Livermore Couple Honors Late Daughter's Legacy With New Bakery

LIVERMORE, CA — The dream of opening their own business has always been there for Aimee and Bryan Wingen, although what shape it would take never came into focus. But what the Livermore couple has had to endure to make opening a bakery a reality — and the young life that will serve as its inspiration — is something they could have never imagined.

Wingen Bakery is scheduled to in June, more than a year after Aimee and Bryan started selling baked goods out of their home just as the coronavirus pandemic was settling in. But the opening of their new brick-and-mortar business in downtown Livermore comes just 10 months after their 8-month-old daughter died from Zellweger syndrome, a rare congenital disorder that impacts 1 in 50,000 children.

The day-to-day activities involved in getting their business off the ground and transitioning from selling baked goods at the Livermore Farmers Market has been a bit of a whirlwind, the couple admits. And while the waves of grief surrounding the death of their beloved Waylynn occasionally hit them harder on some days than others, the young couple knows that the timing of launching their new venture was somehow meant to be.

“Everything just kind of flowed and we put one foot in front of the other,” Aimee Wingen told Patch on Thursday. “I’m sure we’ll look and say, 'Wow, that was a crazy time.'”

Between being quarantined due to the pandemic and caring for their daughter, Aimee and Bryan Wingen have embraced making the transition from working at a local restaurant to going out on their own.

Waylynn was born in December 2019 and was diagnosed with Zellweger syndrome a week later. From the start, the couple could tell something wasn’t right, which made the decision to extend their leave from their restaurant jobs a no-brainer. Doctors were initially unsure what was happening with the couple's daughter; and it wasn't until Bryan's sister saw something that sparked a memory of her cousin giving birth to a child that diagnosed with Zellweger syndrome that everything began to fall into place.

Three months after Waylynn's birth, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which gave the couple more time at home with their daughter. While they started the journey not knowing anything about the disorder their daughter was diagnosed with, they quickly learned that most babies don’t live beyond a year. That reality made making each day a priority.

They started baking bread in April and selling it to friends at a time when Waylynn was in and out of the hospital. Each month, the couple would invite friends from their bubble in for birthday parties, wanting their young daughter to be as comfortable as possible, but also wanting to celebrate each day they had with her, knowing the end was coming sooner rather than later.

“It’s almost therapeutic in a way for us to be cooking and really have this be our passion project with her in mind,” Bryan Wingen said.

Aimee added: “It just became evident that this is something we had to do. It just made sense.”

The couple decided it best to continue not working to keep their focus where it needed to be. But as the end of the summer approached and they could tell Waylynn’s time on Earth was likely coming to an end, Aimee and Bryan gave more thought to the idea of moving into a brick-and-mortar location.

Both had previous restaurant experience, with Aimee working as a sous chef and pastry chef and Bryan working as a general manager. Both had been part of restaurants opening in the past; and so when the notion of opening their own business became a priority, both understood the work that would be entailed.

After Waylynn died in August, the baking continued; and in November, the sales of breads, bagels and other baked goods shifted to the Farmers Market, three months before the couple took over the storefront in February of this year. They did everything with Waylynn in mind, knowing that in even the smallest of ways, their daughter was playing her own part in them chasing after their dream.

Last year, Aimee and Bryan partnered with the global foundation associated with Zellweger syndrome and raised $20,000 through the sale of their homemade goods, which only cemented the fact that Waylynn’s legacy would live on — not only in the bakery but in the lives of her parents.

“It’s about life being short and pursuing your dreams because you never know when it’s going to be over,” Aimee Wingen said. “We got to bring her into this world and also see her leave it in such a short time that we didn’t want to keep trudging through the mud. We just wanted to make something on our own.”

She added: “We’re still learning every day. With the grief, you go through so many emotions, and there’s no timeline of when that is going to end, so we’re learning and growing every day.”

The new bakery space will have a room dedicated to Waylynn while also serving as a cozy environment in which customers can relax. The bakery will do its first event with Livermore Pride on June 5 and then will open for business the week of June 10. The couple wants their daughter’s memory to live on in the space and for the bakery to be a place where other parents who may be going through similar difficulties involving the loss of a child can come for support.

The bakery, which is at 50 S. Livermore Ave., will specialize in a range of baked breads, bagels, sandwiches and other savory culinary creations that the couple hopes will serve a community that has supported them so much through everything they have lived through.

While the couple could sense their daughter’s presence on a daily basis immediately after her death, the periods of when they don’t feel it have lengthened since. But as the bakery opening draws closer, both Aimee and Bryan have found themselves dreaming of Waylynn at night and are reminded by the cardboard cutout of her that made its way to an Oakland A’s game last season and that is now displayed in the couple’s office.

Each night, they light a candle in Waylynn's memory and as a reminder of why they have put in so much work to begin their own business after going through such a tragic loss.

“It definitely gets stressful, and you wonder, ‘What are we doing?’ But I think everyone has those doubts,” Aimee Wingen said. “But the strength that Waylynn gives us just helps carry us through.”

Aimee added: “We feel like this is her little space on Earth.”