Today we’d like to introduce you to Janet Wilkinson.
Hi Janet, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Jane and I had previously worked together at another job, after a few years we both moved on, but remained friends. One day she called and talked to me about the candy shop she had worked at for a few months, it was closing down, and she thought we could get a new lease on the building and open up a shop of our own, this was mid June of 2016, by mid September we opened Olde Time Holiday Bake Shoppe for the first season. Each year we add to our product line, if we love it, we think our customers will enjoy it as well. We have always carried Nuts of all kinds, raw for baking and roasted, salted or chocolate covered for snacking. One of our flagship items is candied fruits for making fruitcakes, stollen, Christmas Cookies and more, along with the candied cherries and pinapple, we have dried fruits such as raisins, dates, and cranberries. Because a lot of our items are seasonally based, we have added other things to appeal to customers all throughout the year, small gifts, earrings, tea towels, to baking pans have made their way on our shelves. Chocolate and candy’s are a big part of what we do here, we sell it by the pound, and we make up gift trays which you can select from close to 200 items to customize your gift. Two years ago we added a website, for online shopping.
We have many more items I could talk about, but what I love most about the shop is the connections we make within our community and our customers, we know many of them by name and have made new friends, we share recipes and life stories, every once in a while a customer will become a employee and join our work family.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When we first opened, we had some struggles with financing, we could not get a reasonable loan, so we just used our personal credit cards to get the shop off the ground. Every yeqr it seems like we have difficulty getting some of our products, hurricanes, fires, and floods affect the nut crops, this year we can’t get Brazil Nuts.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Olde Time Holiday Bake Shoppe?
We specialize in Candied Fruit, used mostly durring the Holidays to make Fruitcakes and Stollen, along with other traditional sweets, second to that would be fresh nuts, such as black walnuts, english walnuts, and pecans, dried fruits( rasins, dates, figs, coconut) are also popular this time of year. We also provide Cheese Straws, peanut brittle, pickled beet balls, spiced peaches and chow chow, just to name a few. Of course I cant leave out the Chocolates and candies with at last count was around 125 selections. We sell by the pound, so you can buy as much or little as you like. A favorite gift item is a 4 or 6 compartment tray that you can customize, with your recipiants candy, nuts or snack mix of choice.
2026 will be our 10th aniversary! I’m very thankful we have made it this far, and it is my prayer that we can remain for years to come, and be a friendly face to those in our community.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
If not for help from Family and Friends, I don’t know that we would be where we are today. When we first opened, Jane’s sister Kathy worked with us for a while, lending us her expertise on baking, and my husband Jimmy built a few of our displays for us. A word of encouragement from a friend goes a long way!
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