Two new bakeries are setting up shop just a few doors away from each other on Delaware’s Sandusky Street.
Both businesses were inspired to open downtown just months after the closing of the Delaware Buehler’s grocery store, which had a bakery.
Home Slices Bakery and Cafe at 2 N. Sandusky St. will have its grand opening today from 10 a.m. to 3 pm. The shop, formerly called Something Sweet, changed ownership and was shut down for a week of renovations, but has had a soft opening for the past three weeks. It employs eight people.
Tammy McWherter is the manager, baker and cake decorator for Home Slices. She said that with the exception of fried Der Dutchman doughnuts, everything is made from scratch and baked in-house — cakes, cupcakes, Danish, mini-cheesecakes, muffins and pies. In addition, Home Slices has kept the same beverages that Something Sweet carried.
McWherter said Home Slices is owned by Harold Bauder.
“We worked together at Delaware Area Career Center, and he wanted to open up a bakery since Buehler’s had closed down,” she said of Bauder. “He said, if you can generate the business and get it together, we’ll open it up.”
With 25 years in bakery training and management for Kroger and Wal-Mart, lifelong Delaware resident McWherter is used to opening new corporate bakeries and delis. However, this is her first individual bakery.
“I like the customers,” she said. “A very friendly outgoing group of people come in here. We get all generations on a daily basis. It’s a very relaxing environment.”
As for the business down the street, McWherter said she is willing to help them.
“I’m not worried about competition, I’m just worried about pleasing our customers,” she said.
Fresh Start Cafe and Bakery at 24 N. Sandusky St. will open in late May or early June, said owner Todd Daughenbaugh.
“Competition is always good,” Daughenbaugh said of his neighbors. “I think we’ll be unique enough that we’ll both attract our own kind of customers.”
A Delaware resident since 2002, Daughenbaugh said he has an accounting background, but wanted to work in his home city instead of Columbus.
“It’s always been a dream to get connected to the community. Even though I’ve lived here so long, I’d tell people I felt like I slept in Delaware and lived in Columbus,” he said. “I’ve been looking several years for an opportunity within Delaware, and the outcry of Buehler’s closing down made me see that there was a need for a bakery and a lunch cafe to support those.”
Daughenbaugh said Fresh Start will serve made-from-scratch, baked in-house cakes, doughnuts, muffins and pastries from head baker Lynette Lawson. Also on the menu will be salads, sandwiches, soups; and coffee, smoothies and tea. In addition, Daughenbaugh’s wife, Leigh, will offer event catering services.
He said there will be five full-time employees, as well as part-time baristas and cashiers.
“We’ll have casual seating and Wi-Fi,” Daughenbaugh said of Fresh Start. “We hope it becomes a destination point and fit in well with downtown Delaware.”
