‘There’s always a trade-off’: Croissant whiz Michael Tan on the challenges of expanding his small business
The Old City entrepreneur is recovering from pandemic setbacks while seeking to balance work and life. Tune in to the eighth episode of the audio documentary “Thriving” to hear his story.
On a quiet street in Old City Philadelphia sits a bakery named ICI. That’s spelled I-C-I.
Michael Tan: So, our shop specializes in two things, croissant pastries and macarons.
It’s owned by Michael Tan and his wife, Ici, who the store is named after.
Michael Tan: And they also meant something in French, too. And since we doing croissants and macarons. And it is, it’s somehow related.
Nichole Currie: What does it mean in French?
Michael Tan: It means here now. Like here.
ICI’s pastries come in a whirlwind of flavors — like Coffee Mocha, Cookies-n-Cream, and Lime & Basil.
Michael Tan: So we, on a consistent basis, we have 28 different flavors of macarons and an equal amount for the croissants too.
The bakery opened its doors on Arch Street in 2015. At the time, Michael and Ici were basically home bakers, they had never run a shop like this.
Michael Tan: Old City seems to be a very nice place to start, especially the location that we have. When we started, we have very little experience, and we want a place that is not as busy. As a matter of fact, a lot of people want to start business with a lot of traffic, but we are too afraid to have a lot of traffic because we don’t know what we’re doing. Old City was not the high-traffic area. This is not a place that no local people who live in Philadelphia will come in and spend a day or two, to eat in restaurants.
But over the past seven years, Old City has changed.
The neighborhood has blossomed with new restaurants and stores — all nearby tourist attractions like the Liberty Bell or Penns Landing.
Michael Tan: And local residents living in Philadelphia do come here for dinner or come here for the weekend, take their family.
And just like the neighborhood, ICI changed too — Michael and his wife got better at their craft. The bakery grew, hiring about seven people to bake and man the shop. They started to attract more customers. The uptick kept the store afloat. But Michael thinks it could do even better — that they can take on more customers in a more central spot. He wants to close his current location, and move the bakery a few blocks away, onto Market Street, closer to Philly attractions.
Michael Tan: The idea is that we’ll still keep all the old customers that we have around the neighborhood, and they still know that we are here. That way we also get more people [who are] visiting Philadelphia that walk pass by and they’ll come into our shop.
In 2020, Michael bought a property on Market Street to fix up. But then the pandemic happened.
Michael closed down the current ICI shop for five days of the week. He lost six of his employees, leaving him and his wife to work 18-hour days. And his plans for a second location stalled. Michael’s new property was just sitting there, a few blocks away – in need of major renovations.
Michael Tan: We have been working on it for a year already and then not much has been done yet. We have to renovate the entire building. We have to gut the entire building, take out the floorboards, relocate our bathrooms and tiles. Everything.
Now that the economic effects of the pandemic are starting to wear off, Michael hopes to finally finish the work — and to open his new location in the summer of 2023. Because every day that it remains unopened, is costing his business money.
Michael Tan: Hopefully something actually shows up. Something — we have something to show. Otherwise, I don’t want to wait for another year just by sitting here and paying insurance, paying property tax and everything. So just [being] empty, it costs more than occupy[ing it].
“You want a quality of life. You want an education for your children. You want to give them more possibilities. … And that’s how a lot of people immigrate to the country.“
Michael Tan
I’m Nichole Currie, and this is Thriving — an audio documentary about our economic future together. I’ve been following 10 Philadelphians for a year to learn what it takes to make it in America.
After a pandemic and so much social upheaval: What are the obstacles and opportunities we all face to economically thrive in the United States? Each person we’re following tells us something different about our collective future.
In this episode: Older immigrants — 55 and up — can tell us a lot about our future: how to overcome initial barriers that immigrants face, such as language or discrimination. And overcoming this adversity is a lesson that people from all backgrounds can take note of, as they navigate a country that promises economic opportunity but still falls short.
I’m following Michael Tan. He’s 46, so he doesn’t perfectly fit the demographic group that we’re seeking to explain here, but his experiences are instructive. He’s approaching a decade of running his business from a location that he rents. Now that his sacrifices have created a sustainable business, he’s ready to move the bakery to a permanent location that he owns.
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Michael and his family immigrated to New York from China in 1986, when he was just nine. They came looking for better opportunities.
