THUNDER BAY – The owners of Sweet North Bakery held a “sneaky” opening for their third location late last week.
Erinn DeLorenzi owns Sweet North with her husband Kris.
Compared to opening their first store on Court Street, launching Sweet North in the former Brent Park Store building on High Street was simple.
“Our Court Street location is a very big space and we did all of the work ourselves,” she said.
“That was months of us working very long hours with our sons on developing that space.
“And this space was so beautifully renovated for Brent Park store that we feel like we just kind of walked in – I slapped a little bit of paint on, made a few changes and got to work.”
At the start of 2021, Sweet North opened its second location in the former Robin's Donuts on Fort William Road. Sweet North's first store opened in 2014.
DeLorenzi compared eating their baked goods to visiting your grandparents.
“When you were going over to your grandparents’ house, they were using butter and whipped cream and they were taking their time, digging out that special recipe and sharing it with you.
“I hope that has translated because it is the root of what we do. What we have wanted to accomplish is sharing that real authentic taste – someone that cares about you is cooking for you," she said.
The owners moved a production bakery into the back end of the store in May and now they’ve opened the front of house. Late last week they turned on the open sign, unlocked the door, but besides that didn’t really announce that they are open.
“We called it a sneaky opening. We just didn't tell anybody because we've done this before and we knew that something is going to go wrong out of nowhere. We just wanted the people that did discover we were open to understand we're working on this,” DeLorenzi said.
Then on the weekend Sweet North announced over social media that they are open. It has been busy and now she is hearing rumours that they are working on a fourth location.
“We're crazy, but we're not that crazy,” DeLorenzi said. “We're going to settle in for a while and see what happens.”
The new store is open Thursday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
