About

The Jubilee Story

Jubilee Kitchen was founded in 2022 by Amy Mercer. Amy has always loved to bake and formerly operated a small in-home baking business in Albemarle County. When she and her family lived in France from 2017-2020, the world of French patisserie was opened to her. Amy spent time taking pastry classes, interning briefly at a French bakery and pursuing a diploma as a French pastry chef (the completion of which was ultimately scuttled by Covid.) Amy is also a social worker who has worked with the immigrant and refugee community and dreams of using her passion for baking to serve this population.

Why Jubilee?

In the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the Year of Jubilee was a time appointed every 49 years in the nation of Israel to forgive debts, free slaves and let the land rest from bearing crops.  Although not all the specifics of the ancient practice are directly applicable to our lives today, the concept of Jubilee remains an invitation to re-think “business as usual”.  We believe Jubilee is an invitation to order life differently than what makes sense in conventional wisdom: to make choices in business based on priorities other than immediate profit and to dream about what it would be like if an entire society chose to prioritize care for the earth and for the poor.  In short, it is an invitation to choose a king other than the bottom line, and to work to bring the way we do business into line with that choice. The name Jubilee Kitchen reflects our desire to create a small business that embodies these values and priorities; choosing to employ those who might otherwise experience barriers to employment, to pay a living wage, and to think consciously about the environmental impacts of everything we do.