Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Kohler.
Hi Brad, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Good Dough really started long before I opened the doors.
I fell deep in love with bread while working my way through Portland’s food scene. After culinary school, I found my way into wedding cakes and eventually landed at Ken’s Artisan Bakery, where I worked overnight shifts. There was something about the rhythm of baking– the fermentation, the patience, the smell of bread coming out of the oven, that really hooked me.
I kept moving through restaurants and kitchens, learning as much as I could from places I adored. But over the years, I realized that what I really wanted was to build something of my own. Not just a bakery, but a place that connected people through bread.
That idea eventually, and at first, became Bread Fest.
My wife, Shyla, and I started Bread Fest in 2023 because we wanted to celebrate the people who make Portland’s bread community so special– bakers, millers, farmers and everyone who cares about good food. We had no idea how much people would embrace it. The first festival had around ten vendors and ended up bringing in roughly 1,500 people.
That experience gave me a lot of confidence that there was something here. People really cared about bread. They cared about where their flour came from, how it was fermented, who was making it—and, most importantly, they wanted to share it with each other.
Due to the success of the first two years an opportunity came up to open my own bakery.
The location was especially meaningful to me. It was the old Trifecta Bakery space on SE 6th Avenue. Years earlier, I had actually interviewed for a job at Ken’s Artisan Bread in that very space. So, coming back years later to build my own bakery there felt a little surreal.
I called it Good Dough because, at its heart, that’s what I’m after: really good dough, made with good ingredients, given the time and attention it deserves. We’re focused on naturally leavened breads, long fermentation, great grains and the craft of baking. Baguettes are a big part of what I love to make, but we also make sourdoughs, brioche, pastries, cookies and whatever else gets us excited.
For me, though, Good Dough has never just been about making bread. It’s about the people around the bread. That’s what I discovered through Bread Fest, and it’s what I want Good Dough to be—a place where bakers, farmers, millers, neighbors and customers can all feel connected to something.
And that’s really how Good Dough came to be: fifteen years of baking, a lot of early mornings, a lot of learning, a lot of people who helped me along the way—and a belief that a simple loaf of bread can be wholesome and bring people together.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
From the outside, opening a bakery can seem pretty romantic: find a space, build a kitchen, make beautiful bread, and open the doors. The reality was much messier. One of our biggest challenges was our large bread oven. It was the heart of the bakery, and unfortunately, it consistently gave us problems. When you’re making bread at our scale, the oven isn’t just another piece of equipment. If it isn’t working properly, the entire production schedule gets thrown off.
We’d have dough mixed, fermented, shaped and ready to bake, only to have to troubleshoot the oven or completely rethink the day’s bake. There were plenty of days when it felt like we were spending as much time fixing things as we were baking.
Shortly after opening, my wife and I had a baby. Starting a business is demanding enough but starting a bakery while becoming parents at the same time was a whole different level of exhaustion. Suddenly, there was a new person at home who needed me just as much as the bakery did.
I was trying to learn how to be a dad while also figuring out how to keep a brand-new business running. There were plenty of moments when I felt pulled in every direction. I also had to learn that I couldn’t do everything myself. When something is your dream, it’s easy to feel like you need to personally solve every problem. But a bakery is a team. Learning to trust people, delegate and ask for help has been just as important as learning to make better bread.
There were definitely moments when I wondered what I’d gotten myself into but those challenges have shaped Good Dough. The oven problems taught us to adapt. Becoming parents taught me patience and perspective. And the difficult days taught me that building something worthwhile doesn’t mean everything goes according to plan and often doesn’t. Sometimes it just means showing up, figuring out what’s broken, making the best bread you can, and doing it again the next day. Good Dough isn’t the result of everything going perfectly. It’s the result of continuing to believe in the idea when things were really hard. That’s something I’m proud of.
As you know, we’re big fans of Good Dough. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
What sets Good Dough apart, to me, is that we’re really focused on the bread. There are a lot of great bakeries, but I wanted Good Dough to be a place where the craft of baking was front and center. We take the time to make naturally leavened bread, use good grains, and let fermentation do its work. We care about the details because those details are what make the difference between bread and good bread.
It’s not just about technique or ingredients, I also want Good Dough to feel connected to Portland. Bread has always been something that brings people together, and that’s a big part of why I started Bread Fest in the first place. I wanted to create a community around the people growing, milling, baking and eating bread. Good Dough is an extension of that.
We’re small, we’re hands-on, and we’re involved in every part of what we make. We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We’re trying to make really good bread, take care of our customers and our team, and build something that feels genuinely connected to the community around us.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I’ve been lucky to have the right opportunities at the right time– from getting into bread early in my career, to the chance to open Good Dough in a space that had personal significance to me. I’ve also been incredibly lucky to have the support of my wife, family, mentors and the people who believed in the bakery.
I think luck gets you opportunities, but what you do with them matters more. The good luck opened doors for me; the bad luck taught me to adapt, keep going and appreciate the people around me.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: gooddoughpdx
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/good-dough-bakery-portland
