Barb’s Bakery: “life, warmth and connection to people:
By Jenny Robertson
Sun contributor
Glen Arbor, Michigan lost a bit of its warmth and sweetness this year with the closing of Barb’s Country Oven. After a great run of 20 years on the corner of Lake Street and M-22, proprietor Barbara Richardson pulled up her sign, turned off her oven, and moved her wooden baking table, handmade by her husband and father-in-law, back to her own kitchen.
The decision to close shop was a hard one. “Since I had my kidney transplant, my body just hasn’t recouped to the point where it’s sturdy, and from the repetitious stirring for so many years, my shoulder gave out. It just got to be really hard on my body and I had to finally listen to the doctor and say, okay, I will give it up,” Barb said. “It was very hard. It was just heart-breaking to me, because I loved what I was doing. I loved my job. Not a lot of people can say that, but I loved my job.”
Baking has always been a central part of her life. The eldest of Gilbert and Elsie Warnes’ 12 children, Barb grew up in Glen Arbor in a house nestled behind her family’s grocery store, Warnes Grocery (now Bear Paw Pizza), where her mother and both of her grandmothers filled the kitchen with the aroma of ginger cookies, apple coffee cakes, Thanksgiving and Christmas cookies, and kolaches. Her mother always baked and cooked, especially for her father, and as a teenager, young Barbara made peanut butter cookies for her “sweetheart of all times”, her future husband, Duane Richardson.
When she was a young girl, Barb told her mother she intended to have a bakery someday, a dream that had to wait quite a few years while she raised her own four young children and worked other jobs to help Duane support the family. But in 1987, the time was right. Barb rented a space in the back of Deering’s Market in Empire and began her professional baking career. Two years later she’d outgrown that space, and armed with her father’s blessing — and equipment she’d been gathering: a mixer, slicer, proofing cabinet, the handmade baking table, and things she’d purchased from Shimek’s farm market — Barb’s Country Oven was born.
Over the ensuing years, her four children: Christopher, Amy, Ian and Jesse, almost all of her siblings, and several nieces and nephews worked at the bakery at one time or another, as well as a few long-time employees who eventually became honorary family members. The little building on the corner was the place to go for cinnamon twists, cinnamon and pecan rolls, english muffin bread and other homemade breads, sour cream sugar cookies, pies, bars, and Barb’s original recipe muffins. At one time, the bakery was only quiet for two hours a day, with her two eldest sons working through the night to make the morning’s goodies. Even without the boys’ midnight shift, a typical summer day began at two or three in the morning, when Duane came in to start the rolls and cinnamon twists. Barb arrived at about seven and usually stayed until at least seven at night, although it was often nine before she left, and occasionally after midnight.
To Barb, baking symbolizes life, and warmth, and connection with people. “In my mind,” she says, “I feed the world when I’m baking.” So it’s no surprise that closing the bakery has been a tough transition. “I’ll miss the baking, but most of all, I’ll miss the people. Because the people were what I was baking for. You know, some of them I’ve known since their kids were babies. That’s what I miss. Just not seeing all the people, and seeing how everybody’s doing. I have some older people, that now I don’t see their families, so I don’t know how they are. It’s really hard.”
As for life after the bakery? “I’m figuring out what I want to do, but I won’t be bored.” Sewing, knitting, cooking, being with her kids and grandchildren, and taking up painting again are all on her list, as is a Barb’s Country Oven cookbook that she’s had many requests for over the years, but until now hasn’t had the time to put together. “I have been working on it. We’ve started to gather pictures, and what recipes we want to use, and I hope to put a little history in there, about our family, and about the recipes. That’s my project for this winter.” Barb is also pleased that the family’s professional baking heritage will not end with Barb’s Country Oven. Son Ian currently runs the baking department at Crystal Mountain Resort, which also employs graphic artist son Christopher.
Even though you can’t get pie there anymore, the old bakery building isn’t sitting empty. It’s now the home of Left Foot Gallery, owned and run by Barb’s nephew, Curtis Warnes, who designs and hand-crafts steel home décor, bathroom accessories, and home furnishings (www.steelappeal.com). Stop in sometime and say hello to the newest generation of Warnes family entrepreneurs.
Asked if she had anything else to say to her former customers, Barb said, “I just really miss them. If any of my customers see me, please come up and talk to me.” There’s also been unofficial talk of a one-last-hurrah party in celebration of Barb and her 20 years work keeping the townpeople’s teeth tingling with sweet frosting, so if you smell cinnamon wafting through the air one of these mornings, follow your nose, and, just maybe, there’ll be one more cinnamon twist waiting for you at the end of the trail.