GIBSON CITY — Natalie DeSchepper has had a dream of running her own business for some time. It was one she shared with her boyfriend, Colin Bane.
“Our future goal was to own a restaurant together,” she said.
The two teens both worked at Burgers & Beer in Gibson City, with Bane as a kitchen manager and DeSchepper at the front of the house. This was also the vision they’d had for how their partnership would look at their own farm-to-table restaurant.
This vision was marred when Bane, 17, was killed in a car accident on May 18, 2022.
“I just started baking over the summertime,” DeSchepper said. “I needed something to do with my hands so that my brain could relax for a little bit. I needed something to focus on that was a good distraction and not a negative distraction for me.”
As she baked, DeSchepper’s mother posted pictures of her handiwork on Facebook and listed prices. Eventually, DeSchepper was fielding custom orders and decided she should create a social-media presence for her burgeoning business, now known as Rising Baking Company.
Since getting bitten by the baking bug two years ago, DeSchepper has created desserts for multiple weddings, quit her waitressing job to focus on baking full-time, and graduated from GCMS High School last month.
This fall, DeSchepper will hit another milestone: opening a brick-and-mortar location for the bakery at 216 N. Sangamon Ave. in Gibson City. She hopes to open the shop in August, though it’s possible it might not be ready until September.
“Currently, (the building) is completely gutted, and we are working on building it back up,” she said. “So we are digging up the concrete ourselves for the plumbing. And after all of the plumbing gets finished, then we can put in new flooring, new insulation. We’re going to do new windows, I think, and then put the walls up and start filling it.”
She said while part of the reason for the change is she’s outgrown her mother’s kitchen and needs a larger space, it also goes back to her dream of being a business owner in the hospitality industry.
“Owning a restaurant at 18 is not quite tangible, but opening a bakery seemed like something I could do,” she said.
For now, DeSchepper plans to focus on running the business instead of college. She added that she has an “amazing support system” behind her.
“My family, my immediate family, absolutely supports the fact that there’s just some things about actually opening up your own business that a business class can’t teach you,” she said.