I always wanted to open a coffee shop with pastries. I never did.

This is one of those stories that keeps resurfacing every few years, usually when I'm alone in the kitchen at 11 pm making dough for no reason. And today I wanted to write it down. Just in case I might come back to this in a few years.

The bakery job at 16

When I was sixteen, my first student job in Belgium was at a bakery. I wasn't happy about the schedule. Wake up at 2 am, start at 3 am, leave at 11 am.

At first I thought it would be the end of the fucking world. Then, after a few days, I started enjoying it more than I expected. I was a fast learner, and I went from baking bread to making pains au chocolat from scratch.

When the month was over, I was genuinely bummed out. They asked me to come back the next year, so I did. In my second year, I was responsible for training the newer students, and by the end, they trusted me to manage the entire bakery on my own as an interim manager.

Of course, I came back a third year. They were welcoming every time. I kept in touch with the whole staff, stopped by regularly, and there was a real bond between the senior bakers and me as a student.

They treated me like one of their own, joked around, and bullied me a little the way you do with someone you actually like. It was the best job I've ever had.

Almost skipping university for it

At one point they asked if I was planning on studying more. If not, they'd offer me a job on the spot, no hesitation.

That moment, as an eighteen-year-old, was one of the proudest I had before adulthood. And it was tempting. Who wouldn't be tempted?

You're barely an adult, you're making money, and you've found a place where people appreciate what you do. It felt less like a job and more like belonging somewhere.

I stayed in touch with them for years, all the way until I left Belgium. Even later, living in Antwerp, I kept thinking about culinary school.

Culinary school on the side

Before that bakery job, as a kid, I was already into pastry. Making food was something I'd always wanted to do. So alongside university, I went to culinary school in the evenings and got my culinary degree.

I did a summer internship at a one-star restaurant, but it never gave me the same feeling as that first bakery job.

Back then, I kept thinking about opening a coffee shop with Belgian pastries, wherever I ended up living.

Still thinking about it

Twenty years later, I still think about it, and I still don't fully know why I never did it. For a long time, the idea just faded into the background because my path went somewhere else. Still entrepreneurial, just more digital.

But now that I'm back into building, the thought comes back almost every day. Why did I never open that coffee shop?

The more I think about it, the more I think I might do it anyway. French-Belgian recipes for the pastry, a small cozy shop, and an office above it where I could still work. That's the version I keep picturing.

Right now, the odds of me leaving Taiwan are close to zero. But maybe in a few years, once I have a solid portfolio of micro-SaaS products and OnPoint VC is running, I'll open one the way I always imagined it.

Why it's still important for me

There's something about coming full circle that I like. That bakery job was the first time I made something with my own hands that other people wanted to buy.

It was pastry, but it was also the first time I thought like an entrepreneur, long before I had the word for it.

Mixing flour with a few ingredients and turning it into something people lined up for isn't that different from what I do now, using Claude Code and a handful of other tools to turn an idea into something that works. Different materials, same instinct.

Read also: I turned down $8,000 for my domain, and built TWO Docs instead

That student job was the catalyst for a lot of what came after, even if it took the long way to get there. And I'm still glad I finished culinary school, because these days I enjoy cooking at home more than I have in years.