How this UMich Alum Opened Her Bakery, Q Bakehouse & Market

At age 30, Rachel Liu Martindale is able to say something few people can: She spends every day doing what she loves most in the world.

As the owner of Q Bakehouse & Market, an Asian-American bakery and market opening this fall/winter offering pastries, cakes and Asian pantry staples, she spends her days frosting wedding cakes, folding dumplings and brainstorming the latest item on her ever-changing, unique pastry menu. With items like black sesame tarts, pandan chiffon cake and miso sweet corn milk buns, it’s easy to get lost scrolling Q Bakehouse’s Instagram and its hybrid world of Asian-American desserts that are at once dazzlingly creative and delicious.

At age 30, Rachel Liu Martindale is able to say something few people can: She spends every day doing what she loves most in the world.

It can seem that Liu Martindale is living the dream, pursuing her passions as her job. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Liu Martindale defined all that she loves about her work.

“It’s everything,” Liu Martindale said. “I love baking. I’m shocked by how many days at work that I still enjoy. I’ll come home from work in the evenings and just bake at home, playing around with stuff.” 

But it wasn’t always like this; just seven years ago, a bakery wasn’t even in the picture for Liu Martindale. In 2016, freshly graduated from the University of Michigan with a materials science and engineering degree, Liu Martindale was working as an engineering consultant, feeling undeniably stuck. 

“I was at my job, feeling miserable,” Liu Martindale said. “I’d work eight hours then go home and think about how I’d have to work the following day. Weekends would be a bit of a break, but then I’d actually have Sunday nights where I’d just cry because I didn’t want to go to work the next…