Pride an important ingredient for success of Livermore cookie shop owner
LIVERMORE -- Celebrating Pride has become a key ingredient to the success of one East Bay man's business and personal life.
Dan Floyd owns Dan Good Cookies in Livermore. It was only a few years ago that he publicly embraced Pride.
Floyd has been baking since he was a kid. His first job?
"Baking cookies at a mall," he remembered.
Fast forward a few years and now he owns his own shop. His husband came up with the name.
"I thought it was a bad idea until we started seeing it and seeing it. And it got better every time we said it, so yeah, here we are," explained Floyd.
But getting to this point came with a mix of professional and personal challenges that hit all at once six years ago.
Floyd said opening his business was not nearly as terrifying as opening up to his family about being gay and in a committed relationship.
"I didn't come out until I was 25," he said. "We both grew up in very orthodox religious families. [They were] probably the most opposed and still is to me and my relationship with my husband," said Floyd. "But his family, on the other hand, has been crazy supportive and has been so welcoming since the first day."
The very definition of Pride sits framed at the countertop as you walk into his cookie shop. Signs of Pride are openly displayed at the shop, more so now after an incident two years ago. Floyd was told by an organizer he couldn't pass out Pride flags at the Livermore Farmers Market.
Video of the incident went viral. But that was nothing compared to what happened next. Community members in the hundreds coming together to show Floyd they support him. They stood by him and his business, to the point where he had customers lined up out the door and around the corner for days.
"I had to hire five people and it wasn't enough to serve the people who were coming in here to say how much they supported us how much they loved us," Floyd remembered. "We have definitely embraced that part of ourselves more since the community came out and made it more public."
When asked if he thought he probably helped others, Floyd replied, "Yes, I think so. People say 'thank you' all the time. I don't feel worthy of that ever, but it's still wonderful to know that positive change has come to us and other people."
But there is a bittersweet side when Floyd looks at his life now and what life holds in the future.
"I worry about everyone else who doesn't enjoy that same mindset. Like for Roe v. Wade, it would be horrendous," he said. "Me and my husband got married. I flew back to get married in Idaho and that wouldn't have been possible, so it's kind of scary."