Shadeau Breads began in 1993. Owner Bill Pritz, sensing a market for a better loaf of bread, opened a store on Main St. selling at first to restaurants and markets and eventually to the general public. Bill nurtured a dream of owning his own bakery for almost twenty years, ever since he first started as a baker’s assistant at the Virginia Bakery in 1975. The experience kindled his interest and he pursued his training at the Dunwoody Technical School in Minneapolis and the New York Restaurant school in NYC. Throughout he worked in bakeries, hotels, and restaurants in the Midwest and the East Coast.

Bill believed if you build it, they will come and took a chance on opening in an inner–city neighborhood called Over–the–Rhine. There he and his hard charging staff of eleven employees focus on manufacturing, packaging, delivering, and selling an astonishing amount and variety of breads and pastries six nights a week. Production starts generally in the early evening and goes well into the “hour of the wolf.”Around 3 a.m., the packing and delivery crew arrives and bags up the still–warm product for over 50 restaurants and stores in the Cincinnati area. By daybreak, the driver is gone on her route and the store is open to the general public. Prices are reasonable and with its reputation for quality and the diverse variety of offerings, people of all stripes come in from near and far. Shadeau is a destination stop.

Shadeau is entering its fifteenth year in operation and though it is at this point an established business, Bill is well aware of the challenges to a small operation such as his. He focuses on quality by using pure ingredients, no preservatives and traditional methods. Almost everything is made fresh that day. It is a difficult and challenging business, and Bill believes that without this kind of dedication, bakeries of this sort could not survive.