Mr. Bill Grant of Grant's Pastry Shop
Interview Group: I think first of all we would love to hear about how you learned how to bake.
Mr. Grant : Well really, I started in the bakery when I was ten years old, not baking of course. Washing and greasing pans and that kind of stuff. I did that in the day and went to school at night. As I got older, I was always interested in baking. I worked days and nights just about every other morning. I didn’t have to go to work until seven o’clock in the morning, and I went at two o’clock in the morning because I wanted to learn. And I did that. I went for awhile spaces shopping. I worked well 6 days a week. We were closed on Wednesdays. That’s the way I learned. Just I would stay there in the afternoon. That’s why I went there in the morning to learn. That’s the way I learned. Of course, I went to school from 5:30 to 10:30 at night school. 
That went on up until I went to service in ‘52. I stayed in service for six years in the army. I got drafted in the army. When I came out I went back to baking. That’s about the size of it.
I went in business for myself in September ‘69. I have been into it ever since then. I went to three different places really--been to three different places. Little shop on Pio Nono opened up, from there I went to Fort Valley about three years, then came back to Macon. Naturally, been back to Macon.
After I came out of the service in ‘58, I went back to the bakery. That same man was still running his shop, so I went back to work for him, so after a while I thought it would try it on my own -- so that’s what I did. Everything I make, I make from scratch, never have used mixers. It makes you feel good when you meet someone and they realize you’re the person that made it. But that’s the way we started.
IG: Could you talk a bit about the people you learned to bake from in the shop you worked in?
Mr. Grant : In the early morning at three o’ clock I learned from a couple, and I didn’t have to work til seven […]. He and his wife taught me how to bake. So the rest of it came as I went along.
So I went down on Second and Poplar for about twenty-three years had a shop down there--until they moved the buses down to the Terminal Station. But we were right there on the corner of 2nd and Poplar. After he moved em’ down to terminal station about five blocks from Second and Poplar. But when he moved em it took about 55% to 65% of our business.
I decided, so I went out and opened a shop in Warner Robins for about eleven months, then decided to come back to Macon, which is where I have been with the exception of my being sick and so forth. Other than that, this is something I have always done.
But it’s hard; the work is not too hard. You got to be dedicated, like anything, to do it because if your not dedicated to it it’s not gonna work.
The way I moved down here from Second and Poplar-- We moved over here in 2000, 2002 to this location here
[7:30]
IG: What mayor was it that moved the buses from Second and Poplar?
Mr. Grant That Mayor Ellis. You’ve heard that name?
IG: Um hum. Yeah.
Mr. Grant: Mayor Ellis. His last name was Ellis. He was the one that moved those buses from Second and Popular down to the Terminal Station. And there was nothing there, nothing at Terminal Station. Nothing there. Not even a restroom there -- nothing there. But that’s what happened. And that, there again, I got disgusted and wanted to give it up because, you know, you’ve dedicated your whole life or just about it--to this thing. And then somebody come along and just sweep it right out from under you because of their ego or something. I don’t know. But, you know. That’s the way it goes.
IG: What would you describe as your specialty? Do you have any specialties or any special things that you make?
Mr. Grant.: That I make?
IG: Yeah, something that you are famous for?
Mr. Grant: Well, we make butter-plate rolls--that’s one of our specialties. And, of course, we make a yeast doughnut that’s a good seller. And then, naturally, potato custard, egg custards butter-chocolate cake--all of those things and, you know, just takes a little while to make them. There again, you just got to work at it. So that’s what I do.
IG: Where did you learn to make the petit fours? I tried some the other day -- the petit fours.
Mr. Grant: The petit fours? That’s a recipe I made myself. I forgot about it. We sell a lot of those. But, that’s something I was fooling around with one day and came up with that. And a lot of people -- actually a petit four is supposedly made out of a pound cake batter because the pound cake batter is much firmer than a butter cake batter--they are hard to make with a butter one. So that’s what I did. I mean, that’s the way I got the recipe. I tried it and people started buying it, saying how good it was and how they liked it, so we stuck with it. We been doing it ever since then.
