F
or someone who spent her life
exploring cooking, giving up gluten
in 2008 was a difficult health
choice for Patti Tartaglia. But turning
her gluten-free lifestyle into a growing
business that provides others with high-
quality, flavorful products gives her a
strong sense of satisfaction.
Growing-Up Cooking
Tartaglia grew up a latchkey kid in
Connecticut, spending her afternoons
watching Julia Child and the Galloping
Gourmet. “I was an overweight child, and
my mother was a boring cook,” Tartaglia
said. “As I got older, I experimented. I
wanted to lose weight with flavorful food.”
When she would babysit, she’d read
other people’s cookbooks and write
down recipes. She started working in
restaurants at 16.
“I became more of a foodie and would
come home wide awake and start baking.
My mother got mad because I gave it
all away, so I wouldn’t eat it. But the
ingredients were very expensive, so I
started taking donations.” That was the
beginnings of her baking business.
Before she went to college, Tartaglia
recalled, “My combined love of medicine
and food led my mother to say I should
go to Cornell and major in Home
Economics. That was the 1970s. But
I said, ‘No I have to do something
important.’ She also wanted us to set up
a muffin and waffle store. It’s funny how
things go full circle.”
Tartaglia worked in restaurants
until she was 27. After completing
a college degree in Biology she sold
pharmaceuticals. She and her husband
moved to Redwood City in 1992 and
started a family. When her kids started
school, a headhunter told her she had too
much experience to get a job at her level.
The Transition to Gluten-Free
While job hunting, a good friend of hers
had decided to go gluten free because
of intestinal and other health problems,
which Tartaglia herself was experiencing.
It motivated her to eliminate gluten from
her diet. “Within three weeks, it changed
my life,” she said.
But for someone who thrived on a
lifetime of cooking, especially artisan
breads and pizza, this discovery came
with a sacrifice. Instead of bemoaning
her situation, she decided to go back
to school, studying the holistic side of
nutrition to round out her education.
After obtaining her Certificate in
Nutrition Education, Tartaglia wanted
to counsel people. But the economy was
bad, and she couldn’t find enough clients
on her own.
Fortunately, she happened to meet the
wife of the owner of People and Planet,
the former Morgan Hill natural food
store. At the time, they needed someone
to counsel people about cooking healthy
food and to bring in products for people
to taste. Tartaglia began renting a local
kitchen to test market the products she
made for People and Planet and several
wholesale markets in Aptos. When the
rental kitchen was no longer available,
she considered building her own kitchen
but decided it would require too much
time and expense.
One day a client said, “Patti, we don’t
want to learn to cook. Can you start
making this stuff for us?” By that time,
Tartaglia had realized she didn’t have the
personality to be counselor; instead, she
was a doer.
The Bakery Is Born
About that time, former bakery Penny
Cakes in Gilroy —on First Street—was
going out of business. Tartaglia opened
Patti’s Perfect Pantry in that location
in 2011. But the kitchen was only 300
square feet, so Tartaglia couldn’t generate
enough product to make a living.
After a while, she began to consider
relocating. In general, she said, “The
gluten-free business is a highly unsatisfied
market where most of the products are
bad.” She knew people would be will-
ing to drive some distance to a more
central location to buy it. “It just wasn’t
the correct location to draw people down
from San José.”
When her Gilroy lease was up in 2015,
she considered buying property in down-
town Gilroy. But the current location in
Morgan Hill became available at that time,
with the added benefit of being close to
the highway off Tennant Avenue. After six
months of renovation to the existing bak-
ery kitchen, she re-opened in 2016.
Similar to the previous location, the
new café offers more than the aver-
age bakery. Decorated in an Alice in
Wonderland theme with framed posters
bearing sayings such as, “Be Careful What
You Drink,” the shop provides customers
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
a choice of lunch items and pastries—
with indoor and outdoor seating—to
enjoy their savory and sweet treats with
gourmet beverages. Regular offerings
include cupcakes, scones, cookies,
cinnamon rolls, pizza, sandwiches, and
daily lunch specials.
Tartaglia has tried to create
an environment appropriate to serving
high quality, gourmet items. This year,
she’s planning to offer afternoon tea
menus featuring loose-leaf teas. As for the
décor, her favorite character from child-
hood was Alice in Wonderland. One day
she looked up and saw her Mad Hatter
teapot on her shelf and that provided
the inspiration for the bakery’s theme.
“I wanted it to be whimsical and fun—a
place where the ladies could come in the
afternoon and relax and talk with friends.”
Her clientele is varied, with only a
percentage who have celiac disease—the
inability to digest and absorb gluten,
which damages the intestines and
prevents the absorption of nutrients.
Most are gluten intolerant, while others
have some autoimmune disorders and,
according to Tartaglia, are eating gluten
free to try to reduce inflammation. She
also sells to numerous athletes who are
trying to improve their performance.
Many simply enjoy her American bakery-
style products.
She said she makes everything from
scratch, thereby preventing any cross-
contamination with gluten. “So, there
are no chemicals or preservatives in our
food.” Also, her sweet items contain one-
half the sugar in other recipes.
The Ups and Downs of
Running a Small Business
Tartaglia and her baking assistant, Melissa
Peterson, do all the cooking. “I’m on my
feet 12 hours a day, with barel