Michael Tan: That’s mainly what a lot of immigrants do.
Nichole Currie: What do you mean by that?
Michael Tan: You know, you want a quality of life. You want an education for your children. You want to give them more possibilities of what they want to do. And that’s how a lot of people immigrate to the country.
There was one rule when Michael Tan was growing up.
Michael Tan: They just want us to get a good education. And then once you have that education, you come out and you do whatever you want to do.
Michael attended a college in New York and after graduating in the late ‘90s, he was very determined to avoid the 9-to-5 route.
Michael Tan: A lot of people work very hard 9 to 5. And after work, they go home and still continue to work. They never discredit that people with 9 to 5 [jobs] are not working hard. They are working, everyone’s working very hard. It’s just that, it’s just not for me. I want to create products. It’s, I want to create something that, that’s meaningful to me.
After college, Michael created a point-of-sale software. It’s a software that helps businesses accept payments, and keep track of sales. It was successful. For 13 years, it was his family’s main source of income. And then, in 2014, Michael and his wife decided to try something new. Their inspiration started at home.
Michael Tan: I think from the moment is when my, when we’re creating baked goods for my son. After he [was] born and we’re making cakes for him for his birthday. We’re making little desserts for his birthday …
Nichole Currie: And what’s your son’s name?
Michael Tan: Henrik.
Michael and his wife had no experience running a bakery but they wanted to try something new — even though his family warned him about the work ethic he’d need to make the bakery successful. Michael’s father worked as a restaurant chef in New Jersey and New York, and Michael had several extended family members who ran a business.
Michael Tan: Many of them have been through that process, working in food business. And they just give us their, their warning. Like, this is what you’re going to go through. Then if you, if you think you could do it, then do it.
Michael took heed of their warnings and went about his idea cautiously. He and his wife rented their place on Arch Street, and started selling their croissants and macarons in 2015.
Michael Tan: For the first year, it’s difficult for us. We create a lot of products that does not sell. But we continue to have it out. We have to throw it away, continue to make it. Always have a full stock, inventory of baked goods.
At the end of the day, they were always left with unsold baked goods. But they managed to break even more than not. Michael was sure that the effort he put in would eventually grow their business. For example, Michael makes almost everything from scratch. Homemade peanut butter for the peanut butter croissant, house-made vanilla syrup for the vanilla latte.
Michael Tan: If you go to a Starbucks or a shop store, we can put it in a pump and pump it out for you. Yeah. These are real vanilla beans. So we squeeze the beans and we boil it. We, uh, we heat it with the syrup. To infuse it …
He felt that his work ethic was paying off.
Michael Tan: It’s a couple of factors why a business survive or fail within a couple of years. I mean, the obvious one would be financially and, and another part is your personal perseverance on how to, or how well, how much time you’re willing to put into it. There, there’s always a trade-off. Do you want to spend more time in your business day in, day out. You want to spend time on your personal life, your family. There’s always a trade-off.
Michael’s had to make a lot of trade-offs for the bakery in its seven years. He and ICI are still critical to the shop’s day-to-day operations, along with a staff of six who work in the front and back of the house. Michael and his wife work 16 hour days, and they make the most of it.
Michael Tan: At this point it’s heavily in work and light on life. We do find entertainment in the work too. So. Very often we are laughing, you know, while we’re working, chatting, just talking about mindless things, and little things that make you happy, too.
“There’s always a trade-off. Do you want to spend more time in your business day in, day out? [Do] you want to spend time on your personal life, your family?”
Michael Tan
When I meet Michael, in fall 2022, he’s at a pivotal point in his career. He says ICI now has a strong customer base — a mix of tourists and local regulars. Although Michael is not comfortable sharing their sales, he says as long as the store breaks even and he can pay his bills at home, he’s happy.
But there’s one big constraint on ICI, and its ability to grow: the kitchen on Arch Street is just too small for Michael’s ambitions.
Michael Tan: Our baking starts at 5 o’clock in the morning. And croissants are coming out around 7, 7:30. And then we open at 9 o’clock today.
Early one morning, I visit ICI at baking time. Michael and his staff of two are preparing fresh croissants. Some are coming out of the oven right now.
Michael Tan: So, it’s not the only morning that we bake them that you see. But it starts three days ago. Where we mix the dough and let it ferment, both ferment and then fridge, and then we shape them, and then we bake them the next day.
