The Sweet North Bakery is turning the page on another chapter in Thunder Bay with plans of opening a new cafe location in the former Starbucks in the Indigo bookstore.
Erin DeLorenzi, bakery owner, said they have had their eye on that location for quite some time and have inquired about it frequently.
We’ve been watching that empty Indigo cafe for years, and actually started inquiring about it when we were leaving Intercity at the end of the pandemic,” DeLorenzi said.
“I talked to somebody in the store at that time, and they told me there were plans for it. The next time I inquired was before we came to High Street. We just really love that (Indigo) spot. It’s beautiful, it’s an excellent location and it’s an incredible store in a Canadian-owned business. We just always saw ourselves there.”
Just before committing to the High Street location, DeLorenzi said she reached out yet again, inquiring about the Indigo space because it was still vacant. Again, the answer was no, and she was told there was a lease in the works with another business.
“We then decided we needed to close our Court Street location after a flood, and I reached out again,” she said. “This time the response was, ‘Well maybe.’”
A process began to acquire the site, and DeLorenzi says it was “quite the vetting process” that Indigo put them through.
“They need to make sure that they have somebody who can be successful there. We submitted a pitch for their consideration and met their guidelines,” she said.
“They secretly visited our locations and came back with good feedback and here we are. We have the keys.”
Sweet North Bakery will operate out of the three locations, their bakery on High Street, their drive-thru on Fort William Road and their new cafe in the Indigo bookstore.
“The cafe and the drive-thru will be different from each other,” DeLorenzi said. “(In Indigo) there will be a menu more tailored to a cafe in a bookstore. With every location we’ve opened, we’ve read our customers and personalized that space.”
DeLorenzi plans to have the new cafe open by mid-October but would prefer to have it open sooner.
“We have to be realistic. It’s different from our other locations because we’re opening inside an existing business, and we just can’t do as we please,” she said. “Indigo has everything regulated to ensure the best quality.”
She added that they will have to work around Indigo’s hours.
“We have to ramp up our production abilities, and that’s not an easy task. That takes time, hiring new people and training them well, so that by the time we open at Indigo, we’re a well-oiled machine,” she said.
When the Court Street location closed, DeLorenzi was fortunate to be able to move the staff to different locations, keeping everyone employed.
“We’re lucky to have people that have been with us for years and other people that used to work for us have come back,” she said. “And that’s pretty awesome, because we need people on our team who know our business and can help us integrate new employees.”
DeLorenzi added that they will be hiring and doubling their staff while looking for experienced bakers, not hobby bakers.
She also noted that they have a good relationship with Indigo, which has been supportive in helping the bakery move in.
“They’ve been very helpful, very excited and very professional,” she said of the Indigo staff.
