If I had started Billy Bread for the money, I would have quit six years ago. Billy Bread is five years and eleven months old. So you can see how the math has been going.
This has never been a labor of making money. It is a labor of love, and occasionally a labor of standing in a home kitchen at four in the morning arguing with a batch of dough that has its own opinions. I do it anyway, because of the part I genuinely did not see coming.
The face somebody makes when they tear the corner off a warm loaf in the driveway, before they have made it all the way back inside. The kids around here who have decided Friday is a holiday. The neighbors who turned into regulars, and the regulars who turned into friends. Almost six years in, that is the part I would miss. Not the oven.
“I wanted to say thank you the only way a baker really can. With bread.”
So here is The Tenth Loaf. It is not a funnel, and I am not going to make you download anything. There are no points, no tiers, no cheerful email telling you your rewards are about to expire unless you act now. Nine things, then a loaf on me. That is the entire program. It took me considerably longer to name it than it took to design it.
How it works.
- Step oneYou order bread. Anything priced at $11 or more fills one spot on your card, and each item counts on its own. Two loaves in a single order fill two spots.
- Step twoYour card fills up as you go. Every Billy Bread order email has a link at the bottom that opens your own card, so you can check where you are without logging into anything.
- Step threeAt nine, your tenth loaf is free. A code arrives by email, it never expires, and you use it whenever you feel like it.
The fine print, such as it is.
Sourdough, milk bread, focaccia, monthly specials, and class tickets all count toward your card. Cookies count when they are priced at $11 or more.
The free loaf itself is one of the everyday breads: rustic sourdough, Coyote sourdough, Japanese-style milk bread, cinnamon swirl milk bread, or sourdough English muffins. Focaccia and the monthly special count toward the card but are not on the free list, purely because they sell out first and I would rather not promise you something I have run out of.
Buying a gift card does not count, because nothing has been baked yet. Anything you buy with a gift card counts normally. And if an order gets refunded, the spot comes back off the card, which I hope reads as common sense rather than as a twist ending.
Everyone starts at zero, including the people who have been buying bread since 2020. I thought about backdating it and decided a clean start was simpler to explain and fairer to the person buying their first loaf this Friday. If you have been here since the beginning, thank you, and you will get there fast.
- Do I have to sign up for Billy Bread's rewards program?
- No. There is no signup, no account, and no app. The Tenth Loaf starts counting automatically with your first order, and it finds you by the email address you check out with.
- What counts toward a free loaf?
- Any single item priced at $11 or more counts as one spot, and each unit counts separately. Two loaves in one order fill two spots. Sourdough, milk bread, focaccia, monthly specials, and sourdough class tickets all count.
- Which breads can I choose for my free loaf?
- Rustic sourdough, Coyote sourdough, Japanese-style milk bread, cinnamon swirl milk bread, or sourdough English muffins. Focaccia and limited monthly specials count toward your card but are not on the free list, because they sell out first.
- Does buying a Billy Bread gift card count toward the program?
- Buying a gift card does not count, since nothing has been baked yet. Anything you buy with a gift card counts normally.
- Does the free loaf expire?
- No. Once you have earned it, it waits. There is no expiry date, no blackout week, and no minimum order to use it.
- Where do I find my loaf card?
- There is a link at the bottom of every Billy Bread order email that opens your own card. Nothing to log into, and the link keeps working.
- What happens to my card if an order is refunded?
- The spot comes back off the card. Your card fills the moment you order and becomes official once the bread is baked, so a cancelled order simply drops back off.
Baked & counted · Newbury Park, California