Family bakery revels in James Beard Award as it pivots during the pandemic
By Sarah Baker Hansen (’01)
A lot of things have changed in McCook, Nebraska, since Matt Sehnert and his family bakery, Sehnert’s Bieroc Cafe, won the state’s first ever James Beard America’s Classic Award, the Oscar of the food world, in 2019.
But some other things, like the support he finds in community, especially in hard times, and the goodwill he has for his hometown, have stayed just the same.
Sehnert is working to make sure that his family’s cafe, which has been serving Bierocs (a version of a Runza) made with crusty baked bread, seasoned beef and sauerkraut, makes it through 2020. He’s been reinventing the bakery and music venue’s business plan on almost a weekly basis.
And in a move that feels very Small Town, USA, he’s using his prestigious food award to lift up McCook’s other businesses, starting with a collaborative holiday basket (available in November) that he’s selling through the bakery’s new website, which launched this summer.
If there was ever a time for small town ingenuity and small towners sticking together, it seems like that time is now.
Sehnert’s didn’t close because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the bakery worked with other locally owned restaurants and businesses on creative ways to keep things going.
He created a walk-through at Sehnert’s so patrons could come in safely. The restaurant started curbside pickup and takeout.
“Most people had no clue what curbside service was,” he said, chuckling.
A local print shop made banners for the bakery to show patrons where they could pick up curbside, once they knew what it was. The city let cars park on the street, no problem.
The bakery continued selling its diverse lineup of rolls, doughnuts, pizza crust, pastries and lunch. It partnered with a local bank and sent more than 300 meals home to employees, their families and other people in need.
Sehnert’s cooked for first responders, health care workers who had shifts on Easter Sunday and locals participating in a Friday night “cruise night” up and down the town’s main street. The kitchen sent leftover cookies to schools and sent leftover food tasty enough to urge seniors to go to meals at the local nursing home.
“We were blessed with a community that just really stepped up,” he said. “It kept us going. We had our payroll for another week.
“We just said to our community, ‘consider supporting our business’ and the response was immediate,” he said.
Cynthia Huff, who serves with Sehnert on McCook’s community foundation fund board, said she sees McCook as a hub of southwest Nebraska. His bakery is a hub for the locals, but also for visitors, she said.
“He understands that standing alone is not going to be enough to help McCook grow,” she said. “It’s apparent with Matt. He thinks about all of McCook.”
When Sehnert met the other “America’s Classic” award winners in 2019 he said that even though many of them were immigrants and made food vastly different than Sehnert’s, their family stories and history were shockingly similar.
“It was surreal for sure,” he said.
Sehnert, who graduated in 1986 with a degree in business administration, met his wife, Shelley (’88) on campus — in a ballroom dance class, of all places, he said.
Both of his parents are Nebraska alumni, and his three kids studied in the NU system: Gretchen, who studied nursing; Becca, who is in pharmacy school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center; and Gabe, a current UNL student finding his way through college during the pandemic.
Not much changed in McCook after the restaurant won its James Beard award, other than the bakery saw more out-of-town guests who dropped off the interstate to visit.
Now, he’s hoping those out-of-towners will remember their visit and support the businesses of McCook virtually.
“We are working hard and using the Beard award to promote our business,” he said.
They’re also supporting Wauneta Roller Mills, the local farmer making jam for the cafe, the local roaster making the cafe’s signature blend coffee and the local honey supplier, he said. Those businesses will be featured in its holiday gifts, along with the bakery’s stollen and Christmas breads, online later this year.
“Our entrepreneurial minds have been on overload,” he said, “and it’s been exhausting. We owe a lot to the community.”