Janet Miller | For AnnArbor.com

Yet each morning, six days a week, Boyd goes to The Croissant Shop tucked into the maze of identical buildings in the industrial park near the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport and bakes 500 croissants, ranging from rich and flakey plain and chocolate-filled to savory varieties.

And except for help with delivery and (now) bookkeeping, it’s a one-man show.

Demand for his croissants has grown so much over the past two or three years that Boyd is operating at capacity, working 15-hour days.

“The business has its ups and downs. Right now it’s at an up,” he said. “I can’t do much more.” He offers 12 flavors of croissants.

While the economy may be a factor, Boyd’s just not sure how.

“It’s funny. I seem to do better when the economy is bad and I don’t know why,” he said. “A lot of other bakers have gone under. I’m one of the last ones who is standing.”

Other than the behemoth across the street from The Croissant Shop: Zingerman’s Bakehouse is within shouting distance of Boyd’s bakery. That doesn’t intimidate him. “I was here first, they followed me,” he said.

Anyway, he’s not out to compete, even though Zingerman’s also makes croissants. “I’m not out to build an empire,” Boyd said.

Fresh out of Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York, Boyd returned to Michigan in the late 1970s to work at the storied London Chop House in Detroit. But when he reported for work, the job was gone and Boyd decided to go out on his own, baking croissants.

“Croissants had come to New York and had a huge impact,” Boyd said. “It was 1978 and they were just heating up.”

To fill in the gaps, Boyd also made tortes, cheesecakes and baguettes, selling to long-gone Ann Arbor institutions such as Escoffier and the Whiffle Tree. But his bread and butter has always been croissants.

The business end has never been an attraction, Boyd said. “It’s a creative thing for me. I need to do it.”

His croissants call for a lot of butter and are made by hand, not machine, Boyd said.

“Most croissants are made by machine and the dough is made to go through the machine. I stand here and make them by hand.”

He’s grown because of his fan base. That’s how he picked up Espresso Royale, one of his biggest accounts.

“Someone walked into an Espresso Royale and asked them if they carried my croissants. When they said no, they walked out.” Soon, Boyd added the six Espresso Royale locations to his customer list.

He moved his bakery around, tried his hand at retail on State Street and then on Church Street until he abandoned the headaches that came from high rents and a revolving door of young employees and settled into the 2,000-square-foot space at the industrial park in 1989.

He’s been quietly baking up to 3,000 croissants a month, plus a relatively small number of other pastries such as cinnamon rolls, pecan rolls and brioche, which account for only about 10 percent of sales.

Sales are almost exclusively wholesale, with University of Michigan cafes and Espresso Royale accounting for 60 percent of receipts. He also sells to Café Verde, Amir’s, Café Zola and Sparrow Meat Market and makes a puff pastry for eve the restaurant.

As he hits capacity, Boyd is thinking about his next move.

“It’s getting to the point that if I’m going to expand, I’ll go back to retail (in downtown),” he said. “The price differential between wholesale and retail had become huge.”

Retail price for a filled croissant is between $2.75 and $3. When he sold them retail, cost was $1.50.

While Boyd has resisted having a Web site, The Croissant Shop is on the Internet. Google croissant and Ann Arbor and The Croissant Shop appears at the top of a search, on local blogs and information pages.

“I’m not out beating the bushes,” Boyd said. “But the Internet has made a difference.”