New bakery expected to open in early April

Griffin's Bakery & Cafe space will include Mary's Special Cakes

MOSES LAKE — A not-so funny thing happened to Ingrid Griffin in the course of working to open her own bakery.

She slipped on an icy sidewalk during "that one week of winter that we had" and broke her ankle.

"It's pretty tough," she said. "You can't walk and carry stuff at the same time when you're on crutches."

But the good news is, Griffin got to get off the crutches earlier this week. While she's still in a walking cast for four more weeks, the even better news is that the target opening date for Griffin's Bakery & Cafe is April 1.

"We've got a lot to do still, but it will be in the first two weeks of April for sure," she said.

Griffin said she has always dreamt of opening a soup and sandwich shop. Within the last few years, she started thinking about more of a bakery, the better to offer fresh bread and bagels to accompany the soup and sandwiches.

"The idea just evolved from that," she said.

Griffin said she has always been interested in cooking and good food. When she was younger, she said, she traveled a lot and got to experience different restaurants and cuisines.

Griffin and her husband of 13 years, Chuck, and their two children, aged 11 and 12, moved to the area in 1996, with Griffin working at ASiMI as a chemical engineer.

"This is a new career change for me," she said of the bakery, which has been in the works for about a year. Remodeling of the space, located at 101 E. Broadway Ave., has been in progress since June.

"It was quite a remodeling project," she said. "We gutted everything, and we had it down to bare cement … We redid all the plumbing, electrical, interior walls — it's all new."

The Griffins also put in new windows and renovated the front of the building. Remaining, as of Wednesday morning, is equipment installation, a little touch-up painting and the arrival of the bakery's furniture.

"We wanted to give it sort of a European cafe, European bakery kind of look," she said.

Griffin said she is asked on a regular basis when the bakery will open by members of her church and other people in the community.

"When I was working out at ASiMI, I always told my husband, 'I wish I had a place I could go and just get a nice bowl of soup and a sandwich, or a salad for lunch,'" she said. "Something that's not fast food or Mexican or Chinese. Something a little different."

Griffin's Bakery will be a family-run business, she said, adding that she is anticipating six to eight employees.

Also located within the Griffin's Bakery space will be Mary's Special Cakes, owned and operated for more than 15 years by Mary Martinez.

"This is a really nice location and it's a bakery," Martinez said. "This is just really ideal."

"I don't like to decorate cakes," Griffin said with a laugh. "So it worked out good for us. It was good synergy between Mary and I, because I'm more of the bread baker … It's a really good fit."

Griffin's Bakery & Cafe will be open 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, with shorter hours on Saturday. The business will be closed on Sundays, to start with, Griffin said.