You got to go ahead and do them. You can’t push them off to the side and say “I’ll do them in a while.” You got to, as they say, its like picking fruit, “You gotta pick it when it’s ready, not when you’re ready.” So, you know. It’s about the way that anything works, that’s where that petit four thing came from.
Would you all like something to drink or -- ?
IG: Oh, I think we are just fine. We’re fine. Thank you. Could you talk a little bit about your time in the military? And did you serve as a cook in the military or did you serve somewhere else?
Mr. Grant: Well, you need to remember I was drafted. This was in ‘52. I think that was the last draft we had. Well, I forgot the President’s name at that time--but he drafted. The draft was nineteen months, and then he extended the draft to twenty-four months. So, I made Sgt. 1st class in nineteen months, so I extended myself for a year and then after that they came out with, the president came out with, an extended pay raise--whatever your rank was. If you re-enlisted or --well, re-enlisted then they would give you that pay raise. Say if you re-enlisted for a year.
When I went into the service my pay was $78 a month. That’s what it was. And cause, you know, I got married right before I went into the service, and my wife got, I think it was, $91 a month. I got $78 a month. That was about it. And, like I say, I extended my time for a year, and after that year was up I –
When I went in, I went in the infantry carrying an M1 rifle out there in the mud-holes. I was in Koreas for fourteen months. And, Korea in the winter--it can get down to, oh, three or four below zero. And you sleep in a mud-hole, like I slept in a mud-hole or something. Because that really, when I went in I really didn’t want to go into the kitchen. I didn’t want to cook or bake. Well, they didn’t bake overseas. When I went in I went, I took my basic training at Ft. Jefferson, and then I took the advanced basic training in Kentucky, Ft. Knox, Kentucky. And then they sent me overseas. They sent me to Korea.
And after I, as I say, when I first went into the service I didn’t want to be in the kitchen cause I really was tired. I had been on the inside all that time, all those years and I thought, well, I’ll try a tour on the outside. But then after a while, especially after I went to Korea, I thought about and the inside wasn’t so bad at that time--rolling down in the mud-hole, you know, in thirty, thirty-two degrees.
And then I told my 1st Sgt. that I could cook. And in the Army you always need cooks --you always need cooks in the army. So he talked to our CO, which was our company man, got me put in the kitchen. It was in the mess tents, we didn’t have no buildings. We had the mess tents. And so, that’s how I got out of the foot soldier thing out in the field. Cause, I figured, cooking wasn’t so bad after all. It was lot better than crawling around in that mud-hole, yeah it was.
So I did that, like I say I was over there for fourteen months, then I got transferred back to Ft. Memphis, Kentucky. And that’s where I worked, being […] here and there and so forth to different posts. And I spent the rest of my time in Ft. Memphis, Kentucky. That’s where I was stationed when I got out of the service.
[16:00]
Mr. Grant: And I got out of the service, so went to -- and, after that it was the same thing. I went back to the bakery and started back over again, you know. Well, that's about it.
IG: Could you tell us a little bit about your family, your parents--you mentioned your wife.
Mr. Grant: My wife uh, died in, ‘69. And I had two kids, a boy and a girl. And, we had -- my oldest one is a girl. And I had a boy from a previous marriage. I was only married for, oh, I think for about three years. And more than that--I didn't want to be married any longer. So, I've been, um, like I said she died, this next one died in ‘69, so I haven't been married since then, since ‘69. And, that's about it I guess.
IG: What about your parents?
Mr. Grant: Well, of course, I never knew my father. And then my mother -- well, my father got killed. And, I was born in Mexico. And, my father got killed when I was about a month, about a month and a half old. My mother, she had a sister who lived in Philadelphia. And, she took me to live in Philadelphia. And, I stayed there until I was about five. And my parents, my grandparents, my mother's parents, they died in Carpel, and that's what the deal was. So, after I was about five years old, then they took me from Philadelphia to Carpel--and I stayed there until I was about ten, and that’s when I ran away. And I kept running away. And that's when I started looking for something else to do. That's when I started with the bakery thing. And, like I said, I never knew my father. He got killed when I was about a month, month and a half old. I have some brothers, and I have one living, so I had two. He passed, what--probably, oh, eight-ten years ago. And, I just have the one sister now, and I have, oh, three brothers, who--so that's about it on there. About my parents, so, well
IG: It says outside that you do wedding cakes. Have you always done wedding cakes? Has that always been a part of your baking or is that something new?
