I'm gonna wrap up things tonight with a little Shakespeare.

"Romeo, Romeo!

Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name."

Of course, that's the famous opening lines to William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

Juliet later says, "What's in a name?"

As she tells Romeo that a name's nothing but a name.

Joining us now "Carolina Impact's" Jason Terzis, with the story of another unique name.

- All right, the question, do you call them sneakers or tennis shoes?

Lightning bugs or fireflies?

Pop, soda, coke?

Flapjacks, pancakes, or hotcakes?

Sprinkles or even Jimmys.

The options are apparently endless for some things, but the reason the person we're about to introduce you to one name simply says it all.

(screen whooshes) - [Matt] Oh, and then these are the cheddar and chive biscuits.

(upbeat music) - [Jason] It's another early morning for Matt Cabana.

Hard at work, filling the day's orders, - Everything that's checked is everything that we've baked today.

- [Jason] But if someone had said to Matt just a few years ago that this is what he'd be doing, he'd never believe it.

- You're going to, you know, give up alcohol, you're gonna own a... I would've been like, "You're out of your mind."

You're absolutely... But like, "Thank, God."

- [Jason] So it's only fitting that the name of his small yet popular business is 'The Accidental Baker."

- The bakery never would've happened if I didn't have Caroline, or if I had continued drinking, never would've happened.

These are our sourdough English muffins here, the sandwich bread.

That's why the whole name of the bakery is as such.

(upbeat music) - [Jason] Matt's life used to be consumed by tennis, as a professional player and coach.

- Summer was traveling around the country playing national tournaments, and then decided I needed a big boy job, which was a terrible position and started working in corporate America, which wasn't quite my fit.

- [Jason] In December of 2022, Matt's drinking reached a breaking point.

He checked himself into rehab.

- So he put himself in treatment, which is amazing.

It's not a common thing, you know, I was really proud of him for doing that.

And when he came back from treatment, he still had his corporate job.

- [Jason] But that job didn't last.

Six months later, Matt was let go.

The timing couldn't have been worse.

- On my birthday.

- On his birthday.

- At the time it seemed like the end of the world, you know, I was just had a treatment, I got let go of my job.

I didn't know what I wanted to do.

- [Jason] With a lot of unexpected time, now on his hands, Matt gravitated towards a place he was familiar and most comfortable with, the kitchen.

- Being from upstate New York, being Italian, I spent time in the kitchen with my great-grandmother, and my grandmother, and my mother.

- He was home a lot and he was baking a lot.

- And that gave me time to really adjust and study and research recipes.

- So I was like, "Don't just get a job, to get a job.

Like take your time, figure out what you want to do."

- [Jason] With wife Caroline, and the rest of her family sticking to a gluten-free diet.

Matt asked the question a lot of people ask, "Why is most gluten-free food, well, bad."

- You know, there's only like disgusting gluten-free products available at that time.

They were horrible.

And so I remember my cake at my high school graduation, you could have killed someone with it.

It was like this dense brick of a cake.

It was awful.

- You know, he'd come to our family dinners and be like, "I can't believe you guys are eating that."

- And I asked her, I was like, "Is this normal?"

Like, and she said, "Yeah, it's just the way it is."

And my first thought was, "That's not fair."

You know, I don't think people just because you can't have, you know, gluten that you should have to not be able to eat good food.

- [Jason] So Matt started experimenting.

- So these are the Cornettis, which is like an Italian version of a croissant.

I realized that there was this need for better gluten-free food and there was something that was missing for these, these group of people.

- Part of his inspiration was like, I want to make food that you can't tell if it's gluten-free.

- I can remember the first loaf of gluten-free sourdough I made was absolutely terrible.

It was awful.

So there's been a lot of failure.

- [Jason] Continuously tweaking ingredients and recipes, Matt zeroed in on what works and tastes the best.

- Everything is organic that we can get available as organic.

We use grass-fed butter, we use pasture raised eggs.

We had no seed oils.

- He would start bringing food into my salon for me and my staff to have and clients, and people were like going crazy over it.

I mean, even people that weren't gluten-free.

- And everybody kind of said, you know, "You should really offer this to more people."

So it was kind of like they planted the seed in me to give it a shot.

- [Jason] That seed began to grow.

Matt deciding to give this gluten-free bakery a go.

Now he just needed a name.

- One of my wife's clients was there and we were talking about, "Well, I'm thinking about starting a bakery.

I don't know what to name it."

- You know, I think he was kind of sharing his story with her and she's like, "You're the accidental baker."

- And she's like, "What about the accidental baker?"

- And he was like, "You're right, I am."

(laughs) - It's like, it seems like it was an accident.

And I was like, "That's great."

- [Jason] Focusing on the best ingredients available.

And of course, taste, Matt worked tirelessly to create a well-rounded menu.

- If I see something in my research where there's another version of what I'm making that could be better, I'm gonna try it.

- It's really nice to see that thoroughness I think and attention to detail and bringing in really good ingredients.

And you know, he's just kind of a perfectionist with his recipes and you can tell.

- So we have about 25 to 30 items on the menu.

- You can go to a lot of places and get a gluten-free cookie or a muffin or whatever.

But to be able to get a croissant or a gluten-free loaf of sourdough, things like that, I mean you really can't find that anywhere.

- You know, I wanted to make sure we had a great bagel.

And you know, I can't say I'm from New York and I make bagels unless they're great bagels.

So thankfully, you know, we just got run up for Best Bagel in Charlotte, and that was among all bagel places.

- [Jason] Coming up on two years in business, "The Accidental Baker" is still relatively small.

For now, limited to online orders with a minimum purchase and the usually jam packed walk-ins for individual items on Saturday mornings.

- When people say, "Move in to Europe, your bakeries better."

That just lets me know that we're on the right track.

That we're doing the right thing.

That you know, okay, we're making stuff that people enjoy and we gotta keep it up.

- [Jason] Working to fill a void in the food chain while also redirecting a personal life that not too long ago involved rehab and unemployment.

I'd say that's a pretty solid turnaround.

- December of 2025 will be three years of no alcohol.

- And his is just another great example of, you know, coming out of a difficult situation and using it to fuel your purpose and to help other people and empower other people.

There's just really no better feeling, so it's exciting.

- I mean it's been amazing to watch and it's very inspiring, and I think just a testament to, you can do whatever you want to do.

- Okay, Jason, I understand the reviews so far are pretty incredible.

- Yeah, he's really found a great niche right here.

And you know, hard to beat a perfect 5.0 rating, but that's what "The Accidental Baker" currently has on Google.

Also, keep in mind those weekdays by pre-orders only, it's Saturdays when he's got his big business with the lines out front because that's when people wanna show up and just basically get whatever he's got.

So Saturday mornings, that's the big draw.