JEFF'S STORY

My earliest recollection of baking was watching my great grandmother, Bertha Finney, make pies in my parent’s restaurant in Danville, Illinois.  In the eyes of a 6 year old, she made the best cherry pies. When my mom and dad got out of the restaurant my dad went to work for a bakery. I remember getting fresh Danish and yeast raised glazed donuts as well as chocolate chip cookies these were all part of the “four basic food groups” in our home.

I am not really sure when the baking bug bit me but I knew that I loved to bake.  The love and knowledge for baking continued when our family moved to Owatonna, Minnesota so dad could go to Pillsbury Baptist Bible College to study to be a teacher. It was there that I watched the baker, Annie Fisher, make bread.  I was very fascinated with the whole process, from weighing out the dough, to mixing, to proofing, to baking.

I started out my food service experience by mopping floors for my father at the college.  It was there that I learned quite a bit about how to manage a kitchen and operate a business. Mopping floors and ending up as a head supper cook helped in learning the many different jobs in a kitchen. When an opportunity to work at a bakery in town, Harts Central Bakery came available I jumped at the chance.  As I fried and iced the donuts I watched everything that was going on.  On those very early mornings there were so many things that captured my senses from the dough slapping against the mixing bowl in a rhythmic beat to the aroma of fresh baked bread.

The love for business, food and especially for baking and our desire to go and do what God wants has followed my wife, Sue and I around the country.  From North Carolina, where I was a Food Service Director at Northside Baptist Church, to Wisconsin where I worked for a baker who mentored me in the baking field until we purchased Midway Café in a rural community and then we added a bakery to service our restaurant and also the community with fresh baked products, and the past 25 years in Iowa, where I have managed the food service department in two K-12 school district’s adding full service bakeries to both where I and the staff made from scratch all the school baking items. Also in Webster City, we started up Too Busy to Bake Shop where we specialized in rolls, pies, and cookies.

Along with our love for God and our desire to please Him, and our love for baking, we have a tremendous love for our family.  In 2020, Matthew and Charity along with their 4 children moved near Sheffield, IA.  After much prayer and looking at properties, we found an acreage just east of Chapin, which in in between Hampton and Sheffield.  On that property we have put up a bakery to service the community.  It is a made to order bakery and we are eager and ready to bake for you.