Mr. Grant: Oh, yeah, we do wedding cakes. Oh, yes.
IG: Oh yeah, you do a lot of them?
Mr. Grant: We don't do as many as here, as we did downtown. Let me see if I can't find some wedding cake pictures.
[Mr. Grant leaves to get pictures]
Mr. Grant: Here are some of the, I took, out of the book in there--there's a lot of them.
IG: Oh, my goodness.
Mr. Grant: (showing us a picture of him in the military): This is me. This is the cook. This is the sergeant. Here are some of the cakes I've made.
IG: Oh, wow, they're so complex. That one looks huge.
Mr. Grant: It's got a water fountain underneath it.
IG: That's incredible, amazing.
Mr. Grant: Here's some more--with the water fountains.
[We are sorting through a stack of over a hundred Polaroid pictures of various cakes. Each picture is labeled with the date and family name that the order was under. Some of the cakes appear to stand eight to ten feet tall with complex columns, bridges, and water fountains.]
IG: It's incredible.
Mr. Grant: That one has a water fountain, also, on the bottom. On the side, too, you can see it better here. This is a bikini cake. […] it's a bikini cake--we were supposed to have other pictures, supposed to get them when we moved over here--she never did, I don't think.
IG: Could you talk to us about some of your favorite memories--about baking things for people, or special events or anything?
Mr. Grant: Do what?
IG: Favorite memories, or best memories that you have, or good stories, or anything?
Mr. Grant: From what I've baked.
IG: Yeah?
Mr. Grant: Not of the top of my head. Well, we hadn't done that many wedding cakes since we came over here. I mean, the majority of all of these were the ones we did downtown.
IG: What would you say your favorite thing to bake is?
[24:00]
Mr. Grant: Some things are easier than others. I don’t have a special that I would rather bake. There are some things that are easier to bake than others.
IG: What is the toughest thing you’ve had to bake? Or, the thing that took the longest to bake?
Mr. Grant: Probably a wedding cake with a water fountain underneath of it, I would say, or a bikini cake would be. It would be a whole sheet. The small ones not that bad, but the one that was on the whole sheet -- All in all, they are not that bad. I do the majority of all of it myself, as far as the baking is to go. I always have. And, I just do the majority of the baking--cakes and rolls and pies and cookies, and bread.
IG: What is your typical day like? What time do you get here?
Mr. Grant: Now, I don’t have to get here as early as I did downtown. Not unless it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, or a holiday or something. Well, like this past Christmas I came to work this past Christmas. Well, I was here until Christmas Eve. I worked day and night on it.
As long as I’m working, I never get sleepy. As soon as I stop, then I get sleepy. I’ve always been that way for ever since I’ve been into it, I guess. As they say, a lot of times you want to forget about it and just give it up. But then you think, well, what would I do? And probably did give it up or if I did stop, I probably wouldn’t last that long, because I’ve always been used to working. These were things I always did.
IG: What would you have gotten into if you hadn’t done baking?
Mr. Grant: I don’t know of anything. Not really. Not off hand because I’ve always had to pay my own way. And, baking or cooking was about the only thing you could do at a young age that you could do. Because there wasn’t much you could do. There wasn’t really much to do at that time, except work in a restaurant. They really didn’t have that many restaurants you could work in, not really. I’ve always been interesting in cooking. I wouldn’t know nothing about baking--
My mom and my auntie worked at the high school here in Macon. They would cook at […] high school. They were really the only cooks they had at that time, around that time. As I said, it was a long, long time ago.
You couldn’t really do anything else because you had to go to school. Or, you work at night. There weren’t that many jobs you could give to kids. There weren’t that many jobs you would work at night. Now I don’t think they have this, but they had truant officers that would come around and check, and if you were school age, they would want to know why you weren’t in school. That’s why I would go to school at night and work in the daytime.