Nichole Currie: And the macarons, you start that at what time?
Michael Tan: The macarons, it could be any time, when we have time to make them. So generally, it’s after we bake the croissants, start in the morning, and then we start doing the macarons. The macarons will take the entire day to process.
It’s an elaborate dance -— and it takes longer because of the size of the kitchen. There’s not enough space here for what Michael and his staff would like to produce. That’s one reason Michael bought the new property on Market Street two years ago.
Nichole Currie: Now, at the other property, you talked a bit about more space. Is the kitchen going to be this size at the other property.?
Michael Tan: It will be double the size of [our] current kitchen, mainly for productions.
At the new location, they have two kitchens — one in the basement and one on the first floor.
Nichole Currie: So how would that help?
Michael Tan: We all have [to] separate into two different production teams when we’re doing macarons and other team were doing pastries.
ICI’s two main products have to be made at separate times to avoid cross contamination.
Michael Tan: So we want to separate the croissants with gluten and the macarons are gluten free. So we want to separate those two.
In a small kitchen like this, it’s impossible and also unsafe to make the two pastries in the same room. With flour sometimes flying in the air, pans touching croissants, gluten could easily contaminate the gluten free macarons. At the new location, there will be enough space to make both pastries at the same time with two different teams. AND Michael thinks the new location will bring more foot traffic, since Market is a popular and central street.
He’s hoping the investment will pay off. Owning the new property is a bigger financial responsibility than renting, but Michael may be able to up production to cover — and exceed — the bigger expense.
Michael says that over the past several years, as their bakery got more popular, they’ve had to turn down large catering orders because there wasn’t enough space or time to produce that many goods. And hopefully, in less than a year, that won’t be an issue anymore.
Michael Tan: It is a very big step to finally have a permanent location that you will remain in. But it is an eventual course for any business. Any small business will want to settle down into a permanent location and then they get their footings and they can move on to other things. It gives you stability knowing that you put all the effort into it. Everything that you do to upgrade certain features in the business.
But this property that will afford Michael new and better opportunities, has a long way to go.
Michael Tan: This is my second time walking in here since probably a month and a half. As we’re waiting for the permit. I come in here more often when we’re working on the basement but since the basement is done we are waiting for other permits to get ready.
In October of 2022, Michael shows me around the new property. It’s pretty empty. No appliances, furniture, simply just open space. Which means he has a lot of work to do.
Michael Tan: Well to get this open, we’ve been almost working on for two years on this To get in to get the permits. It takes a while for the city to approve the permit.
Michael has to get approved for permits for engineering so his contractors can resume work. And although he says the pandemic has already slowed progress down, Michael is learning that even now — it’s still a waiting game. One that’s costing him a lot of money. For two years, he’s been paying rent at his other location, paying the mortgage here, AND paying for renovations.
Nichole Currie: And so the funds that are paying for this renovation are coming from the shop?
Michael Tan: Yeah, everything’s coming from the shop. That’s our sole income. So, we have to make it work. Regardless of how many hours you have to work. You have to be optimistic about things getting done. And, it is your concern to find a way to pay for it. Right? Yeah, that’s true. If you think of it as a long term investment, you may pay a little bit more now, but you’ll probably find it to be very cheap 10 years from now, 5 years from now.
Right now, Michael still needs to gut the building, change the floor plan and rewire the electrical system. While he’s optimistic about getting it all done, he’s also aware that when it comes to getting the shop up and running, time is of the essence.
Michael Tan: A lot of economists are saying that we’re going to have a recession next year. Right. So hopefully not too bad. And the customers still come in and we could keep the train rolling. Like the plan.Yeah. So if nothing changed our business. You keep it up. If not, then we’ll adjust to the environment we have, just like what we did with the pandemic.
“Many people think that running a business, you could see it from the beginning to end really quick. [But as with] many things in life, progress does not move as fast as you might think. Success does not come as fast as we might think. It takes time.”
Michael Tan
Chris Wink: The pandemic changed the American economy and we’re not going back.
This is Chris Wink — chief executive officer and cofounder of Technical.ly. Chris has conducted a lot of research for this project, and says it’s no secret that many people, like Michael Tan, are figuring out how to bounce back from the pandemic.
