Broadway Bakery offers tasty treats

Broadway Bakery has "soft-opened" at their downtown location of 509 Broadway Street. According to owner Sarah Slagle, their current hours are from 7:30-11 a.m., seven days a week. They have a temporary occupancy permit which allows baked goods to be sold.

Every day, Broadway Bakery sells different donuts, scones, muffins, pastries, and bread. They have a gluten-free option every day. Once they are fully open, they will have coffee, sandwiches, breakfast burritos, and more. Slagle will have walls put up with seating and customers can use Wi-Fi for their internet usage.

Additionally, they will have homemade tortillas for breakfast burritos, breakfast bagel sandwiches, English muffins, and more. For lunch, they will have deli sandwiches with about five different options. Slagle needs to determine how much demand there will be for the sandwiches and see if they will pre-make them or hire some staff to make them right there fresh for customers. Slagle said, "We'll just have to play it by ear."

Slagle gave some background on her bakery business and said, "I've been doing the actual business for a little over 20 years out of my home." Slagle originally started baking and making cakes for her kids, for birthdays, and other friends. She then moved on to weddings and baby showers. She was baking probably 30 cakes a month.

Slagle added, "A couple of years ago, actually, during COVID, my husband built me a commercial kitchen separate from our actual kitchen. And then we outgrew that. It just got to the point where I was looking at renting a front storefront for a space. And then I was like by the time I pay rent, you know? So I looked at this building and then it just ended up working out. But my vision really is just to be able to provide homemade goods and continue to do the cakes and all the custom work. And eventually, hopefully, next year sometime we'll be doing wholesale."

Slagle's vision for the wholesale bakery is to service the greater region with deliveries of bread, rolls, and various pastries. Slagle added, "That was originally what my plan was before I decided to do the storefront. We were just going to buy the building and just do wholesale, and then I would continue to do the cakes and stuff on the side and then it just kind of took off. And now this is what we're doing. But the wholesale still is a really big thing that I really want to do."

Slagle continued and said, "It's just something that I'm passionate about, and it's a little bit strange to me that I've never not liked it. Even when it's stressful, I still really enjoy it, which I think is awesome...And so far I've enjoyed it and I don't have an issue with it, but really I just enjoy being creative. That's part of the biggest thing is being creative. I'm kind of a geek. I love the science part of it, so I love tweaking recipes and making the recipes and learning about different things and, how you know, they'll mesh together or whatever. So that's kind of fun for me. More of the experimental recipes."

The public's response to Broadway Bakery has made a strong impression on Slagle. She said, "So far I've heard really good things. We have a ton of repeat customers already. I had to make a little punch card because we have people that come in so often now that I'm like, I need to do some sort of reward, you know? I feel like it's going really well. We're so busy. It's kind of hard to even fathom what's happening because it happened so quickly that we weren't intending to open soft like a soft opening. "

"We were intending to just wait until the grand opening. And then when they gave us a temporary permit, it was like overnight, where during the day or the weekends there'll be a line over here and it's like, my gosh, you just can't keep up. The product is really good. They love the stuff. They want to eat it. They enjoy coming in. I know I've had a lot of people ask, 'When you're getting coffee? When are you going to have drinks? When are you going to have places to sit?'"

Slagle's response to the demands of her customers is, "We're working on it. That's what my intent is, to get that going as soon as possible. Just be patient. We're working. We're going as fast as we can to get completely, fully operational so that we will be serving."

Once the building's electrical portion is approved, they will be fully open. At that time, the new hours will be from 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7-10 a.m. on Sunday. Their full opening is still to be determined.