Residents Jacqui Viscarello and Athene Yagjian have turned the COVID-19 trend of making your own sourdough into a part-time business called Fire & Flour.
Yagjian said she began baking sourdough in Nov. 2023 to give as Christmas presents.
“I wanted to master it… But that was a fail,” she said.
“She gifted me a loaf and I was like, ‘This is really good,’” Viscarello said. “I always knew that if there were to be some opportunity, we would make good business partners.”
Viscarello and Yagjian said they met in 2008 when they began working at the newly-built P.F. Chang’s at the North Shore Mall as waitresses, and have been friends since. They said they became closer when Viscarello, a Lynn native, moved to Lynnfield in 2019.
They said the pair launched their “mini drop” in the beginning of April 2024, and now sell a rotating menu, including a variety of sourdough and focaccia breads, pizza dough, cookies, spreads and butters, and dehydrated sourdough starter packs.
“We’re always building the menu,” Viscarello said.
Although they have full-time jobs and consider this a “side hustle,” Yagjian and Viscarello put in countless hours at Fire & Flour. The pair said they shop for fresh ingredients on Tuesdays, prep the dough on Wednesdays, and then get up at 4 a.m. for a baking “marathon” on Thursday to have the loaves out on their porch for pick-up that afternoon. All the baking takes place in the comfort of their own homes.
Viscarello and Yagjian said they only use three key ingredients for their basic sourdough starter — flour, filtered water, and salt.
Since the beginning, their mission at Fire & Flour has been “education,” Yagjian said. As they look toward the future, they want to help other people learn how to bake their own bread.
“It’s been very rewarding,” Viscarello said.
