First-time entrepreneurs ‘baking’ it in the Northwoods

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

January 5, 2026

WAUSAU – Karen Huang said a cross-country journey led her and her husband, Andrew, to the “beautiful Northwoods area,” where, come this spring, the first-time entrepreneurs will open Eesa (pronounced “ee-sah”) Bakery and Cafe in Wausau.

“I’m actually from Massachusetts,” she said. “We popped around a lot, both of us.”

With an undergraduate education in microbiology and a master’s degree in epidemiology, Huang said her transition to becoming a professional baker and an entrepreneur was, to say the least, unexpected.

“[My training was in] mathematical modeling to see how to help control [the] spread of diseases – or what type of things would help reduce the harm of them in the community,” she said. “I then worked in a dermatology research lab doing a lot of their data crunching for a few years. So, I actually have a very ‘science-y’ background.”

Per eesabakery.com, Andrew also has a medical background and is currently a practicing radiation oncologist leading a cancer research program in Wausau.

Born in upstate New York, Huang said Andrew moved to California – where the pair first met – “when he was young.”

“Toward the end of high school [is when] I moved to California,” she said. “I finished college over there…, my husband was training in San Francisco and then we finished [his occupational training with] a year in Madison. Then we moved up to Wausau about five years ago.”

While living in San Francisco, Huang said she and Andrew had their first child and she decided to stay home to save on childcare costs.

“[I realized I was] going to be paying all my money to child care, so I stayed home with our daughter,” she said.

Following Andrew’s training and their family’s relocation to Wausau, Huang said she began to consider what it would look like if she were to reenter the workforce.

“When we moved to Wisconsin, at some point, I [thought], ‘Well, if I wanted to go back to work, it has to be something that I really love doing,’ and I love baking,” she said. “I think baking pulls together a community really beautifully [with] the food and the environment – it’s just wonderful. So, I [told Andrew], ‘I want to start a bakery.’”

Motivated by that passion, Huang said she and Andrew purchased a building – located at 201 Forest St. in the Northwoods city’s downtown – in 2022.

“It’s a building from the 1940s [and] it definitely has had a lot of lives,” she said. “When I’ve talked to people, [they’ve told me] it used to be a glass manufacturing [facility and an] antique shop. I’ve also heard it may have been a spot for a radio station or a TV station, a car dealership, a jewelry store… and, over time, you can see that people have added to the building.”

Unsure of how to begin renovations, Huang said they let the property sit vacant for a while until she and Andrew partnered with Ghidorzi – a Wausau-based design/build developer – and gutted the structure.

“That was lovely, because we got to see all these awesome skylight windows higher up,” she said. “The architecture of this building is really beautiful.”

Because the project involves a “total overhaul” of the building – “we removed half of the floor, dug out six-foot trenches for the sewer system, all the electrical had to be redone [as well as] the HVAC” – Huang said Eesa Bakery and Cafe’s opening date is not yet determined.

“We’re waiting and seeing as we move toward [completion],” she said. “But it’s kind of nice. We like the idea of taking something old and not tearing it down, but restoring it and giving it a new life and giving it that renovation it needs to last a bit longer.”

Local grain, West Coast-inspired

In California, Huang said she and Andrew often patronized bakeries offering European-style breads, especially croissants.

“So, to start, we’re going to be doing a lot of croissant variations,” she said. “Like Pana chocolate – which is a croissant with chocolate in it – a ham and cheese croissant, plain croissants and probably a good almond croissant, or maybe some type of nut variation.”

Aiming to offer breakfast and lunch options, Huang said in addition to croissants, Eesa Bakery and Cafe’s menu will also feature quiches, soups and sandwiches using fresh, baked-in-house bread.

“We’ll be offering a lot of bread,” she said. “Definitely a traditional, naturally leavened sourdough bread will be offered, and we’ll probably rotate [the menu throughout] the week… Right now, I’m working a lot on the product development for a sandwich bread.”

Huang said Eesa’s in-house bread, “when possible,” will be made with “local, stone-milled grains.”

“They offer a lot of rich flavor, [and] nutrient-wise, we’re getting the nutrients straight from [the] ground up, rather than a lot [of] the commercial bread flours [where] you’re stripping them of everything and then adding back nutrients,” she said. “We like the idea that there’s so much more flavor in a local, stone-ground [grain].”

A self-trained baker, Huang said it’s taken years of personal practice and taste-testing to establish her techniques.

“I’ve done a lot of self-training, [and] I bought a lot of books from some of the more famous bakeries – a lot of the bakeries in San Francisco, that I’ve ordered from, have books I can use,” she said. “So, I’ve been using those. [I also] walk around town offering things to people and asking them what they think… That’s been a good way to hear [suggestions] I wouldn’t always think of.”

With room to seat a bit under two (baker’s) dozen patrons, Huang said she’s excited to curate a welcoming space for people to enjoy themselves in downtown Wausau.

“We’ve developed a nice, little, cozy seating area that has about 22 seats right now, most of them at little tables,” she said. “There is a fireplace with some more cozy seating over on the farther end [of the space]. So that, I think, [will be] a really cozy spot for people to hang out.”

Aside from the cozy seating, Huang said renovation plans also include establishing a small venue for events and live music.

“We’re still fleshing that out,” she said, “but it’s going to be fun.”

Aiming for a spring 2026 opening, Huang said she and Andrew are hopeful to start the process of hiring Eesa’s staff in the near future.

“We’ll soon start hiring different bakers or people in the community,” she said. “They don’t have to have baking experience. Ideally, they do, but we’ll train people who are hungry to learn this skill.”

Huang said her brother and his wife have offered Eesa immense support by traveling to a baking school in San Francisco for “intensive training on how to open an artisan bakery.”

“They got trained on how to use the full-scale equipment we’ll be using in the bakery,” she said. “So, they’re going to then train me on that, and then we’ll train other bakers.”

In addition to bakers, Huang said Eesa will also have a front-of-house staff manning its “full-[service] coffee bar” – expected to offer various teas as well as both espresso-based and drip-coffee drinks.

“We’re working on trying to figure out what type of teas we want to bring into it,” she said. “We’ll have coffee, teas and probably a rotation of lemonade or other variations of fun drinks for people who aren’t either tea or coffee lovers.”

Kneading support

Huang said Ghidorzi is currently on schedule as its design/build team works to bring Eesa Bakery and Cafe to life this year.

“Things, right now, are moving smoothly, and I’m very thankful we decided to partner with a design-build team rather than tackle it all on our own,” she said. “There’s so much they understand about all of the [state] codes and the architectural needs that they basically are taking care of that. Then I’m consulted on major choices.”

In addition to working with Ghidorzi, Huang said resources offered through local and state-based organizations – such as the Marathon County Development Corporation (MCDEVCO) and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) – have been crucial in helping them develop the necessary skill set to successfully operate a business.

“Having been in other states – [and] I might be very naively wrong – but I think Wisconsin, amazingly, [has so many] teams working together to help build people for success for small businesses,” she said.

Through the MCDEVCO, Huang said she was able to take basic entrepreneurial classes and was connected to the WEDC, which then helped her apply for a Community Development Investment grant.

“We were awarded one of their grants last year, so we’re using that toward our construction [costs] and the repairs of the building,” she said. “There are just so many wonderful resources that, as long as I kept asking who else I should talk to, I kept getting another door open[ed to] someone who was helpful and could give me a new angle of how to approach building up this business.”

For updates on Eesa Bakery and Cafe, visit its aforementioned website or its Facebook page.