When I started to work, my pay was seven dollars a week--seven bucks a week. Worked 6 days a week. I had to pay two dollars and a half to go to school. That only left me -- I walked, I lived about eight or nine blocks from the school house, the night school I went to. I walked to and from. About 5:30 in the evening and you get out at 10:00. And so, I would walk both ways. Cause bus fair it was only a nickel. You could pay a nickel and ride a bus. If you had to transfer, you could get a transfer for a penny. You could go to the other side of town. You know so, a lot has changed, oh yes, oh yes. Yes, yes, yes.
IG: How was downtown Macon different than it is now?
Mr. Grant: It used to be blooming downtown. It’s a whole lot different and that mayor I was telling you about had a lot to do with that because it changed Macon and a lot people will tell you that. I don’t know what he was trying to prove but Macon was a whole lot different than it is now. In the mornings, we opened the shop around six and we were open from six to six, from six in the morning to six in the evening. We served coffee and it was a sixteen ounce cup that cost sixteen cents. And we used to sell doughnuts. Doughnuts was five cents each. We used to sell about 200 cups of coffee in the morning. We easily sold that many. I had seven employees. I had six full time employees and one part time employee when we were downtown. On doughnuts we would sell around ten to fifteen dozen in the morning. We used to make the sausage with biscuits and would sell four to five dozen of those in the mornings when those buses were stopping out there in the front. And cinnamon rolls, if you named it, we just about made it. This is why I got so angry when this man go and change these buses and put them down on the other end of town and the train didn’t even go down there. I think the railroad or something gave that property to the bus department and also the federal government contributed quite a bit of money to redo Poplar Street and I think they took it and misused it. So that’s why they had to go to that Terminal Station because they had to either come up with the money that they done misused and I think they had about 3 million dollars to redo Poplar Street with. And they had to come up with that money or show where that money went so this is what I think is one of the things that enticed them to put those bus at that terminal station because they had done misplaced the money, but that’s politics.
IG: Do you find yourself cooking a lot at home?
Mr. Grant: No, no, no. When I leave here from cooking, then I’m through with cooking. I don’t even cook myself anything unless I’m mighty hungry cause I live by myself so as far as cooking something, I don’t, unless I’m real hungry I’ll cook something. Now, I used to when I was real, real young and I enjoyed cooking at home cause I didn’t have that much to do cause at home it was me, my mom, and my baby brother, that’s all that was there, so it wasn’t that bad on cooking but after a while…That’s why I say when I went in the service, I didn’t want no parts of the kitchen and I thought I wanted to be on the outside. But after being outside for a while, I figure the inside wasn’t that bad.
IG: Do you do anything special for the Cherry Blossom Festival?
Mr. Grant: Yeah, we make the cherry blossom cookies and the cherry blossom cupcakes and cherry blossom revel cake and orange cake. We do quite a bit of the cherry blossom cookies. And a lot of people like the heart cookies on Valentine’s -- Easter, we do a lot of cookies with the poured icing. We sell quite a few of those.
(He walks over to stacked baking sheets and take out a tin of cookie cutters)
No we have – St. Patrick ’s Day clover. This is a cookie here that I came up with myself -- (hold sup cutter) it makes a Pac Man. I took a doughnut cutter, one of those round doughnut cutters with the cutter on the edge. And I knocked it out right here and made a cutter out of it. You see it’s a doughnut cutter, so I just took the top off it and made a Pac man cover. We sell a lot of those. We sell a lot of those. And then we make just regular sugar cookies, and we hae a whole lot of different cutters. Flowers, heart, turkeys, yep. Bunny rabbit, chickens, star -I had that made. This is what came off that right there, how I made a Pac Man cookie cutter. Pac Man out and was real popular for a while and so I was just messing around I thought I would try a cookie. That was six, seven years ago. And they are still selling.
IG: You have a cookie for every occasion!
Mr. Grant: Yeah, pretty much. Yep. You name it, we just about do it. All in all we make — well there ain’t much that we don’t make.
IG: We think that has about covered everything. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.