The Hudson Oven

Chase Fox Harnett Turned Modeling Money Into the Hudson Oven

"Started as a playful pandemic-era experiment by Chase Fox Harnett and his fiancée Madison Goldrick, this wood-fired baking operation grew from free street cabinets and a whimsical “sourdough scavenger hunt” into a subscription-and-retail business known for hand-baked sourdough loaves, frozen ready-to-bake blocks, and a popular “bread brick” kit sold in dozens of stores (including Whole Foods on Wall Street). Early tactics included pay-what-you-want sidewalk cabinets and a subscription that granted a skeleton key to a personal bread cabinet at a brewery in Ossining; today anyone can order loaves for pickup at eight cabinet locations from Croton to White Plains (plus Nyack) if enough local demand exists. Production revolves around an 8,000-pound portable stone-and-steel oven that can hold about 24 loaves, a tight weekly rhythm (Wednesday order deadline, Thursday prep and overnight cold ferment, Friday baking from about 4 a.m.), and hands-on delivery rounds; monthly overhead runs roughly $5,500–$6,000, with flour from Farmer Ground Flour costing about $1 per pound. The couple has expanded into retail relationships and hopes a forthcoming 1,800-square-foot Westchester rivertown storefront—where they’ll choose a commercial oven and aim to bake daily—will generate enough cash flow to justify hiring and to scale to placing bread in many more locations, though they still face classic small-business constraints around labor, wholesale pricing, and the need for outside capital." - Choire Sicha