Chris Wink: There are lessons from what took place, the traumas people experienced. The innovations they developed, that will have ripple effects for generations to come.
Again, Michael’s not perfectly representative of the “older immigrant” group — he’s just 46. But older immigrants in general have a lot to teach us about overcoming obstacles.
Chris Wink: We can’t fully grasp pathways of prosperity unless we understand how people begin and where they can end up.
And while some older immigrants are living in poverty, others have found a way to succeed.
Chris Wink: We see both extremes in a category like older immigrants, because we have older immigrants who were stable, who got within an American system, benefited from economic prosperity and thrived.
Michael Tan has now started two successful businesses — first his point-of-sales software company that provided a stable income for him and his family, and now ICI. It’s been a lot of trial and error, from getting the recipes down to managing sales. That resiliency is now helping him manage the financial aftermath of a pandemic.
Chris Wink: Michael Tan helps us understand what the immigrant entrepreneur story can play out over time. What the immigration story can play out over time. Michael Tan’s experience struggling, overcoming, navigating, has something to teach all of us.
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In January of 2023, I check in with Michael. It’s been several months since we last spoke and I’m excited to hear what progress he’s made with the new ICI location — it’s supposed to open in about six months from now, in summer 2023.
Nichole Currie: How is the property coming along?
Michael Tan: It’s coming along. Renovation is moving but it’s still a long process. We have a lot of work to do.
Nichole Currie: I know last time we talked, you were hoping by the end of the summer.
Michael Tan: We were hoping, but it’s still a few months to go. So construction, the thing is, it’s hard to predict exactly what’s holding it back.
Despite Michael’s hopes, not much has changed. He’s managed to gut the property but progress is still delayed. This is Michael’s first time working on a project like this. He depends a lot on what his contractors tell him — which often forces him into a waiting game.
Michael Tan: The other problem is a lot of construction material went up a lot too. So all the estimates go out of the window.
Michael made a budget for getting this property up and going. But with inflation and unexpected delays, the price for materials keeps going up. And remember, Michael and his wife are paying for all of this out of their own pocket.
I check in with Michael again a few months later, in the spring. He’s still hopeful that the second location will open by the summer. But summer comes and goes.
By fall of 2023, the new location still isn’t open. I have a sit down with Michael over coffee to just get a sense of where his head is at.
Michael Tan: Not much [has] changed. Business has gone smoothly too. Everything went pretty well. No hiccups for the past couple of months. We have some employees move on to other jobs. New employee comes in. Everybody pick up pretty well.
Nichole Currie: And what about the other location?
Michael Tan: The other location is still in progress. We built many electricals in. Plumbings are in. We’re waiting for a preliminary inspection. Then we could frame everything up and start the details.
Over the summer, Michael did rewire the property. His next step is to work out the details. What type of flooring, which appliances, the color on the walls. Things like that. But Michael does recognize that he is oh so close to the finish line.
Michael Tan: Little by little, some of the customers realize that we are moving. They have asked. They have seen us in the process of construction, and they came by and said, how’s, how’s everything?
When he didn’t open in the summer, Michael had already pushed back the timeline — hoping to open by the end of 2023. When we talk in the fall, he’s had to accept he probably won’t hit that deadline either. He says that early on, he learned that this process has a mind of his own.
Michael Tan: Well, many people think that running a business, you could see it from the beginning to end really quick. Like watching a movie within two hours, from how you start and how to end it, happily ever after. Many things in life, progress does not move as fast as you might think. Success does not come as fast as we might think. It takes time. Success doesn’t come as fast as they want. If they could hold on, they might see success.
For now, Michael’s being patient, and he has a fresh goal for when the new ICI location will open: soon, in 2024.
For Thriving, I’m Nichole Currie.
Thriving is brought to you by Technical.ly and Rowhome Productions with support from the William Penn Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and the Knight Foundation.
Learn more about Thriving at Technical.ly.
Thriving’s executive producer is Technical.ly CEO Christopher Wink.
The series is reported, produced, and hosted by me, Nichole Currie.
Our story editor is Jen Kinney. Managing producer is Alex Lewis. Mix and sound design by John Myers.
Special thanks to Technical.ly editors Sameer Rao, Julie Zeglen and Danya Henninger.
This episode features music from Blue Dot Sessions and Philippe Bronchtein.
Our theme music is by Flat Mary Road.
Thanks for listening.