Compass Rose bakery opens at Narrows

Bakery assistants (l-r) Joycelyn, Jorene and Dejie-Ann — who hail from Jamaica — are Janice Richards’ assistants at Compass Rose Bakery.

By Olivia Jones
Sun contributor

The destination just south of the Glen Lake Narrows follows a meandering history, having transitioned through the names The Dairy Bar, the Narrows Deli, Little Bear and most recently McCahill’s Crossing Dairy Bar. Although each brought a unique flavor to the Glen Lakes, owners and names have come and gone with the changing seasons.

Janice and Paul Richards are the new proprietors of Compass Rose Bakery, which opened on June 23 on the corner of M-22 and CR-677 (Benzonia Trail). They are confident that their gluten free baked goods — a product in high demand these days — will make a lasting impression in the community.

The Richards have also followed a meandering journey. Janice was the child of missionary parents and traveled the country, from Pennsylvania, to Baltimore, to Denver, to New York. Her father became a doctor and moved his family around for his schooling and residency. The family ended up in Ethiopia where her father ran a hospital out in the bush for 3 1/2 years. Richards eventually ended up as an undergraduate at Colby College in Maine, where she went on an independent study and fell in love with physical therapy.

Realizing Maine wasn’t the place she needed to be for her career, Richards transferred to University of Kentucky to pursue her dream. It wasn’t until her senior year, a whopping six weeks before her graduation where she met Paul, who was studying for his degree in allied health education.

While her husband had come to Glen Lake as a kid with a childhood friend, living in a summer cottage and enjoying the beautiful water, Richards had only visited Holland, Michigan when staying with a friend. While the two were engaged, they visited the Sand Dunes where Paul said, “if you marry me, you’ll have to live up here someday!” Richards was more than happy to comply after falling in love with the beautiful scenery. “Everywhere you look, you can see God,” she says.

After pursuing her dream job as a practicing physical therapist, Richards wanted to make her own wedding cake. She enrolled in a beginners bakery class that would lead her to discover a new passion: a strong love of baking.

She and her husband worked in the Suttons Bay Bakery, mastering cakes and other baked goods. It wasn’t until 2005 where Richards received a diagnosis that would forever change her life as a baker: she was gluten intolerant.

“I had to completely re-learn baking,” Richards remembers the days after her diagnosis. After hundreds of experimental recipes, Richards found that the key to wonderfully tasting products that are completely gluten free was the flour blend.

It was the couple’s son, Peter, who encouraged them to open a bakery. After making his home on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, he came to Northern Michigan in September 2016 and remained until this January helping his parents set up their next project in life.

After a lot of planning, Richards had the idea for opening the bakery in Traverse City, but ended up changing her mind due to family reasons. “My dad will be 94, and he lives with us. He is our priority.” Richards drove by what was the McCahill’s last November, and saw a vision for a good space.

Although not enormously spacious, the space offers a wonderful atmosphere for the missing business that they believe Glen Arbor needs. Still being thrown together, the area is complete with tiled flooring, two booths for customers to enjoy their snacks, whimsical artwork and alike pieces that give the space color, and wooden counters and stools that sit in the windows, overlooking the narrows.

“During my research for the bakery, I realized one in three people should be eating gluten free for health reasons,” Richards says. “It is the fastest growing food segment in stores. The proteins found in the flour of non-gluten free products can irritate the digestive system. And gluten free is so not cardboard!”

Richards acknowledges that her decision to open a bakery at this point in her life is a little unorthodox. “I’m in my sixties. Opening a bakery just to open a bakery would be insane. I’ve been a practicing physical therapist for 39 years, I should be winding down, not starting all over again!” But her reasons for opening a unique bakery stretch far beyond her own health. “I’m just really passionate about allowing people to enjoy the celebration of life again.”

Richards realized that nearly every momentous celebration in life has food associated with it: from birthday cakes, graduation cupcakes and everything in between. She felt as though there was something incredibly sad about accomplishing something, and not being able to fully participate in the celebration. “Food is in all celebrations. If you eat gluten free, that takes away so much for people.” Knowing this feeling better than anyone, Richards decided there was a simple solution to this growing problem for gluten intolerant people.

“Living in Ethiopia taught me that we (as Americans) can be living much simpler,” Richards says. She hopes to bring that very attitude into her baking and her new business.

She also hopes to local-source as much as possible, and buy only Michigan or USA made ingredients. Her long-term vision for the bakery is to have purely baked goods products for a while as she and her husband get the business up and running and adjust to life in Glen Arbor, and then eventually serve lunches that draw on her inspiration from foods derived from other countries, such as Ethiopia.

But at the end of the day, Richards truly wishes her business to be the beacon of light in the Glen Arbor community for those who want to eat gluten free for any number of reasons. “My goal is to help people celebrate again. That’s what I’m doing this for.”