Billy Parker
Whether it’s early in the morning on your commute to work or the “late at night” early morning on your way home from a night out, you might stop by a 7-Eleven and see a gleaming glass case of sweet treat delicacies. You may not wonder where that maple longjohn came from. Perhaps it was elves or some other kind of mystical sorcery—the important thing is you get a filling sugar rush to sustain you.
The real answer is that longjohn came from people like Billy Parker, who works alongside roughly 40 other people at 7-Eleven’s metro OKC bakery. From 4 a.m. to 3 p.m., every day, they make 20,000 donuts, as well as muffins and all the other baked goods you see when you’re stopping in for gasoline and a cup of coffee at one of the 114 OKC stores the team services.
Billy has been in the bakery for 19 years, but his culinary life goes back much further than this and has produced a staggeringly multitudinous resume.
“My mother used to work at the old Holly’s drive-in back in the ’50s and ’60s and when she started working at Applewoods, I started working there as help on the weekends,” Billy reminisces. “My mom worked there, my brothers and sisters worked there, so I started working, too. I had an enjoyment for cooking my whole life, so I started traveling around the country to see what I could learn.”
Billy isn’t exaggerating by saying he traveled. Between 1990 and 1995, he took off to see the whole country, sticking his thumb out on the side of the highway to see where the wind would take him.
“I did a lot of hitchhiking when I was younger, finding work as a dishwasher where I could. I’ve been to all 48 [continental] states, Canada, Mexico. Anywhere I stopped and needed cash or something to eat, I’d ask if they needed a dishwasher,” Billy recalls.
When he landed back in Oklahoma City, Billy bounced around to several restaurants, everything from The Varsity to Vista and other long-gone concepts, usually working in either the kitchen or as a manager. With his staggering toolkit of restaurant work, it might seem as if moving into baking would be simple, but he was initially hesitant. “I always thought that baking bread was for the old folks. If they put me in the bakery, I was being put out to pasture,” Billy laughs.
7-Eleven is very automated, by necessity. The company has its own ingredient mixes, and it’s more of a factory than a small artisanal bakery, which ensures quality and consistency. Eventually, a friend approached Billy about helping with their own independent operation. After some convincing, he and his wife and daughter hopped onboard to bake for Bavarian Pretzels.
Bavarian Pretzels sells its namesake and bread at farmers markets. What started as an operation with only three vending locations has expanded to 10, including the Dallas metro. It was a learning curve for Billy; there is more patience involved when making bread from scratch. The process takes three days to make the dough, proof it so it rises, and then bake. The yeast is natural, coming from the air.
Baking can be intimidating, but it is a zen-like process. If all of the ingredients are weighed out properly, and given the time they require to proof, and the time and temperature of the oven are correct, you should have a consistent product. “I was dumb-founded,” Billy continues. “Just let water and flour and Mother Nature do the work.” It is a science, but one that can be taught.
“What I had to learn was to slow down,” Billy stresses. “The only secret I can think of is time. Be patient with it. Allow it to do what it’s supposed to do instead of trying to manipulate it. Let it sit, don’t touch it,” he advises.
Billy and his wife sell their Bavarian Pretzel goods at Scissortail Park on Saturdays, and it brings them much pride. “It’s amazing to see the joy of people just getting a pretzel or the bread and them telling us, ‘I’ve been waiting all week just to get this,’” he glows.
Even at their baking facility, they’re on display. “It’s in a community center and we hear people screaming playing basketball or volleyball,” Billy explains. “Once we start baking the pretzels, they can smell it—and things get quiet and they’ll come up asking if they can buy one. People who’ve come to a game can leave with loaves of bread.”
From hitching his way to Montana to wash dishes all the way to helping a successful artisanal bakery, Billy Parker has had quite the ride.
“I did a lot of hitchhiking when I was younger, finding work as a dishwasher where I could. I’ve been to all 48 [continental] states, Canada, Mexico. Anywhere I stopped and needed cash or something to eat, I’d ask if they needed a dishwasher.”
