Meet elise garcia | Longboard Painter + Vegan Baker

We had the good fortune of connecting with elise garcia and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi elise, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Oh man, where to begin. To put a long story short(er), I had grown up and watched my cousin, who’s a few years older than I am, work at a bakery and she always just talked about how much she loved it. But I saw how much dairy would go into those recipes so I wanted to open a bakery that was a bit healthier. Then I was about 16 or so, and watched a documentary called the “Original Skateboarders” in Costa Rica, and I was like “YO, nevermind, I want to open my own Longboard shop.” So I started joking around in high school about how they kind of rhymed, so I should just combine them and call it Bake and Skate. And here we are, about ten years later, and we’ve got a vegan bakery + hand painted longboard shop.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I started painting longboards because I realized that most of the other longboard brands only ever had printed graphics on the bottom, and it just felt a little uniform. I wanted each person to have their own unique board, one that won’t ever look identical to someone else’s. And then on top of that, to be able to do custom designs for customers, like the boy who asked me paint his girlfriend’s life story on one? And then a mom who asked me to design one based on the orphanage her son was volunteering at in Ukraine? I just love it. So it’s the unique aspect of it for me, being able to make really high quality bamboo boards with all materials sourced in the States, and with really fun designs that mean something to that person riding it. Geez that was only one part of the question, I’m so sorry. How did I get here: I think it was a mix of studying Entrepreneurship and Business at KSU, plus also just growing up and realizing I’m not an office person. I don’t do well in boring spaces, where I can’t get creative or make my own way. And I knew I wouldn’t do well working for someone else who might not give me the full freedom to bless my customers the way I want to. If I know someone is struggling financially and their previous longboard just got stolen, I have the freedom to work something out for them. And I knew I wouldn’t really have that same freedom in a big company, so I started my own. At the end of the day, have I loved my customers well? Have I treated them like friends or just an order number to fulfill? And that’s where I grow and I learn. On any given street, there’s multiple shops and businesses, so I don’t want to be one that just blends in and provides a product without making my customers feel like they’re important, which is why I put so much time and energy and prayer into each board I make.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would tell them to come by our photo studio so we can take fun pictures of them 🙂 I would also hope they’re hungry because I’d immediately take them to Slutty Vegan, which has the best vegan burgers on this planet. Like forreal. I’d take them to Bellwood Coffee, because it’s a jungle of plants inside along with your lavender oatmilk latte. I would like to add that I would NOT take them to the zoo, because it’s a zoo. :’)

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The first part of me wants to be serious and thank the Lord for allowing all these pieces to be put together this last decade, and for bringing people like my sweet (and super handsome) husband in my life who help this company be the best it can be. And then the second part of me wants to be sarcastic and thank the older men I had as professors in my business school at Kennesaw State who thought I should just stick with opening a bakery, because a bakery and longboard shop combination is weird and would never do well. I’d like to thank them for giving me more of an understanding of what my dream really is. My dream was never to open just a bakery, it was to open a bakery + longboard shop. And I like that the combination is a little weird.

Website: www.bakeandskate.com

Instagram: @bakeandskate @heyelisegarcia