according to our parents' needs. Because this is a family business and because that's why we started the business, the three of us, joined together to do this.
I also appreciate that I get to work with my sisters, even though sometimes it's very difficult. And we want to kill each other. I'm not going to pretend that everything is all butterflies and unicorns, obviously. We are still siblings and we see each other every day. There is conflict, but we're also older. We can work through that conflict, we're a lot more tired now than we were when we first started. We know how to pick our battles better. But that family aspect, I think is something that is very special. All three of us are appreciative of.
Quite frankly, if it hadn't been for us being entrepreneurs, I don't know that my parents would still be here. The doctors only gave my father five years. They said his from his open heart surgery, which we were finally able to afford, I think, two years into owning the restaurant. We were able to afford the health insurance that paid for his surgery and his lifetime care. Just being able to make our own schedule has helped a lot because we're able to check on them. We see them every day. We talk to them every day and we're able to monitor their condition.
How did your upbringing impact your ability to run a business?
Our father raised us to stick together. Our background of where we come from, we grew up in a different time. It always felt like it was us against the world. We weren't really able, as I mentioned, to relate to our peers. We were always very different. We came from a culture and a background that not too many people understood. I think it's more mainstream now, but back then everyone, if I told people I was Turkish, they wouldn't understand.
We didn't have much growing up financially, we didn't have money for clothes. Our dad could barely afford our tuition for school. He insisted on sending us to private school, even though we got kicked out a few times because we couldn’t afford the tuition. It was always just us together, what else did we have in this world except each other? My father instilled that into us. We would fight or we would argue, it would always him asking, "who will look out for you if not each other”?
What is your why?
Definitely family.
Especially now more than ever to be able to set an example for other people. I don't think that you get to see too many people coming up, especially in the CPG industry, with a story like ours. Because so many of the people who are starting up or have products in stores actually, they have a little bit more opportunity due to privilege behind them. There's nothing wrong with that, but you don't see too many people of color coming up. You don't see too many people who come from nothing, building something from the ground up. Knowing that people look up to us and they're inspired by our story, that keeps us going.
There's a multitude of other things that we could do, I'm a creative. I'm a writer and I'm an artist, I could go off and do that if I wanted to, but I enjoy working with my sisters. I enjoy knowing that we do get to set an example and we do get to be inspirational to people and people look up to us and they admire us.
We're doing something that I don't think too many people coming from our background are doing. There's never a dull moment. I do like the excitement and the adrenaline rush. It's not the same as at the restaurant industry. I think that worked better when I was in college and I was in my 20s because that external chaos kind of aligns with your internal chaos. It's a great distraction and you're driven by your insecurities and the anger and the rage and just f iguring things out. It's like the restaurant industry is perfect for that. That's why you see so many, so many great chefs who come from difficult backgrounds and they're terrific in a kitchen because that environment is so conducive to that internal pain you feel. Now, it's a different kind of chaos. It's not as hectic, but the challenges are still there. I think we thrive in that environment, overcoming challenges and obstacles and beating down doors and building bridges for ourselves.
Favorite way to enjoy your product?
We all have different things we like to do with it.
I'm a big fan of making avocado toast and making pizzas in the air fryer with it.
Arzu loves making a tuna fish sandwich or a turkey sandwich. She's more of a deli sandwich kind of gal. She loves having that soft, fresh bread for that.
Fusun loves to do breakfast sandwiches with it.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
As entrepreneurs, it's always difficult to stop and be proud of your accomplishments. I think entrepreneurs are very hard on themselves and they always feel a sense of incompleteness. And I always felt that with the restaurant. Despite being in the New York Times, or opening up multiple locations, surviving a recession, doing all these things that I should have felt accomplished with, I never really did until I stopped and look back.
Right now, I'm probably most proud of the fact that people thought we were crazy for starting a restaurant. We were ahead of our time. It wasn't the cool thing to do at the time. Now everybody wants a cafe and everyone wants a restaurant and everyone wants to be a chef. But back then people thought we were deranged.
It was kind of the same thing when we were starting out with Thumb Bread. People were shocked that we were throwing away brand equity and respect and achievements to start this pivot instead of riding what we had built. People didn't get it. I feel like now people get it because they were waiting for us to prove ourselves. And I think we've more than done that.
We just did the impossible again. Sometimes I want to stop and remind all the people in the beginning that doubted us how we made it. Because even when we launched into retail, it was almost like a novelty where people doubted the longevity. Especially in our category. Fresh Bakery, especially where you're competing with factories that are outputting 50,000 pieces of bread an hour. We're holding our own, I'm proud of that.
Longevity and persistence
It's important to point out because we've had conversations with other bread manufacturers and other people who think we're an overnight success. Almost like we just kind of came out of the blue and we always correct that we've been here. You're talking about almost 20 years of paying our dues, blood, sweat, and tears. We've never been given anything that we haven't worked hard for.
Till this day, we still very much believe in that, that hard work is how you get what you want. If we didn't put the sweat equity into our restaurant, there's no way Thumb Bread could have launched in New Jersey. People already knew what it was only because we had the restaurant.
Piece of Advice
Now that I'm older, I tell people to trust themselves, especially women. Trust your instinct and trust your gut. I'm not saying completely shut out other people and their advice. I look back on the trajectory of our career and I think if I had listened to that person, then I wouldn't be where I am today. My sisters and I have listened to ourselves and have been stubborn in that sense because, even though we didn't realize it, we were trusting ourselves even when everybody around us was doubtful.
I can't tell you how many people told us we were going to fail with our restaurant. People would come into the restaurant and tell me to my face it will be cute if we last six months or we can't survive the recession or this neighborhood is tough to have a business in. If we had listened to that and allowed that to infiltrate our thought process and influence our decisions, we wouldn't be where we are. Definitely trust yourself.
Also- no one has it figured out, really. If you're going to take advice from other people, just be weary of it, because nobody knows what they're actually doing. We're all kind of meandering through this life, trying to learn and exist and be human to make our dreams come true
Promo Code
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Community Callout
He's the president of Inserra Supermarkets, which is a ShopRite, a member of the Wakefern co-op.
He believed in us at a time when so many other people didn't and he saw potential. He gave us the opportunity to trial the product in his stores. Overall, he is just not a terrific person, but a terrific leader as well. We have learned so much from working with him and his team. He deserves all of his flowers!
In Closing
KLS wants to thank Thumb Bread and Gonca Esendemir, Co-Founder, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!
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