New Helena business hopes to be best spuds with community

Anew business in downtown Helena aspires to give residents more food options, even though the owners know it may not "a-peel" to everyone.

Dear Potato started as a food blog during the COVID-19 pandemic and launched into a brick-and-mortar store in the old Nosh Café space.

Dear Potato is a new vegetarian bakery in downtown Helena.

Located at 105 E. Sixth Ave., between Cruse Avenue and Jackson Street, the bakery tucked into the side of the building is full of colorful walls, magnets and string lights.

The bakery has a variety of vegan and vegetarian options for customers to choose from with exception to one salmon option.

Co-owner Shea Conley is from Lakewood, Colorado, and chose Helena because it reminded her of home.

She feels that the city has the same atmosphere and now calls Helena her home, where she hopes to live for the rest of her life.

Conley mentioned that she had to tell her husband and co-owner Keller Higbee to give her one month to solely focus on running the business in order to get it off the ground.

Shea Conley, owner of Dear Potato, poses for a photo inside the downtown Helena bakery on Jan. 4, 2024.

“I started the food blog to keep me busy and also practice new skills and really challenge myself,” Conley said.

Conley moved to Helena from Seattle, Washington, where she worked at Pike Place Market.

“I never went to culinary school or anything like that,” she said. “I was selling corn in Pike Place Market, while I was in between jobs and I was going to veterinarian tech school, but I didn’t really like the work of it.”

A bakery owner who was across the street from Pike Place Market asked her if she wanted to work for him in the bakery.

A slice of cream cheese cake sandwich on display at Dear Potato bakery in downtown Helena.

Conley only had early morning availability, so she was offered a job to work from 4-7 a.m. at the bakery. She would bake cookies and muffins and realized she “loved this.”

Conley also worked at a Russian-Filipino fusion bakery as a vegan baker for a baker with a culinary background and a stern personality.

“I spent my whole time in Seattle trying to get out of there, but that’s where I met my husband,” Conley said.

Higbee works for a tele-communications company based in Seattle, but also works part time at Blackfoot River Brewing Co.

Acquiring the space for the bakery was a smooth process with the help of her sister, according to Conley.

Her sister introduced her to the landlord of the space and Conley was able to acquire it, even though the space was being eyed by someone else.

“I would have been happy with any space I could get within Helena city limits, but I really wanted this space,” Conley said.

She said she liked the space more than others because of its proximity to the walking mall and its size.

The shop came “kitchen ready” with all of the necessary equipment and was up to code for health inspectors.

“It was really easy to move in even though I still had to buy another oven and some other equipment,” Conley said.

Even though Conley said she does not miss Seattle at all, she does miss the hot dog street vendors.

Conley loads a fresh VHS tape into a television in the back of Dear Potato bakery in downtown Helena.

On her menu is a piroshki inspired by the vegetarian hot dog that she used to buy from the vendors.

The bakery’s most popular item is the piroshki, which regularly sells out within an hour of opening.

“A piroshki is a yeast Levin dough, like a bun, I think it tastes most similar to a Hawaiian sweet roll,” Conley said. “It’s not exactly like that, but that’s the closest thing I can think of. Inside of it is a filling, I always do a savory filling even though you can use a sweet filling.”

Conley thought it could be a nice alternative because of the popularity of pasties.

She said she feels bad when she sells out of the piroshkis because she wants everyone to experience what they taste like.

One of the reasons items sell out at the bakery is the staffing at the location.

Conley is in the middle of the hiring process and is gathering paperwork with her accountant to hire people at the business.

Clark Rediske, 9, left, and Tasha Rediske, 6, enjoy some baked goods at Dear Potato bakery in downtown Helena on Jan. 4, 2024.

There are about 15 applications submitted to the website and she wants to be open six days a week.

“For right now it’s just me working 70 hours a week along with two other people,” Conley said.

She wants to open two more locations, one in East Helena and one in the valley. The two new locations would have different themes even though that idea is “a decade and a half” down the line.

The customers have surprised Conley because she was shocked by the amount of support the community showed when she decided to open.

Conley had to get a loan to open the business because she said it was very expensive. The bank hesitated to approve the loan because they told her she did not own anything and did not have any collateral.

Instead, she reached out to the community and starting raising funds through donation packages.

Tiers of the packages were sweet potato, silver potato, bronze potato, gold potato and hot potato and the tiers related to how much money was donated.

“There’s a bunch of potato members around town,” Conley said.

The minimum was $25 and it included a free disco cookie and a bumper sticker, while the most expensive tier was $1,000.

The hot potato package included a disco cookie, free cake, a plaque with the donor’s name and 10% off for life.

Since this location is animal themed, there are photos on the walls of the bakery and all of the animals belong to donors who donated $500 or $1,000 to the business.

The donation packages allowed Conley to open her bakery debt free, which she is very proud of.

“It’s really hard to survive in this industry and people go into so much debt before they even open,” Conley said.

Freshly baked piroshkis on display at Dear Potato bakery in downtown Helena.

The customers who donated have membership cards to prove their tier level, but not all customers have been friendly, according to Conley.

On the bakery’s website, there is a statement from the owner saying that the customer is not always right. She said she has already experienced a couple of disorderly and “rude” customers.

Conley feels that if people would like to act like children then they will be treated like children.

This has not deterred her from pursuing her baked dreams because she said she knows not everyone will enjoy what she has to offer and that’s just the way she likes it.

When asked about the bakery’s customers she said that she has enjoyed feeding people that have never tried vegan or vegetarian foods. She knows that she entered a primarily meat eating state full of mountains and hunting grounds, but she does not despise any of that and instead welcomes it.

She said she has a deep respect for “true” hunters and believes they do great things when they use every part of the animal they hunt.

Conley described a hunter she knows who will donate parts of what he hunts to local stores to create treats and chewing bones for animals.

Before her bakery, she was holding baking classes at the Holter Museum of Art for all ages and wants to continue the classes once her business is steady.

The Afterschool Teen Arts Council is currently creating the sign for the front of the store, which will be a “giant mouth with a potato inside of it.”

She said she wants her business to be a place that celebrates local art and artists. Conley wants people to describe her bakery as an eclectic, delicious and immersive experience because she feels it’s a “deliciously whimsical” place to be for adults to be their youthful selves.