Joanne Chang

Chang's parents were immigrants who met while studying in Houston.[5] She was born in Houston circa 1971.[6] As a child, she grew up in Oklahoma and Texas[5] and enjoyed cooking and baking.[3] Her family consumed a diet of "traditional Chinese cuisine at home" and preferred to avoid sugary sweets.[5][7] However, she enjoyed baking chocolate chip cookies with her mother.[8] Chang was the valedictorian of her high school class.[5]

Chang is an honors graduate of Harvard College, Class of 1991, with a degree in applied mathematics and economics.[9][10] While studying at Harvard, she initially studied astrophysics before switching to applied mathematics.[5] In college, she began selling chocolate chip cookies[5] for the dormitory grill and became known as the "Chocolate Chip Cookie Girl".[11]

After graduation, Chang worked as a management consultant at the Monitor Group in Cambridge.[5] While working at the company, she created a business plan for a company called Joanne's Kitchen and prepared cakes and cookies for her co-workers.[5] After two years of working there, Chang realized that consulting was not the best career for her.[12] Instead of applying to an MBA program or moving up the corporate ladder, she took a year off and applied for work as a chef,[5] despite having limited culinary experience.[13]

Chang began her professional cooking career as a garde-manger cook at Boston's Biba restaurant (she was initially hired to run the bar-food program but was soon promoted by Lydia Shire to making appetizers and salads),[5] followed by stints as the pastry cook at Bentonwood Bakery in Newton, and in 1995, the pastry chef at Rialto restaurant in Cambridge.[9] In 1997, she began working at the cake department of Payard Patisserie in New York City,[14][15] following a schedule of working from "4 a.m. to midnight, six days a week."[10] Returning to Boston a year later with dreams of opening up her own pastry shop, she brought her French and American training to Mistral where she was the pastry chef until summer of 2000.[16]

In 2007, Chang appeared on Food Network's Throwdown! with Bobby Flay and became "nationally known" for beating him.[17] In 2015, she created a frozen yogurt flavor for Pinkberry.[17]

As of 2020, there are 10 Flour Bakery locations across Massachusetts[18] with over 200 employees.[19] Flour promotes the idea of "fresh, handmade bakery foods"[20] and employees are taught to treat products with "Pastry Love".[21] Honored for its signature sticky buns,[22] Flour is about the experience a customer has when they come through the door. Joanne differentiates Flour and Starbucks as one being an "experience" and the other as a "convenience".[23] Flour, as its name indicates, seeks to provide a simple pleasurable experience for their customers.[24] Quoted in flour's mission: "we focus on all aspects involved: great food, gracious service, warm atmosphere, heady aromas, and irresistible displays".[20] Chang hopes that every customer "comes in and leaves happier".[24]

In 2007, Chang and her husband, Christopher Myers, opened Myers + Chang, an Asian fusion restaurant in Boston's South End.[25] The pair created Myers + Chang because, as Chang put it, "Boston needed a restaurant like what we knew we could create: Asian inspired, warm spirited service, genuine hospitality, stylish and fun, a place where everyone would relax and have a great meal".[12]

James Beard Foundation Awards

2016 Outstanding Baker[26]

2018 Outstanding Chef 2018 Semifinalist[27]

• Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe[28]
• Flour Too: Indispensable Recipes for the Café's Most Loved Sweets & Savories[29]
• Baking with Less Sugar: Recipes for Dessert using Natural Sweeteners and Little-to-No White Sugar[30]
• Myers+Chang at Home[31]

Chang met her husband Christopher Myers (restaurateur) in 1995 while they worked together at Rialto, Cambridge Boston.[12] Together, they opened Myers + Chang in 2007, which was "inspired in Chinese and South Asian street food, in the South End",[14] and co-own the restaurant.[32] She ran every Boston Marathon between 1991 and 2006.[33][34] Chang is a supporter of the No Kid Hungry organization, which seeks to eradicate childhood hunger,[35] and the Family Reach organization.[36]

• Myers+Chang
• Flour Bakery