After financial woes, a sweet solution for Duluth bakery

How Sweet It Is Cakes, a ba­kery in down­town Du­luth, had out­grown its space three years ago. Own­er Ei­leen Brown was de­light­ed to make a deal to move to a new lo­ca­tion, where she agreed with the land­lord to pay for part of a new kitch­en.

Then her cake busi­ness, with its ar­tis­tic con­fec­tions in the shape of birch logs, build­ings or any­thing else a cus­tom­er could i­mag­ine, went a little sour.

The kitch­en cost more than she had an­tic­i­pated, busi­ness slowed and a fam­i­ly mem­ber faced some se­ri­ous health prob­lems. The stress took a toll on Brown's health, too, giv­ing her com­pli­ca­tions from high blood pres­sure.

At the end of Oc­to­ber, she de­cid­ed to call it quits. Rather than file for bank­rupt­cy, Brown said, she de­cid­ed to close up shop, make good on cakes or­dered for de­liv­er­y over the next sev­er­al days, then re­fund any or­ders af­ter that. She tried to help her staff of 26 — a group she con­siders fam­i­ly — find oth­er work.

"We want­ed to ful­fill all our ob­li­ga­tions," Brown said. "We closed the doors and gave a bunch of stuff away to food shelves."

Shut­ting down felt like a death, she said. The ba­kery was part of her daily life for 22 years, near­ly 11 of them in Du­luth. Cus­tom­ers mourn­ed its loss, too. People stopped by to wish Brown well in the ba­kery's last days.

"We knew that we loved the com­muni­ty," she said. "We didn't re­al­ize how much the com­muni­ty loved us."

A man who had once worked as her op­er­ations man­ag­er and now works for the Du­luth Grill con­tacted her and asked her to con­sider an al­ter­na­tive: Would Brown con­sider bring­ing her skills there?

The Du­luth Grill had be­come a re­vered local res­tau­rant and ca­ter­ing busi­ness that prides it­self on using fresh, local and or­gan­ic in­gre­di­ents. Own­ers Tom and Jaima Han­son are al­ways look­ing to try their hands at vari­ous as­pects of the in­dus­try, Tom said. They got to know Brown's work when they would cater an e­vent and find her cakes there.

"The cakes are some­thing you would find in a big-city en­vi­ron­ment," Tom Han­son said.

Han­son and Brown met and soon de­cid­ed to work to­gether.

"It was re­al­ly a­bout keep­ing an in­sti­tu­tion here in Du­luth," Han­son said. "To have that as part of our port­fo­li­o was just a de­sire."

Han­son, who has been in the in­dus­try for 39 years, said he's al­ways kind of tak­en an un­der­dog at­ti­tude.

While he doesn't ex­pect sky­rock­et­ing rev­e­nue off add­ing the cakes and sweets to his busi­ness, "we feel that it's some­thing that's going to be a big as­set," he said.

As for Brown, her stress level is down and her fam­i­ly mem­ber's health prob­lems have been re­solved. She is still pay­ing off near­ly $250,000 in loans and debts, she said, but she's hap­py to be work­ing a­gain. Thanks­giv­ing brought rea­son to be ex­tra grate­ful this year.

"It's an amaz­ing hol­i­day," Brown said. "I'm very thank­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty."