By Allison Braden

Cristina Rojas Agurcia, known to many as The Batchmaker. Photo by Corrie Hutchins

Sometimes, Cristina Rojas Agurcia feels like the mother of a newborn; her bakery, The Batch House, is the baby. In 2019, she opened the brick-and-mortar business, attached to LaCa Projects’ gallery space in Wesley Heights. The next year, in November, heavy rains flooded the building, ruining equipment and forcing her to close. With support rooted in the community she’d built, Rojas Agurcia reopened at Station West in Seversville in October 2021. 

“I’m just in the trenches,” she says. “Even though I’ve been in it since 2019, it feels like opening this one was still like a new baby.” She rarely takes time for herself, and on top of her metaphorical baby, she has two breathing children to take care of, too. She grounds herself with weekly runs and occasionally treats herself — but not with sweets. “My guilty pleasure is getting a massage at Mood House,” she says. “Or I love getting my nails done. I keep them short, and it’s usually a clear polish or a soft pink, but it makes me feel like my life is not as crazy.”

Here’s what a day in her life looks like.

4:45 a.m. Rojas Agurcia wakes up at the same time every day. “I will typically check DMs on my phone while I snap out of it, and emails, and see if there’s anything super, super urgent,” she says. “I usually leave my clothes out the day before, and I prep the coffee the day before, so I’m a big day-before prepper. Just the way my life is and the way the life in the kitchen is, I always plan everything that I can in my life and in the kitchen.” Before she goes to work, she may do the odd task, like fixing lunches for her children or putting something in the Crockpot. But sometimes, she says, “I’ll just sit in silence for the 10 minutes the coffee brewer goes.”

6 a.m. Rojas Agurcia and her staff — her “girls” — start the day by preparing orders. “We’ll go through our order list and make sure that the orders are good to be picked up — like the cookies are decorated, the cookies are baked, everything for that day,” she says. “After we’ve done that, we divide and conquer.” Tasks rotate among the staff. Some focus on pastries, while others bake cakes or prepare ingredients for that week’s orders. “Cakes,” Rojas Agurcia says, “are my sweet spot.”

Rojas Agurcia, who studied for a master’s degree in clinical mental health, works hard to cultivate a supportive, positive work environment. “Something that’s super important to me is that we work collectively as a team,” she says. “Every time I hire someone, I say, ‘No one’s above anybody. We all function like a body.’ The body needs the stomach as much as it needs the heart, the lungs, the eyes, and we all need each other. There will be a day where you’re overwhelmed, and you’ll be thankful for somebody saying, ‘How can I help you?’”

Recently, three staff members left within a month, with the holiday season on the horizon. She hired two more girls. “For the first time in a while, I feel like the whole team is very complete and very complementary. We all know our strengths and also our weaknesses,” she says. “It’s a good environment, which is one of the things that I’m most proud of.”

12 p.m. Rojas Agurcia barely stops for breath, let alone lunch, during the workday. “I’m really bad and I probably shouldn’t be admitting it, but I don’t even take a second and I should — my therapist has been trying to drill that in me for years. Like, take a second for myself at work. Sit down and have lunch. But my day — just truly, I have so many things that have to get done that I don’t really stop. I don’t stop. I drink a lot of coffee and I drink a lot of water. And that’s about it.” 

At this point in her baking career, she rarely snacks on sweets (“I can’t do it anymore”), but she’ll occasionally treat herself to an “ugly” oatmeal raisin cookie or indulge in a Reese’s cookie — “I’m a big peanut butter fan.”

2 p.m. The end of Rojas Agurcia’s shift doesn’t mean a break. “I drive over to pick up my daughter from school,” she says. “We drive home. I usually either eat lunch then or eat a snack to hold me over.” She makes her kids, Joaquin, 4, and Josefina, 7, a snack, too. She takes out their folders and lunchboxes, and learns about their day. She unloads the dishwasher and prepares for dinner. “And then usually my kids have extracurricular activities,” she says. At 4 or 5 p.m., she takes them to piano or jiujitsu, depending on the day.

6:30 p.m. “We’re having dinner — the four of us together,” Rojas Agurcia says. “Especially because I’m not a big eater when I’m at work, I have to have an early dinner with them.” She cooks for her family every day, and she often makes foods from her own childhood in Honduras: “chilaquiles, arroz con pollo, pupusas, tacos, nachos, stuff like that.”

8 p.m. After dinner, Rojas Agurcia manages her kids’ bathtime before her husband takes over for bedtime. She takes that time to exercise. “I will answer my emails on the treadmill,” she says. “I’ve rigged it so that I can put the computer on the treadmill. I’ll do about 30 to 40 minutes, and then I try to do a little bit of strength training, even if it’s 10 minutes.” Afterward, she’ll go up to kiss Joaquin and Josefina goodnight. She doesn’t stay up much later. After her nonstop days, she says, “I’m asleep at 8:30 or 9.”

More in this series

Sam Diminich of Your Farms, Your Table
NoDa Brewing’s Chad Henderson
Bruce Moffett of Moffett Restaurant Group
Alyssa Wilen of Chef Alyssa’s Kitchen
What the Fries’ Jamie Barnes and Greg Williams
Kindred’s Katy Kindred
Freshlist’s Jesse Leadbetter
300 East’s Ashley Boyd
Aria and Cicchetti’s Pierre Bader