CEDAR SPRINGS, Mich. — If you’re on the Cedar Springs side of town, you’ll be near a fairly new bakery helping to revitalize the downtown area. Busy Mom’s Bakery first opened its doors just one week before the state shutdown at the start of pandemic. The owners thought the business might be toast. Instead, more than two years later, they’re still baking lots of bread.
Husband and wife, Tom and Sharon Wilkes, are the owners.
“I’ve loved to bake since I was 9. I started because my mom didn’t want to do it and I was like, ‘can I do it?’ She said, ‘go for it,” said Sharon.
That love for baking hasn’t always been a career. Baking started out as a hobby, selling baked goods at local farmers markets.
Sharon excitedly explains how, “It’s like an artist where I make this work of art, I sell it and do it again. It’s wonderful.”
When the corner of this storefront became available in the heart of the downtown Cedar Springs, the couple knew it was the one.
Tom says, “It’s got the giant windows, right? We’re right here on a corner in the middle of downtown.”
“It’s got the cute little awning and the white façade,” said Sharon.
The two are almost finishing each other’s sentences to convey just how perfect they believe the space to be, also because it “screams small town Americana, which is really what we wanted this bakery to emulate,” said Tom.
The perfect storefront, with the perfect logo to match.
Sharon said, “This is red flannel town. So, we went with the red flannel and the fact that it looks like an oven mitt, the crisscross on the oven mitt.”
The business owners and parents met in the military, both serving as medics in the Army. Tom has even deployed to Iraq.
They moved back to Sharon’s home state of Michigan in 2016 and opened Busy Mom’s Bakery in 2020, one week before the state went into lockdown amid the pandemic.
“We were under the essential businesses. Plus, every store sold out of bread and flower and yeast. So, we were the only place to get it,” said Sharon.
It’s a unique bakery, Tom says, because, “We have the only stone grain mill that will sell straight to you in the county.”
With the help of their service dog in training, Frosty, Busy Mom’s Bakery is bringing new life to downtown Cedar Springs and are hoping more businesses follow.
“It’s in all of our best interests for downtown, especially, to succeed,” said Tom.
The bakery uniquely offers all whole wheat baked goods, unless requested otherwise.
They do still have a small section of keto-friendly items as well, and are open to special requests.
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