Fig & Bean Bakery owner Finn Mifsud fires up two ovens, baking throughout her mornings to prepare orders for wholesale. The bakery is only open Saturdays, but she is there just about every day, baking, sharing the smells of gluten-free baking bread through the vents to Oak Street, where passersby tap on her window, mouthing the words “smells so good” with excitement and a little jealousy.
Dancers at the Ballet Fantastique studio next door have described the smell of baking bread all day long as “torturous” to Mifsud, knowing that Fig & Bean won’t be open for business until the end of the week.
Saturdays are the best part of Mifsud’s week. She remembers last summer on her opening day, standing outside next to her chalkboard sign with a plate full of samples. She relied on foot traffic from the farmers market and parking garage above Fig & Bean for sales. “I don’t think I quite sold out, but it was not a bad day,” she says.
The bakery has grown in popularity since opening in August 2024 — primarily through word of mouth. Being one of Eugene’s only entirely gluten-free bakeries, she’s garnered a fan base of regulars who come to the brick-and-mortar weekly despite the loaves being available at Eugene grocers, including Market of Choice, Sundance and most recently, The Kiva Grocery. “That face-to-face community interaction was something I really wanted in the business,” Mifsud says. “I love that. I would not give that up.”
Though she’s been baking since she was young, opening a bakery wasn’t initially part of Mifsud’s plan. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2023 with bachelors degrees in French and philosophy, intending to become a teacher or a lawyer. “I knew I wanted to be doing something that allowed me to be adding value to the community in some way,” she says.
That all changed during her senior year as Mifsud completed her entrepreneurship minor. One of her first entrepreneurship classes had her design and model a business, which became the model for Fig & Bean. Inspired by the gluten-free baked goods she’s always made for her mom, who has a gluten allergy, Mifsud looked to see where she could fill a gap and still fulfill her desire to support her community.
“I realized that there was a bigger hole in the gluten-free bread market than the gluten-free sweets market,” Mifsud says. “And there was also something there, that bread is such a versatile thing that people take it and make 50 different things out of it.”
With encouragement from her family and a name for the business — Fig & Bean, after Mifsud’s two dogs — she set out to participate in the Oregon Innovation Challenge, a program through the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship that supports student business ventures through workshops and grants. She went into the program with little expectation of being a finalist for grant funding but tried her best. “There was a pop-up bake sale, and I formed the LLC during that time — there were some big steps,” she says.
Those big steps and Mifsud’s efforts paid off when she received an $8,500 grant from the Innovation Challenge, which kicked off the funds she’d need to launch the storefront for Fig & Bean. She spent the summer after her graduation searching for a place, renovating, moving equipment and refining her recipes.
She says that filling the gap in the gluten-free bread market has brought regulars who have added her bakes to their daily lives, along with treats from other gluten-free dedicated bakeries in Eugene, including Elegant Elephant Baking Co. on Shelton McMurphey Boulevard. Mifsud remembers one woman who hadn’t had toast in seven years and another who uses the bread as a staple in her son’s highly sensitive diet.
One faithful customer, in particular, works next door at Man’s World Barbershop. He’d never heard of gluten-free bread before Mifsud opened Fig & Bean, but after learning about the concept and trying her bakes, he decided to cut out gluten entirely. “He sold all of his pasta to the other gentleman at the barbershop,” Mifsud says. “He came in, he goes, ‘I got rid of all my crackers.’”
Mifsud says she looks forward to the future at Fig & Bean, hoping to expand to new wholesale carriers and partner with more local cafés. As her capacity for sales grows, she hopes to be open to the public for a second day during the week, continuing her interactions with customers that she’s so fond of. “There are lots of aspects about operating a bakery that are rewarding and fulfilling, but it’s hearing that I’m adding value or bringing happiness to people that has been the most amazing,” she says.