Q&A

Second Daughter Baking Co.’s Founders on Expansion, Butter, and Sisterly Love

The sibling duo behind the beloved Bok Building bakery share the story behind their sweets.


Sisters Mercedes Brooks (left) and Rhonda Saltzman. / Photography by Anna Kim

Behind the Line is Foobooz’s interview series with the people who make up Philly’s dynamic food and beverage scene. For the complete archives, go here.

At Second Daughter Baking Company, the Philly-based artisan bake shop on the fourth floor of the Bok Building, dessert is inseparable from sisterly love. Opened by sisters Rhonda Saltzman and Mercedes Brooks in early 2021, Second Daughter Baking has grown a loyal and proud following in the Philly area. You’ve probably seen some of their treats around, like the fudge brownies that won them a Best of Philly in 2021.

Older sister Rhonda is a classically trained chef-turned-baker and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. With a bachelor’s degree in culinary and hospitality management and eight years of restaurant industry experience, she is leading the duo in the conception and execution of their sweets. Mercedes, the customer-service expert, has forged her own path in the hospitality world, developing an expertise and keen vision for the brand.

Beyond the baking, the first few years of Second Daughter Baking Co. symbolize more than a career pivot for the pair. Their own sense of identity and self-expression has changed since opening the business, guided by an unapologetic affection for one another, a desire to support and affirm each other, and contagious joy. Rhonda and Mercedes’s story is one of hope and gratitude — it’s something that every customer supporting Second Daughter Baking Co. unequivocally benefits from. I talked with Rhonda and Mercedes about the details behind the sweets, how it feels to celebrate two years of Second Daughter Baking Co., and future expansion in the Philly area.

We grew up in …

Mercedes: West Philadelphia and then we moved to Delaware County with our family. Our childhood was really great, Rhonda and I spent a lot of time together when we were younger. We probably spent too much time together, to the point where our mom would say, “I can’t take you guys anywhere together, you’re just too much.” We were always in our own world playing around.

Our oldest food memory is …

Rhonda: My grandmother and my father in the kitchen making matzo-ball soup. And I remember being curious and asking them questions, but my deep love for food didn’t begin until much later in life. My degree is in cooking. I started out as a line cook when I graduated school and I worked in a couple of restaurants, but it wasn’t until my husband died that I had to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. I was at a moment where I was starting over and it seemed right to do this. So I got a job at a bakery and I’ve just been baking ever since. So it’s been about eight years since I’ve been baking.

Mercedes: Rhonda taught me how to bake when we were little. Actually, she taught me how to boil water, too. Rhonda taught me how to do everything. We would have holiday parties every year and it was our job to bake the cookies.

A chocolate cake from Second Daughter Baking Co.

The decision to open Second Daughter Baking Co. came from …

Rhonda: It was a combination of moments. 2020 was a shit storm for us. January 27, 2020 there was a fire in our apartment building and we lost everything from that. We literally lost everything. We had to move back in with our mom and because COVID had then hit, we were out of our apartment for about six months altogether. We both lost our jobs during that time, too. I think our uncle had just passed away, and we were just juggling so many other family troubles. There were so many things that happened in the short period of two months. So the thought was if we don’t open this now, something else might happen that will prevent us from doing it later on. We’ve had so many Instagram baking pages, and we had an Etsy page at one point. Around June or July of 2020, we were like “How do we legitimize our ideas and create a business from this?” So that’s really where it started.

If we haven’t seen or talked to each other all day …

Mercedes: Rhonda will call me like, “You need to come home now.” It’s not in a sense where it’s annoying, but it’s in a sense where we genuinely miss each other and want to spend time together. When I’m alone, I’ll start wondering what Rhonda’s doing, or when I’ll see her again. Our entire family is the same way. Every morning we get a good morning text from our mom in our group chat with our older sister. Our family is very close, and I really love that.

Our biggest fan is … 

Rhonda: Our mom. Whenever she meets anyone new she’ll be like “Do you like to eat food? You know, my daughters own a bakery!” Every day she tells us a new story about how she was talking to the lady at the bank about us. She takes advantage of every opportunity to show us off to everyone she meets.

Mercedes: Our nephew — our older sister’s son — is so proud of us, too.

Year two of running the bakery showed us that …

Rhonda: We could afford this space in Bok. We moved in here last November and this place is triple the amount that we were paying downstairs in the kitchen we were in before. And we still had some extra money in the bank to buy two more ovens.

The theme song for our life right now is …

Both: “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads.

Developing the recipe for our brownies involved …

Rhonda: I made brownies for 30 days straight and it took me multiple times to get it right for that wafer-thin texture on top. I had to figure out what variables changed when I wasn’t able to get that same consistency. You know, if the eggs are super cold, or the butter isn’t warm enough, or I’m not putting in enough chocolate, or I’m using the wrong kind of chocolate — we go through all those stages and taste-tests each time.

On a night when we want to treat ourselves, our go-to restaurant in Philly is…

Mercedes: Fogo De Chão

Rhonda: Penang in Chinatown

The most challenging part of owning a bakery is …

Rhonda: Well, it’s an oversaturated market. There’s a ton of bakeries and restaurants and everybody’s making and selling something on Instagram or Etsy, so there’s that. In terms of operation, food cost is really hard to navigate. To put things into perspective, a 36-pound case of butter was $76 in 2020. It’s $150 a case now. We use pasture-free eggs, we pay $68 for 15 dozen now but back in 2020 they were around $28. How do you not cost yourself out of business? How do you take less of a margin but still continue to be profitable? You know, we have to keep the lights on and still provide a good product without using substandard ingredients. How do you do that? We have a great product, we offer fresh stuff and we try to be open as long as we can without overworking ourselves too much. But, sometimes business is up and down. It’s not perfect.

Mercedes: Inflation has been one of the main hurdles that we’ve been battling the entire time since opening — trying not to change our prices too much but at the same time, you know, our margin is just shrinking day by day.

If you had to pick a favorite menu item it would be …

Mercedes: Mine would have to be our newest item on the menu, our brocky. It’s our Best of Philly brownie along with our brown-butter chocolate chip jawn cookie. It’s my favorite because of the texture. I love how fudgy the brownie is, but then how crispy the cookie is.

Rhonda: My favorite thing that we make would probably have to be the tomato tart that we have over the summer and our scones. We have a lemon, thyme, and Royer Mountain cheese scone. So it’s savory but kind of sweet, but you also get those hints of lavender that plays on the thyme. If you’ve seen the movie Ratatouille, it’s almost like where he’s eating the strawberry and cheese and you see the notes and the different colorful bursts. That’s what happens when I eat that scone.

The sillier sister is …

Mercedes: I think we’re exactly the same level of silliness now as we were growing up. We joke around sometimes and say that we’re five year olds just living in adult bodies.

Rhonda: I don’t feel like I ever grew up. I feel like I have more responsibilities now, but I still feel like a little kid inside and I don’t know if that will ever go away.

Looking ahead to our third year of operation …

Mercedes: I’m just simply looking forward to adding new products and just growing as much as we can.

Rhonda: I have a list of things. I definitely want to change the way that we operate. I’d like to do more farmers’ markets. I think that while the people of South Philly have embraced us fully, it’s time for Second Daughter to go to Fishtown, let’s go to the ‘burbs, let’s go to Jersey. I want to explore other areas and step outside of this radius that we’ve been in. So, the questions are how can we sustain closing the business early so that we can leave early for this wedding or even for this farmers’ market where we could make triple the amount of money? How can we get into a retail shop? How can we hire more people? How can Second Daughter explode even more? We definitely have a plan for even more growth this year. A lot of that is just getting out there.