From business plan to action: Laconia grad turns baking passion into her full-time job

LACONIA — After dreaming about her own baking business for most of her life, Arion Papavlo started Ari’s Home Sweet Dough in July. Baking is a passion of Papavlo's, and she couldn’t be happier.

“You just get into the rhyme and rhythm of doing it. Everyone always tells me, 'It's Arion’s kitchen. Don't go into her kitchen,'” she said. “I always joke about how I have my whole kitchen space to myself, and I'll put on my music, and I'll sing and dance while I'm cooking. And I just find it very soothing and fun.”

Papavlo, 24, makes things like pies, cakes and cookies in her home bakery, and also includes dogs as patrons of her business. She makes homemade dog treats, dog cupcakes and even dog birthday cakes. Popsicles for dogs are also available. While the treats may not be made with humans in mind, pet parents can safely eat these treats with their fur babies.

“Everything that I make for my dogs is all fresh and organic ingredients. Nothing is processed. Nothing has those added preservatives in it,” she said. “It's everything that you would go into the grocery store and pick up for yourself.”

Papavlo’s boyfriend Dedric Salway is a plumber, and while not officially a part of her business, has taken on one very important responsibility: taste tester. His favorite baked good he's tried is red velvet cookies.

“I'm the one who's sampling frostings or any of the cakes, or pretty much anything she makes,” he said. “I've even sampled the dog treats once or twice, but, you know, they're all human grade, all whole ingredients and whatnot.”

Papavlo lives with her father, Steve Papavlo, who also serves as a taste tester. His favorite sweet treat is the Kahlúa pie. Steve has observed his daughter’s passion from a young age; her grandmother and great-grandmother were fantastic bakers, who inspired her as a kid. She started baking at 3 or 4 years old.

During the winter, Steve plows snow. In an interview he told the story of when Arion was 5 years old and she offered to make him lunch so he could eat when he returned home.

“She goes, ‘Daddy, I'm going to make you some lunch so that whenever you come in from plowing, you'll have food.’ And I'm like, ‘OK, honey, what are you going to do?’ ‘I'm going to make you pot roast, and I'm going to make you cookies and brownies,’” he said. “And I'll tell you, she was like 5 years old, and, she asked a couple questions, and that was it. She did it.”

Arion's interest from a young age never left her as she grew up. As a student at Laconia High School, Papavlo took accounting and business classes at the Huot Career and Technical Center, where she learned to make a business plan for a bakery in an intro to business class. She graduated in 2018. This plan became the foundation of her business today.

“I can remember, even before that in high school, always wanting to open up my own business, have my own cafe and bakery and have an actual storefront,” she said. “I went through that whole program, and I ended up making an entire business plan for a bakery that I still have, that I have made several tweaks to over the years that I would love to hang on to and use one day down the road.”

Papavlo is still in touch with her teacher from that class, Katina Provencal, who is now a business teacher in Upstate New York. She is proud Papavlo was able to apply what she learned in her class to a real business.

“I’m really proud that she kept it. Everything you have on the school website, that stuff all disappears. So she would have had to transfer it over to her private email just to be able to keep it,” Provencal said. “Then to have learned enough from the class to be able to move forward into a real business, I'm honored.”

But Provencal is not surprised Papavlo has seen recent success, as she was a strong student in her class.

“She was funny, she was witty, she was sharp, and she was definitely a leader in the class,” she said. “She had a voice. You need a voice to be able to get into the business world and to talk to customers and things like that. So that was definitely another good skill that she had. She wasn't afraid to voice opinions, to stand tall.”

Despite all paths seeming to lead to starting her own business, Papavlo first became a medical assistant. It wasn’t long, however, until she started baking for family, friends and co-workers, who encouraged her to follow her passion. She was filling one or two orders a week at first, and now has three to four orders daily. It wasn’t easy to balance both jobs, but it allowed her to experiment on her craft before jumping into it full time. Her boyfriend said there were conversations before the transition about whether baking was worth pursuing.

“It was since like eighth grade, she wanted to own her own baking business. And she's like, ‘I think I’m finally at a point where I want to try and start it.’ So I'm like, ‘Anything I can do to help to start it off, we'll start small, see how it turns out, see how it goes.’” Salway said. “If you can do something that makes you happy, do it for a living, why not, right?”

Right now, the business is a home bakery, but Papavlo is hoping to eventually open a storefront.

“I think just starting off as a home bakery, one, really gets my name out there, and two, I can really practice on perfecting the projects that I would want to keep in my store at all times,” she said.

But ultimately, she is excited to finally be putting in the time to fulfill a lifelong dream.

“I love being able to put something together and really put some time and effort into it, and be able to make someone else's day with what I'm making,” she said.

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Editor's note: This story has been updated to include Arion Papavlo's age and year of high school graduation.