“Opening a new location during a pandemic has been a crazy challenge, but my team and I were eyeing growth before the pandemic, and we really felt it important to stay the course, especially when the right location presented itself,” Gerding noted. Because in August of 2020, Gerding nervously but optimistically decided to add a new location in the Maple Bluff north-side neighborhood.
Then, right as we were getting more comfortable with our new identity as a business, the pandemic hit, and we were forced to rethink everything.”īut if you thought that “rethinking everything” would mean slowing down, you must not know Tori Gerding. “Our customer base really began to explode, and 2019 was our best year yet.
And from there, business began to take off. Gerding connected with Park Bank, a local bank with roots in the community, for her first business loan to help make her vision a reality. The location on University moved because they needed more space to accommodate their new business plan, and the King Street location moved when they weren’t able to renew their lease. Ancora’s two locations on University Avenue and King Street had to move to new locations, though they did both remain on their same respective street. To move Ancora in this new direction, Gerding had to make some moves – figuratively and literally. “Ancora existed for 20 years prior to my ownership, so thinking back to how naïve I was as a 23 year old thinking I could so easily change the identity of something so well known in Madison is comical now.” It took some time for customers to really embrace the idea of Ancora being more than just a coffee shop, however.
ANCORA BAKERY FULL
“I spent my first couple years trying to rebuild the brand into the vision I saw for it, which was a more modern cafe vibe with in-house bakery, a full brunch menu, craft lattes, and an upbeat, cheerful atmosphere,” said Gerding. And that’s because to Gerding, they were like home to her – she worked there right out of college before taking it over upon the original owners’ (Sue and George Krug) retirement. When Tori Gerding bought Ancora in 2013, she wanted the cafes to feel like home.
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